Boxing is dangerous, no place in civilised society

It is concerning to see that Umina PCYC is encouraging young students to take up boxing ("Boxing training for school students", Peninsula News, September 19).

This extremely dangerous activity (I shan't dignify it with the name of sport) has no place in a civilised society, and it is particularly disturbing to see its being promoted amongst schoolchildren whose brains are still not fully formed and who risk long term damage from coup-contracoup trauma.

The long-term effect of concussion injuries is now recognized in football and boxing whose main objective is to render an opponent unconscious poses a much greater threat, probably about the worst of any activity imaginable.

The argument that young boxers wear headgear is inane.

Headguards provide no protection against brain damage and might, in fact, increase the danger, since an opponent is likely to land a heavier blow on a padded helmet where there is little risk of damaging his hand.

Similarly, the use of gloves greatly increases the violence of head blows: a bare-knuckle fighter will mainly concentrate on his opponent's body, because he will break a bone with a hard punch to the head, but gloves remove this barrier.

Boxing is not a manly art.

A boxer's intention is to injure his opponent, either visibly or through internal damage, and some of this injury will not manifest itself until later in life (as we have seen in many examples)

Perhaps, the child protection agency should be looking at any parent who would put a child's future at risk in this way.

Email, Sep 25, 2016

Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy