Societal Implications of Submission Grappling Tournaments...

From Stacia:

This weekend I attended a submission grappling tournament in Fall River, Massachusetts. Joe, incidentally, won a bronze medal fighting in a younger age and higher weight bracket.

This all-day event was nothing short of spectacle and is a microcosm of the sport's appeal which spans generations and socio-economic backgrounds. The most jarring aspect of this tournament was the involvement of boys and girls no older than 6 or 7years of age. As I walked into the venue's women's locker room on my way to the lavatory, I noticed a tiny competitor climbing the stairs in front of me. Her blonde hair was meticulously french-braided, her gi was spotless, and she turned to me with dancing blue eyes and asked, "Can you please help me find the bathroom?" Less than an hour later, I watched from the bleachers as she was taken, motionless on a stretcher, to an awaiting ambulance. She had lost her match against a boy, clearly bigger and stronger than she, and was seriously injured.

A few age brackets later, I noticed an older dark-haired girl with a hot pink gi also grappling with a boy who was undoubtedly dominating the match. When she stood up for the referee to raise her opponent's arm in victory, she was sobbing uncontrollably. A medic brought her a large bag of ice which she rested on her shoulder. It remained there until it was time for her next match...with a boy...which she lost.

I can hear it now and I've only just begun to share my list of observations with you. "Girls can do anything boys can do." "Girls should not be raised to think they are inferior to the opposite sex." You're preaching to the choir. I would rather tile my own bathroom or change my own tire than have someone offer to do it for me because I'm a woman. The key word here, dear reader, is "woman." My body has matured and I keep it fit with yoga and muay thai boxing. What about the bodies of these young boys and girls already cutting weight, already saddled with an unhealthy body image? What are we doing to the physiologies of these children? What about the adolescent boy outside the venue who was jumping rope in 85 degree weather because he had to "cut half a pound?" What about the psyches of young boys who get their asses kicked by girls in wrestling tournaments? It's a good thing it's the summertime. They don't have to endure the embarrassment and teasing at school on Monday.

And in fairness to the pig-tailed wrestler clutching the first-place sword, flanked by second and third place boys, you go, girl. As a woman, how can I not be inspired by this kid's victory over the opposite gender? I might even applaud a little. But then, reality sets in and my thoughts become more sobering. What will her body look like in five years? Will her insides do what they're supposed to do in ten or fifteen years? Will she be plagued by an eating disorder for the rest of her life? My brother, who is 38 years old, had a buddy in middle school who developed an ulcer, a painful result of cutting weight, in the sixth grade. To this day, his friend is still afflicted with gastrointestinal flare-ups.

Look, we've blogged a bit about this before. I expect arguments and I expect adulation. That's what makes the world go 'round.

Now...on to my next observation.

I interviewed our friend Kenny Florian for a cultural analysis paper I wrote for graduate school. What bigger cultural phenomena can one speak of than mixed martial arts and submission grappling? The UFC is the fastest growing sports commodity in the United States, grossing more Pay-Per-View revenues in 2006 than any other promotional event. What is so tantalizing about the UFC is that it appeals to Everyman. It is high culture. It is low culture.

Americans have become "profoundly bored by, even dissatisfied with, their ordinary lives. Turning to a world of entertainment where the line between fantasy and reality has been blurred, they can find a lack of compensation for the lack of excitement in everyday life” (Maasic and Solomon, 2006.)The semiotics of the UFC, as Kenny pointed out, are multi-leveled and found across all socio-economic and cultural societies.

This past weekend, I was struck by the masses of people filing into this field house in Fall River. I get much of my fodder for writing from watching people and their behaviors at events such as these, so I will share some of it with you.

Kenny speaks of the time that he was first intrigued by mixed martial arts. After seeing an event on television that featured a “skinny Brazilian guy” that excelled at jiu-jitsu, he thought, “Hey…I can do this too. This is something I want to try.” This mentality, Florian believes, is part of the cultural allure of the UFC. “Someone can watch an event and think, ‘If he can do that in the ring, maybe I could do that in some other aspect of my life.’ The UFC provides the fantasy of empowerment,” he adds.

