I Got The Pointe ... In The Face.

[jones jones]

I can’t remember as a kid growing up in the suburbs, ever getting involved in a really serious fight. By fight I mean squaring up to another kid and trying to inflict pain upon him by altering the shape of his nose or knocking out a tooth or two. In fact I fought more with my sisters, all of them older and stronger than me and they beat me up on a regular basis.

I did get kicked in the nose once … by the youngest of my sisters Pamela. I think I was twelve … she was sixteen and had been taking ballet lessons. Pamela asked me to stand still while she put her foot up on my shoulder. She had on her Pointe shoes and I can still remember the colour, a light pink and the pain I felt when she kicked me in the nose. Yeah and the blood, my blood was bright red.

By supper time my nose was pretty swollen and one eye was black and practically closed. My old man wasn’t too sympathetic muttering something like: “Perhaps your sister has managed to kick some sense into your thick skull.” Lola on the other hand was furious at Pamela and kept fussing over me and I think she actually put a beef steak on my eye.

The next day my eye was completely closed and was several shades of blue as well as black. Lola said she was certain my nose was broken but despite her protests I went to school because having a black eye was totally cool. The pain I had endured and was still enduring melting away beneath the admiring looks I was given by my school friends, guys and girls.

So when I used to watch professional boxing on TV I could never understand why men and later women would willingly climb into a ring and try their damndest to inflict as much pain as possible on each other.

Now as if that isn’t bad enough they have something called “Mixed Martial Arts Cage Fighting.” This is an art? In these fights which are practically bare knuckle brawls, the feet, knees, elbows and oh the fists too are used to knock out or at least render your opponent incapable of continuing.

Are they crazy? I’d rather take a kick in the nose with a pink Pointe any day.