We thought that we knew the story. Mike Tyson was an unstoppable force, a knockout machine so fearsome that he seemed to win many of his fights before they even began as his terrified opponents stared at him through saucer-sized, fearful eyes. Then Buster Douglas came along and Tyson looked less like an all-time great and more like the neighborhood bully who finally met someone who was not afraid of him.
We thought that we knew the story. John Elway and the Denver Broncos could never win the big one. Elway had a rocket arm and nimble feet but he was destined to come up short in the Super Bowl. Then Terrell Davis arrived, Coach Mike Shanahan tinkered with the offense and Elway won back to back Super Bowls as a stirring coda to a Hall of Fame career.
We thought that we knew the story. The 2007 New England Patriots seemed to be the ultimate team of destiny, a squad that had recently won three Super Bowls in four years, had just completed the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history and was now poised to finish 19-0 by winning a fourth Super Bowl. Then Eli Manning and the New York Giants pulled off perhaps the biggest upset in Super Bowl history.
We thought that we knew the story. Tiger Woods was destined to shatter Jack Nicklaus' record for major championships, while Phil Mickelson was a talented but flawed player whose reckless approach would inevitably lead to thrilling moments followed by baffling choke jobs. The same thing was true of Woods that used to be said of Nicklaus: He knew that he was the best, his opponents knew that he was the best and he knew that his opponents knew. Woods never came from behind to win a major championship but he never needed to come from behind because he usually had lapped the field by Sunday. Chess Grandmasters once spoke of "Fischer Fear," referring to the way that Bobby Fischer intimidated other great players to such an extent that those players performed far below their normal standard against him; for many years it seemed like golf's best players suffered from "Woods Fear," collapsing down the stretch of tournaments at the mere sight of Woods prowling the back nine. Then Woods' personal life crashed--literally and figuratively--and he struggled to regain his former dominance; Woods may still believe that he is the best (or he may doubt that at some level, which could be part of his problem) but it is clear that his competitors no longer suffer from "Woods Fear."
Meanwhile, Mickelson--whose personal life seems to be the steady and grounded opposite of his free-swinging playing style--has figured out how to seize the big moments on Sunday at major championships as opposed to shrinking from those moments. Mickelson has won more majors since 2004 (five) than any golfer except for Woods (six) and he seems to be getting better with age, while Woods' game does not seem to be aging well; Woods used to be the ultimate finisher but in his past several majors he has started strongly only to falter down the stretch and it is unclear if the problem is physical, mental or some combination of both factors. It is a tribute to Woods' former greatness that despite his recent drought he still has won more majors in the past nine years than anyone else (and more than Mickelson has won in his entire career) but unless Woods undergoes some kind of revival the narrative of his career--and of his rivalry with Mickelson--will be much different than anyone could have imagined as recently as that fateful Thanksgiving weekend in 2009 when Woods' private life became a source of public mockery and derision.
The great thing about sports is that competition is the ultimate unscripted drama. We may think that we know the characters and we may think that we know the stories but people can change their lives and write new, previously unimaginable tales.
Showing posts with label boxing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boxing. Show all posts
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Chess as Art, Chess as Violent Sport
Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek, a two-time U.S. Champion who once ranked among the top 10 players in the world, used to write a weekly chess column for the Washington Post but now his writing is regularly published by the Huffington Post. His most recent column begins with a famous quote from artist (and chess player) Marcel Duchamp: "While all artists
are not chess players, all chess players are artists."
GM Kavalek notes that the fourth World Chess Champion, Alexander Alekhine, also saw a connection between chess and art: "To me, chess is not a game; it is art," Alekhine declared.
With all due respect to Alekhine, these categories are not mutually exclusive; chess is both an art and a violent sport. Later in his column, GM Kavalek offers a vivid description of chess' brutal nature--and its tremendous allure:
It doesn't hurt your body, but your brain, your ego. Instead of concussions chess players suffer humiliation after a terrible loss. They start to question their confidence, doubting the worthiness of what they do. But in the end, they collect themselves and go back to the chessboard. And some of them may remember Alekhine's words: "I consider chess an art and accept all the responsibilities that art places upon its devotees."
Here are two other notable Alekhine quotes that fit in with GM Kavalek's exploration of the dual themes of chess as art/chess as violent sport:
"For success I consider three factors are necessary: firstly, an awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses; secondly, an accurate understanding of my opponent's strengths and weaknesses; thirdly, a higher aim than momentary satisfaction. I see this aim as being scientific and artistic achievements, which place the game of chess on a par with other arts."
"During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk."
Achieving chess mastery involves much more than simply acquiring basic technical knowledge about how to play; a master must have an artistic sense, a great fighting spirit and very stable nerves in order to withstand the highs and lows that inevitably occur in a chess game and in a chess tournament. Chess is highly respected as both an art and a sport in many cultures, though Americans often dismiss chess' artistic value and scoff at the notion of chess as sport.
Basketball, chess and boxing share fascinating similarities in terms of preparation, intensity and skill development but some people insist that chess is not a sport because it lacks the obvious physical component inherent in basketball, boxing and other activities that are universally considered to be sports. This way of thinking ignores two important points: (1) there is a physical component to chess in terms of energy exertion and mental/physical/emotional stress and duress; (2) it has not always been the case that sport is defined exclusively as an activity involving a certain amount of physical movement. Rune Vik-Hansen asserts that the idea of chess as sport should not be summarily rejected:
Claiming chess "is just a game," because it is rule based, and therefore unworthy of undue attention, is a tautology and explains nothing. Mind you, the activity we call life may also be perceived to be a game with rules and recipes. When asking if chess is a sport or athletics, what we're really asking is if chess players perform, and more so, in the physical sense of the word...Despite agreeing in newspapers' commentary fields that games and activities like chess, bridge, archery, dart, shooting etc., involve performance of some kind, still, the physical aspect seems to saturate contemporary understanding of what a sporting or athletic performance is. In a country obsessed with countables and quantifiables--what cannot be measured does not exist--we may ask if not the accent on the physical excludes the possibility for a finer perception of what "performance" or "achievement" might be. Few doubt mental gladiators perform, but what, where and how? Is "blood, sweat and tears" (Johan Kaggestad, Norwegian athletics coach and TV commentator) or "motion" (1500-meter runner, Henrik Ingebrigtsen) the only criterion in a sporting or athletic performance or achievement?
