Monday, August 18, 1997
UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
THE HARBOUR LIGHTS
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Martial arts and boxing no longer just for men
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The manly art of self-defense isn't solely manly any more.
"I hit pretty strongly for a girl," said Rose Johnson, an aspiring professional boxer.
"I had no experience at all," she said. "There is so much to learn, I had no idea — different techniques, different moves, where to be when the punches are thrown."
A unanimous decision against April Wright June 20 in Philadelphia meant a 1-0 record for Johnson, 33 years old and 115 pounds, who started training in January.
Johnson, who fights as a bantamweight or flyweight, trains at a gym in Rockville, Md. There is only one other woman at the gym, so she trains mostly against men, Johnson said.
"What we are seeing is the destruction of the idea of a'boys' thing'or a'girls' thing."
But women are pushing open the gym doors in boxing as they earlier had entered the karate dojo. Johnson sees herself as leading by example: "The women, the more they see it, they are encouraged by it."
Chairman of the martial arts council of the Amateur Athletic Union
Jo Mirza
Women have been learning karate for decades, said Jo Mirza, chair-
"What we are seeing is the destruction of the idea of a 'boys' thing' or a 'girls' thing," said Mirza, who teaches karate in the Chicago suburb of Lake Zurich, Ill. "Women came out of the idea that they can't do martial arts."
man of the martial arts council of the Amateur Athletic Union. Adult karate membership is 32 percent female; youth membership (under 18) is 42 percent female.
The women's movement indirectly helped women start martial arts training by fostering an attitude of "they better let us," Burrows said. The college students she teaches today have a different attitude — they tend to take for granted that they can do anything, she said.
But women had to work their way out of it, said Veronica Burrows, who teaches aikido at Arizona State University, Tempe, where she is also a professor of chemical engineering. Burrows started learning aikido 21 years ago because it was an activity she could do with her boyfriend — now her husband.
"It was (considered) something very odd and weird," Burrows said. "But in the context of doing it with a male partner, it seemed to be OK."
Men and women spar with each other in her dojo. "If women are smaller and slenderer and are perceived as less physically intimidating, they are handled more gently," Burrows said. "Smaller, slenderer, men often get treated more kindly than the big wompers."
There maybe slight differences in the mental approach, Burrows said. "I might occasionally see somewhat more of a tendency of men to get headbutt competitive," she said.
But Johnson does get highly competitive. Seeing a videotape of her fight, "I couldn't believe how focused I was," she said. "I took on a whole different persona. There was nothing feminine about me, and I am a very feminine person."
Billy the Kid brings myth to stage
The Associated Press
ALBUQERUE QUE, N.M. — Why is Billy the Kid still sending off sparks 116 years after the 21-year-old gunfighter was shot to death by Sheriff Pat Garrett?
Why does myth and magic swirl around this one New Mexico cowhand? And why was he beloved in the Hispanic community while despised by many an Anglo?
Writer Rudolfo Anaya, who grew up in Billy the Kid country, has built a play from these musings, and La Casa Teatro is giving Billy the Kid its world premiere run, directed by Cecilia Aragon. It opened July 11.
"As a child I heard stories about Billy the Kid," Anaya says. "The Mexicanos called him el Bilito, the little Billy, Hispanicized Billy. And visiting in
Puerto de Luna as a child, I heard stories which were incidents. A person would say: 'He gambled at the saloon; Billy the Kid rode through here. See that bullet hole in that post or that wall? That's Billy the Kid.'
"So growing up here very close to Fort Sumner, where he's buried, there was always in the back of my mind a sense of familiarity."
Anaya's play, published in 1995 by Warner Books, grew out of that familiarity plus some research. Billy, as the story goes, had a problem backing down from a fight, and that problem was compounded by government corruption that had turned the law in Lincoln County upside down.
"It's just that Billy the Kid popped out as a figure in New Mexico history who has acquired all these mythical proportions. The take on it for me, was to look at it from a Nuevo Mexicano
point of view," says Anaya. "Why were the incidents I heard as a child told with a kind of satisfaction? Why did they call him el Bilito, the little Billy? Why did he have this kind of aura with the Spanish-speaking community?"
Anaya says Billy was accepted by Hispanics because he spoke fluent Spanish and was "simpatico." He was a compadre, almost like family.
"And there's a little bit of that Robin Hood character to him," he says.
At the time, Anglo politicians in Santa Fe were grabbing up Hispanic land, he says.
Anaya's play intersperses two opposing accounts of Billy's life, including one ghostwritten for Garrett by territorial newspaperman Ash Upson and the other by Paco Anaya, who knew the Kid, was present at his 1881 death in Fort Sumner and wrote an account.
ENGLISH ALTERNATIVE THEATRE
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
PRESENTING OUR 9TH SEASON OF FAT-FREE DRAMA!
FALL 1997
A double-bill about the homeless in our midst. Upright by JAMES HILBURN and Report to the River by PAUL STEPHEN LIM. Participating entries in the Kennedy Center/ American College Theatre Festival. Full production at 8 PM Oct. 9-11 and 2:30 PM Oct. 12. Lawrence Arts Center, 9th & Vermont. $5.
A sophisticated comedy about male bonding...and unbonding. Art by YASMINA REZA, translated from the French by CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON. Winner of the Moliere Award for Best Play in Paris, 1994; and also the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year in London, 1996. Staged reading at 8 PM Nov. 13. Spencer Art Museum Auditorium, KU campus. Free.
Call 864-3642 for ticket reservations and additional information about each show.
Old Wicked Songs by JON MARANS. A Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 1996, about music and mentorship in Kurt Waldheim's Vienna. Full production at 8 PM Feb. 5-7 and 2:30 PM Feb. 8. Swarthout Recital Hall/Murphy Hall, KU campus. $5.
SPRING 1998
Final Four competition of short plays by KU STUDENTS. Staged readings at 8 PM Mar. 7-9. 100 Smith Hall, KU campus. Free.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by EDWARD ALBEE. A faculty allnighter—George boozes, Martha brays, Nick unzips, and Honey barfs. Full production on April 9-11, 16-19, 23-26. Thurs. at 7:30 PM, Fri. & Sat. at 8 PM, Sun. at 2:30 PM. Co-production with Lawrence Community Theatre, 15th & New Hampshire. Thurs. & Sun. performances $6 with valid KU student I.D.