[Reader-list] Interview with a Woman Boxer

[pankaj r kumar]

The body is a landscape infinite with suggestion, curiosity and incarnate possibilities. It is also a metaphor pullulating with signifiers about birth, death and all other things between. The way we care for it, nourish it, adorn it, display it, represents important statements about our culture. The space it occupies, the curves it defines; the manner of its regulation; the methods of its restraint; its fertility and sexuality: these features make the body a potent instrument for understanding. How we produce and consume the body confirms something we already suspect about culture: that control needs to be exteriorized. Representation is as important, no, more important than action. Implicit control is barely control at all: it needs concrete expression. There are few more effective and enduringly legitimate means of expression than sport. Here is the medium for absolute control: over one’s own body and over those of others - the opponents. Success in sport involves the participant in subordinating the body as completely as one can to the will of the rational mind. The body can be made to travel faster, longer, higher; it can be controlled in such a way as to exercise mastery over and bring order to the otherwise random movement of projectiles with implements or body parts. Success goes to those who can best control their bodies. 

Having the necessary zeal for competition and a desirable level of aggression was typically associated with men. Women who competed in sports were considered either too masculine to begin with, or likely to expose themselves to virilism - and take on masculine characteristics - during training and competition. Changes in sexual politics produced a new recognition: that the gender regime, as Foucault called it, was built in a field of power and that the gendered differences, far from being natural, were inscriptions of a set of reciprocal yet unequal power relations.

Why boxing? This was the question that triggered my curiosity towards this sport. What thrill did women enjoy to be punched right on their faces? In other words, what drove women to a sport which challenged the socially sanctioned 'feminine' boundaries? The motivations vary from empowerment, self-defense, hobby and ‘I had nothing better to do’ and sometimes a violent father forcing his daughter to learn the sport so that she would not be as helpless as her battered mother.

(The following interview was done with Richa Huishing. Richa has quit boxing and is currently finishing her Diploma in TV Direction at FTII, Pune. The interview looks at her views on boxing and her reaction to the sport in retrospect.)

P: When you get into the ring, who defines the rules? A man or a woman? 
R: People into the game, people serious about it and attached to it, will define; be it a man or a woman. It doesn’t make a difference. If I’m a female and I’m into a game, if I’m serious and attached to the whole thing, if I’m involved, then it’s me. If I happen to be a man, then be it a bloody man. What difference does it make? As long as I know what the requirements are, and as long as I know what the involvement is, I will be serious about it. 

P: Do you think it will make a difference for the sport if there are more women coaches? 
R: Of course. Maybe the understanding, the mental thing. I have had a male coach and for me it was the best. It was my relationship with my coach, that’s it. If I link with a person well, if I get what I want from him, if I develop a rapport with him, if I share something special with him or if I learn from him – then he’s my coach. I didn’t feel a lack of any sensitivity or any understanding, by my coach just because he happened to be a male. He was sensitive, understanding, and very helpful. So I didn’t feel the need for a female coach. 
               In fact being a male coach helped
being an all male team was a good thing for me because the standards are high. I spar with men, I’m treated as any other. The training is expected as per masculine standards, which was one advantage. But the treatment was very feminine. I mean, I was well taken care of, being a female
the chivalry thing. I enjoyed my boxing with boys more than when I was between girls. Because the boys were my friends. Anyways if I had to get into boxing again, I’d prefer it to be with guys again – because training time is not competition time. Training time is learning time. That’s the difference I guess, to train with girls and training with guys. A certain kind of  “win-lose” thing when it creeps into you, your learning process gets subdued somewhere. That should not happen. And it will never happen when you’re with guys, because guys will be there to always teach you
the guys with whom I’ve practiced are better than me. Physically, gamewise, techniquewise, so you learn more and there is no question of winning of losing. 

P: You or any boxer for that matter, would aspire to be a better
and a better boxer. What would those standards be? 
R: Good technique, that’s it. Cool, to be cool, to be not affected, because once you’re in the ring, only you know how much affected you are. Affected as in, you are charged up. A certain kind of aloofness should be there I suppose, a certain kind of a detachment. Detachment from the consequences. From winning or losing.

P: The bout gets over and you WIN. How does it feel?
R: It feels great. You feel a WINNER. And you win because you don’t want to lose. It is my faltering I should say, that I have won
not because of the technique, but I’ve won because I’ve wanted to win – which is a wrong way of playing a game. A game should be played with all its technique. I have played only with josh
all I knew was to give a straight punch. And that was the best game for my physique and my kind of body. Because my hands are long and my height is tall and I have to make the best advantage of it. So I have to play a straight game
swift on my legs and quick with my hands. That was the game for me. I’ve not developed myself as far as the game is concerned. Although all that I could do in 3 years time I’ve done it well. So that’s quite all right. But you see I have won because of fear of losing.  
P: What was that fear of losing?
R: I just didn’t want to lose. It’s not right to lose. Or maybe it’s right to lose. I don’t know. When I have got into the ring, it’s only to win. And fortunately I have won. It’s ok, but had I lost – which I did, I lost in National Games because I was very happy. When you’re happy you cannot fight you know
you need to be taut and you need to be collected. You need to be AT EDGE to win. When you’re happy, everything is so flowery and wonderful, so you cannot win. You cannot fight, rather the GRIT is not there. So maybe I lacked the grit, for that particular bout. So the point was that a certain kind of a grit should be there. Otherwise you cannot win. That’s what boxing is. 
 