I think that many people have a deeply ingrained bias against sustained intellectual concentration and against finding value in people who spend a lot of time thinking; that is why people who do well in school and/or express interest in non-mainstream subjects are often ostracized as "nerds." It is not considered normal to think too much or too deeply, so an activity like chess--which takes place in the minds of two competitors before being expressed physically/symbolically by the movement of chess pieces--is viewed with suspicion and even mockery in many quarters. Chess is difficult, chess involves thought and concentration, so it inevitably arouses suspicion among people who would prefer to think as little as possible and who see more value in running, jumping and throwing.
Instead of limiting the definition of sport to only include activities that generate "blood, sweat and tears," any rule-based activity that relies on skill should be considered a sport; some sports are mainly physical activities that include a mental component (such as basketball, boxing, football, etc.), while chess is a sport that is mainly a mainly mental activity that also includes a physical component in terms of energy exertion. It is not accidental that top level chess is dominated by young players; chess is very strenuous and thus energy and physical conditioning often outweigh the value of accumulated experience/wisdom.
GM Kavalek notes that the fourth World Chess Champion, Alexander Alekhine, also saw a connection between chess and art: "To me, chess is not a game; it is art," Alekhine declared.
With all due respect to Alekhine, these categories are not mutually exclusive; chess is both an art and a violent sport. Later in his column, GM Kavalek offers a vivid description of chess' brutal nature--and its tremendous allure:
It doesn't hurt your body, but your brain, your ego. Instead of concussions chess players suffer humiliation after a terrible loss. They start to question their confidence, doubting the worthiness of what they do. But in the end, they collect themselves and go back to the chessboard. And some of them may remember Alekhine's words: "I consider chess an art and accept all the responsibilities that art places upon its devotees."
Here are two other notable Alekhine quotes that fit in with GM Kavalek's exploration of the dual themes of chess as art/chess as violent sport:
"For success I consider three factors are necessary: firstly, an awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses; secondly, an accurate understanding of my opponent's strengths and weaknesses; thirdly, a higher aim than momentary satisfaction. I see this aim as being scientific and artistic achievements, which place the game of chess on a par with other arts."
"During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk."
Achieving chess mastery involves much more than simply acquiring basic technical knowledge about how to play; a master must have an artistic sense, a great fighting spirit and very stable nerves in order to withstand the highs and lows that inevitably occur in a chess game and in a chess tournament. Chess is highly respected as both an art and a sport in many cultures, though Americans often dismiss chess' artistic value and scoff at the notion of chess as sport.
Basketball, chess and boxing share fascinating similarities in terms of preparation, intensity and skill development but some people insist that chess is not a sport because it lacks the obvious physical component inherent in basketball, boxing and other activities that are universally considered to be sports. This way of thinking ignores two important points: (1) there is a physical component to chess in terms of energy exertion and mental/physical/emotional stress and duress; (2) it has not always been the case that sport is defined exclusively as an activity involving a certain amount of physical movement. Rune Vik-Hansen asserts that the idea of chess as sport should not be summarily rejected:
Claiming chess "is just a game," because it is rule based, and therefore unworthy of undue attention, is a tautology and explains nothing. Mind you, the activity we call life may also be perceived to be a game with rules and recipes. When asking if chess is a sport or athletics, what we're really asking is if chess players perform, and more so, in the physical sense of the word...Despite agreeing in newspapers' commentary fields that games and activities like chess, bridge, archery, dart, shooting etc., involve performance of some kind, still, the physical aspect seems to saturate contemporary understanding of what a sporting or athletic performance is. In a country obsessed with countables and quantifiables--what cannot be measured does not exist--we may ask if not the accent on the physical excludes the possibility for a finer perception of what "performance" or "achievement" might be. Few doubt mental gladiators perform, but what, where and how? Is "blood, sweat and tears" (Johan Kaggestad, Norwegian athletics coach and TV commentator) or "motion" (1500-meter runner, Henrik Ingebrigtsen) the only criterion in a sporting or athletic performance or achievement?
I think that many people have a deeply ingrained bias against sustained intellectual concentration and against finding value in people who spend a lot of time thinking; that is why people who do well in school and/or express interest in non-mainstream subjects are often ostracized as "nerds." It is not considered normal to think too much or too deeply, so an activity like chess--which takes place in the minds of two competitors before being expressed physically/symbolically by the movement of chess pieces--is viewed with suspicion and even mockery in many quarters. Chess is difficult, chess involves thought and concentration, so it inevitably arouses suspicion among people who would prefer to think as little as possible and who see more value in running, jumping and throwing.
Instead of limiting the definition of sport to only include activities that generate "blood, sweat and tears," any rule-based activity that relies on skill should be considered a sport; some sports are mainly physical activities that include a mental component (such as basketball, boxing, football, etc.), while chess is a sport that is mainly a mainly mental activity that also includes a physical component in terms of energy exertion. It is not accidental that top level chess is dominated by young players; chess is very strenuous and thus energy and physical conditioning often outweigh the value of accumulated experience/wisdom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