It certainly does.

In today's economy, it is as common to see a high-level executive on the unemployment line as it is to see a tow truck driver. When I asked Kenny how he explains the popularity of the sport, he was extremely insightful. As a culture in general, Americans are a “consumption community,” in love with excess and consumed by the desire for instant gratification. “The UFC offers everything at lightning speed. It’s appealing to a younger audience because it’s an overload of the senses,” Florian says.

One doesn’t need to look too far for examples of sensory overload in American culture. Between Microsoft’s X-Box, the Nintendo Wii, and the Sony Playstation, you too can have action at your fingertips. You can shoot and kill your enemies; you can be a rock star; you can be a professional athlete; you can be an Indy car driver. Florian continues. “Boxing is your father’s sport. The UFC speeds up boxing and makes it more exciting. Boxing is to mixed martial arts as checkers is to chess. The UFC is a cultural unifier. It catches everyone by surprise.” He observes: “The UFC is a culmination of everything: skill, mental triumph, training, defeating your doubts, and experiencing the thrill when you realize that hard work is worth it. After all, sports are a metaphor for what we do. Everyone in our culture is constantly striving to prove that ‘I’m better than you.’” While Florian calls the UFC the “sport of the future,” he also draws a parallel to the gladiators being turned out of Rome. “They were more powerful than Caesar and people loved and followed them. There’s something honorable about using your hands and feet to defeat another person. It’s a survival instinct, man as a hunter-gatherer.” Maasik and Solomon echo this sentiment: “Athletic performances, for males, embodies an ideal of beauty and truth…The tendency to bond with other males in intensely purposeful and dangerous activity is said to come from the collective demands of pursuing large animals."

Here's the equalizer between the unemployed CEO and the out-of-work truck driver. Both sitting on their couches. Both watching the sport for the same reasons.

Honor. Bonding. Purpose. Survival. I saw many examples of each of these traits this past Saturday. I purposely kept my eye on a particular gentlemen throughout the day. He was in his mid-twenties and dressed to the nines in a Tapout skully and t-shirt and Sprawl shorts. He wasn't a competitor. He had paid the $15 spectator fee. He bounced from scoring table to scoring table chatting up participants and fellow fans alike. He wasn't a fighter but he identified so closely with this group of people and was so absolutely-beside-himself-thrilled to be among them, that he would have paid $150 for the experience.

Kenny told me: “There’s something about it that keeps everyone intrigued.” He continues: “Rooting for someone. Rooting for the underdog. You know, love and hate are equally as powerful.” He raises an interesting point. Why do we as a culture always root for the underdog? After all, the Red Sox hadn’t won a World Series pennant in eighty-six years. Still, the fans’ passion never waned. Think back to your childhood and the classic book The Little Engine that Could. The words ‘I think I can’ are as carved into our collective memory as ‘I have a dream,’ and ‘One small step for man’ (Allison & Devine, 2006). The underdog is a cultural signifier that provides hope for every man and woman who endeavors to overcome the obstacles he or she faces in his or her life. We as a culture have all faced challenges. Therefore, it may be relatively easy for us to take the perspective of those who are also struggling or competing against formidable odds.

Formidable odds. Brings me to my next point: Accessibility. Not in any other professional sport, it seems, can an amateur pay $80 for admission to a venue where your fight may very well be witnessed by a UFC scout or someone coaching on a bigger and better known team. For a small fee, you can't just walk into an NFL combine or show up for batting practice on an MLB farm team. In the world of submission grappling, you can walk out your front door, maybe you've just finished washing your car in the driveway, and enter an arena electric with the excitement of competition and the cheers of hundreds of the sport's devoted fans. And the prospect of being the next Forrest Griffin is a lot easier to get your head aroung than the prospect of being the next Tom Brady.

I'll give Kenny the last word.

“It will be interesting to see how the sport evolves. UFC is a legitimate sport where people fall in love with a story line. It’s a classic example of domination, of the strong overcoming the weak, of the little guy overcoming the bully. Isn’t that what life is all about?”