P: Is it important to be in a state of mind, before you get into the ring?
R: A grit. As I said, if you fists are like this, (she folds her fists) like this, you cannot win. You can only win when your fists are like this. Full and tight. If you’re not that, you cannot win. You cannot win with loose fists. 

P: But when you’re in the ring, how do you look at your body? is Richa Hushing a weapon, or is Richa Hushing a target? 
R: Richa Hushing is a stand. It means that I stand for something and it should not fall down. It is closer to a weapon 
 obviously it is not a target. It can never be a target. But I wouldn’t even say its a weapon. It’s just a stand. It stands for something and should not fall down. And that’s the reason I’ve won maybe. The things that I stand for, it’s those things I’m defending. I think it’s just a stand. 
P: How do you look at your opponent in the ring?
R: It’s another stand which I don’t believe in. The opponent is faceless. I’m trying to figure out a face and an identity to the opponent. You’ll see it through my films, perhaps.  The “opponent exists”, it’s a very severe thing. It’s something that affects me a lot. As I’ve told you my films and my boxing and my being, is not physical. I am fighting and the fight will carry on...against something that’s very vague. That I would like to define, I would like to identify. My boxing was one attempt to identify it. My filmmaking would be another attempt to identify the thing I’m fighting against. 
P:What are you fighting against? 
R: It’s as of now very vague. Maybe a certain kind of attitude, a certain kind of lifestyle. A certain kind of a conduct of people, a crowd, a mass thing
 I have no words for it. Maybe that’s’ why I’m making films. 

P: Have you met your opponents after the bout? 
R:Yes. 
P: What does it feel like? 
R: That you don’t know whether they are your friends or enemies. They’re just beings and, at times you respect them, but at times you don’t know what to think about them. It’s strange to meet opponents
to pretend that you’re friends. You are not. 
P: Did you ever hurt anyone severely?
R: Yeah. 
P: How did you react to it?
R: Not much, because every time I hurt somebody, I was hurt too...either my nose was bleeding 
 there was no time to think about somebody else being hurt. It was tit for tat. P: But what does it feel like to be hit?
R: To be hit? Nothing. You don’t feel it in the ring. Because you stand there. You had subjected yourself to that. Who the bloody hell has asked you to get into the ring? It’s your own legs! You stand there to take whatever comes. And it shouldn’t matter, because it’s fair. It’s quite fair. 

P: You must have seen so many boxing bouts, how do you react, when somebody gets hurt in the ring? 
R: Now? Now it seems madness to me. Because now I have come to a state where I think that boxing is no solution to things. There are other ways of expression that I’ve found, which are more dear to me and which are more sensible to me, than boxing. Then it was different. Then also, I don’t know how much game I saw. I don’t know actually. Maybe I was all into myself to notice the game. Or to notice anybody hitting anybody. I don’t remember registering then. But now I do register, and because I register, I think. And I think that there are better ways of expression. 

P: But you had a very specific reason in mind. Do you think everyone who gets into boxing has a reason? 
R; Yeah. For anything in life there’s a reason! It’s big thing, a big step... Somebody hitting you on face is quite a severe thing, and you take that. And you give it back. So not anybody can get into it. He/she may not be aware of it, but somewhere there is a reason. There has to be something in you that enables you to take and give those blows, physically on your face. 
              As I’ve always told you, I’ve lived life in phases. So that was one phase. I still do not know if it’s over or not. Because I still love the game. And I love everything that it stands for, and the spirit that goes with it. And I love my coach and my other fellow members for that. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to punch. Because punching was an expression, and I’ve found another expression. 

P: You think boxing has helped you or it will help you make films in the future? 
R: It has helped me live a life
it has given me an attitude. It has given a face to a faceless thing. So it has made life simpler for me. There is something vast and vague and something that I cannot yet define, but something that disturbs me a lot. And boxing helped me to deal with such a vast thing.  
P: Then why did you quit? 
R: As I said, because I got a finer way of expression. And I’m involved in that. There’s no time for boxing. If still I can manage time then perhaps I would love to be in training. And tone my skills and techniques, because still I’m technically a very bad boxer. I’m not good. I just play with my josh, but that’s not enough at national level and international level. You have to play with a cool mind. So if I learn to play with a cool mind and technique then that technique will somehow seep into my life. 

P: You said five minutes ago that now when you look at a bout, irrespective whether it’s male or female you find it madness? Are you trying to say you’re completely detached from this sport? 
R: It affects me more. No
its like I cannot take it, now it becomes that intense. I don’t know. It’s intense. I’m not detached, no way I’m detached from the game, otherwise I wouldn’t be affected. I’m affected in the manner that I cannot see it. I cannot bear it. So that’s why I choose not to see it at all, I choose to remain away so that I’m not so affected that I lose my, you know, normal state of mind. (laughs) 
 
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