About fifteen years ago, I spent a few evenings in Mack Lewis’s boxing gym, working on a story for Baltimore Magazine. Vince Pettway was the gym’s star then, training for a super-welterweight title fight, and in those days he was something to watch. But what impressed me just as much were the other young men, unknowns you might call them, that Mister Mack had taken off the street and kept busy for the riskiest hours of evening.
The gym was at the corner of Broadway and Eager Street then, and the neighborhood so rough that Mister Mack’s people insisted on walking me to my car. If it has improved since then, well, you can easily find a hundred corners in Baltimore just as bad. Mister Mack’s boxers did the equivalent of fifteen rounds in the gym every night, working the bags, jumping rope, and sparring. When they left, they were too tired to go looking for trouble, and anyone who knew how they’d been spending their time would probably think twice before messing with them.
Not that many people are going to take up boxing as a hobby. Martial arts, though, are another story. Children and teenagers of the middle class flock to Tae Kwon Do schools on the north side of town. It’s not just exercise and self defense ability that these schools are selling, but also self-control, self discipline, and improved school performance. I have spent enough time in them to know that they can and do deliver in all of these areas.
What if schools like these opened up in Baltimore’s trouble spots? Here’s what they would have to offer:
Improved focus, concentration, a habit of working toward a goal.
A sense of personal safety… without firearms.
A theater in which the violent impulses which (let’s admit it) all young men share can be acted out without fatal consequences.
A habit of self-control and growth of self-respect.
A community (especially if such schools could be networked) with a certain confidence in its ability to look after its own interests.
Difficult, certainly. Hazardous in some ways, perhaps. Worth the effort and the risk? Can’t know till you try.
This is good thinking – respect for yourself, your body, and your opponent all good for development. Think you are on to something!
I am in complete agreement. At Cadet Martial Arts Academy we started an after school program called the Intrepid Foundation (IF) for Urban Youth Empowerment. For many years I watched children in Southeast Baltimore spend every free moment they had at the school training and learning life skills. We are now located in Northeast Baltimore and the children continue to excel in both taekwondo, their school work and their “cooperation” at home with their parents/caretakers.
Considering that Mixed Martial Arts may become legal soon in Maryland, this idea isn’t half bad. Just like Baltimore has hosted amateur boxing and wrestling tournaments, given the right training and regulation, a local amateur and professional MMA circuit might be able to attract youths from these areas into a growing sport.
I think it is a good idea, but there are some practical issues. I spent several years managing a thriving martial arts school in the late 80′s. There is no question all of the attributes listed above were being realized. However, unlike boxing in which much of the training is self directed, most martial arts require significant classroom instruction for the first couple of years which adds to the cost of service delivery. Tae Kwon Do is a good style for the program because there are a lot of qualified instructors, the early techniques are simple to learn, it is consistent and structured. Nice idea. – dave