So, I think I’ve finally found my sport. It combines brains and brawn, strategy and endurance, and the ability to absorb both physical and mental anguish. In short, this is a sport that tests the whole man. In fact, just trying to overcome one’s sense of disbelief at Chess Boxing is enough to make even a seasoned athlete work up a sweat. Here’s the lowdown from the World Chess Boxing Organization’s (yes it’s real!) own site:

The basic idea in chess boxing is to combine the #1 thinking sport and the #1 fighting sport into a hybrid that demands the most of its competitors – both mentally and physically.

A round of boxing takes 3 minutes. Between the rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The contest is decided by: checkmate (chess round), exceeding the time limit (chess round), retirement of an opponent (chess or boxing round), KO (boxing round), or referee decision (boxing round). If the chess game ends in a stalement, the opponent with the higher score in boxing wins. If there is an equal score, the opponent with the black pieces wins.

The first chess boxing matches were fought (played?) in South London and the sport even spawned an influential 1979 Hong Kong martial arts film, The Mystery Of Chess Boxing, which was originally titled Ninja Checkmate. And you thought the Winter Olympics were weird.

In case you’re having trouble picturing how this bizarre contest actually goes down, check out this video from the Wold Chess Boxing Championships in 2008 which shows a world champ chess boxer getting bested by an up-and-coming rival…

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Ken Eakins — the fearless leader of the Coincidence Control Network podcast — and I have both been battling early fall colds and we have yet to get our latest episode edited and released. We’ve decided to reset this week and skip recording a new show so we can get the last one squared away and out to our listeners.

With that in mind, I’m posting this great little insight into the early career of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick — I was going to talk about it on this week’s show. When young Kubrick first started shooting moving images, he was employed as a photographer at Look magazine and worked on his films during evenings and on weekends.

Although these nascent efforts are notable only in light of Kubrick’s later genius, all of these beginning efforts look great and they demonstrate how Kubrick’s formidable visual sensibilities were already engaged even as he first turned to the screen. Kubrick even pulls off a shot directly beneath both of the boxers. He uses the same technique again when he shoots Jack Nicholson yelling at Shelley Duvall after she locks him in the freezer in The Shining.

Open Culture brings the goods on the boxing documentary Day of the Fight:

Kubrick decided to make a film about middleweight boxer Walter Cartier, who he had done a photo story on for Look the previous year. He rented a spring-loaded 35mm Bell & Howell Eyemo camera and dived into the project. “I was cameraman, director, editor, assistant editor, sound effects man–you name it, I did it,” Kubrick told Gelmis. “It was invaluable experience, because being forced to do everything myself I gained a sound and comprehensive grasp of all the technical aspects of filmmaking.”

They got it. When Cartier delivered the knock-out punch, Kubrick was reloading but Singer captured the moment. To complete the project, Kubrick hired his childhood friend Gerald Fried to compose music, and CBS newsman Douglas Edwards to provide narration. Day of the Fight was generally well-received. As LoBrutto writes, “Kubrick’s innate photographic sense and the passion he brought to the project resulted in a film devoid of the common pitfalls of novice filmmakers.”

Here is the full film Day of the Fight

Read the whole article and watch three of Kubrick’s early efforts here.

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