Between a jab and a straight, the question “what is fascism?” Between one fight and another, a performance by drag queens. On Tuesdays or Fridays, reading circles, tours of cultural institutions or games inspired by the Theater of the Oppressed.
The scenario summarizes the routine of the MM Boxe and Boxe Autônomo academies, which mix the classic trajectory of boxing academies, born in barracks, with that of social movements, the result of sociopolitical collectives.
The two schools, the first in Rio Claro and the other in the capital, call themselves anti-fascists and seek to teach more than perfect fighting technique — not that care with the sporting part is neglected, on the contrary.
Jucielen Romeo is proof of that. The boxer was at the Tokyo Olympics and was trained in MM Boxing. Brazilian national team coach Leonardo Macedo is the son of the gym owner and brother of one of the coaches, Macedão.
The current Brazilian under-15 boxing champion, Kelvy Alecrim Trindade, lives in Favela do Moinho (center of São Paulo) and trains at Boxe Autonomo, alongside Marcella Barros, who is preparing to compete in the Forja dos Campeões, in January .
MM Boxe was founded by the Macedo family in 2003. Their children, Leonardo and Breno, learned to fight there. After a career in the rings, they decided to continue on the ropes as coaches.
Autonomous Boxing, in a way, is the result of the year 2013 and its various political implications for Brazil. That was when Breno met Raphael Piva, during a class in the sociocultural studies of football discipline at USP.
In 2015, together with Guilherme Miranda, they founded the academy, with classes in the occupation of Palestinian refugees Leila Khaled. One of the group’s inspirations is the work of the Autonomous FC floodplain team. Another is the proposal of popular Italian academies, which Breno met (by Piva’s recommendation) on a trip to Europe.
“I came back and told him: ‘We need to do this here!'” says Breno. They also did itinerant activities during the occupation of schools in 2016 and arrived at Favela do Moinho in 2017, after a police intervention that killed a local resident.
The group then decided to offer boxing classes to young people in the community and realized that most of the students were interested in training regularly. In 2018, the opportunity arose to occupy the roof of Casa do Povo, a cultural space in Bom Retiro close enough to the favela for children from Moinho to attend.
“[Fazer atividades educacionais] It was already an old desire, but it came from a demand from the kids. Sometimes, we were warming up and someone asked: ‘What is Nazism?’; ‘What is fascism?’; Is gay marriage right or wrong?’; ‘You believe in God?’. Well, I have a degree in sociology, it made me want to stop, sit down and talk,” recalls Piva.
He says that one of the most curious is champion Kelvy and that the volume of questions grew after the pandemic. For this reason, since the beginning of the year, a day of educational activities has been included in the boxing classes’ schedule.
A leaf attended one of these meetings, with about 10 children. The boxing coaches are not in charge of the day, but the Casa do Povo volunteers: Manuela Rached Pereira, Rafael Pelletti, Flávia Odenheimer and Geo Santana (the latter, a former volunteer, who specifically helps in this project).
The young people arrived in the late afternoon and were given a snack, as usual. When it was time to wash dishes, Breno, 18, questioned the monitors about feminism and started a brief debate. Meanwhile, Kelvy, who was born in Bahia, started a capoeira roda with Flávio, a visitor. Other children played boxing.
Afterwards, the monitors conducted a series of activities inspired by the Theater of the Oppressed (method created by playwright Augusto Boal). Marcella was one of the most engaged. In the end, before going to a play in the House itself, the children were provoked with the question: “Are you oppressed?”.
“We place great value on boxing technique, we have something very refined in this regard, but we are always improving the dialogue with the idea of popular fighting, thinking of boxing as a physical, physical activity”, highlights Piva.
“A sport in a place that, despite being in the center of the richest city in South America, does not offer this type of activity [esportiva] which, like so many others, should be on the list of minimum rights.”
At MM Boxe, the educational part takes place on Fridays and also during events promoted by the academy.
“The inspiration comes from our observation about the lack of an educational, social and political context for boxing practitioners. It is a sport that historically brings together people from the lower classes, it is a sport of immigrants, minorities, refugees It has always been a sport for people coming from the ghetto, let’s say,” analyzes Breno, who is also a Master in Social History from USP.
In addition to reading circles or film sessions with debates, the academy also seeks to include cultural activities in its calendar. For example, it hosted a boxing championship in which, between fights, there were performances by drag queens.
“We deal with young people aged 15, 16, who have difficulty reading a one-page text, understand? One of the things that helps us is to open our gym for other activities that are not exclusive to boxing. We call the guys from boxing. hip-hop, reggae, samba, the LGBTQIA+ movement… Groups that identify with anti-fascism, non-authoritarianism and respect for diversity”, he adds.
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