A police water cannon keeps a group of polish soccer hooligans from brawling.
(AP Photo/Irek Dorozanski)
June 15, 2006 | Post Archive
After the movie "Fight Club" debuted in 1999, guys everywhere started meeting in undisclosed locations to beat each other senseless -- a movement not to be confused with the hooligan subculture, which is an entirely different thing. For those who haven't seen it, the film portrays a group of men whose secret club doesn't stay so secret in the end; the group grows bigger and bigger throughout the unfolding story. The club offers its members an escape from the world around them, channeling their woes and frustrations into intentional brawls--tactile therapy, to say the least.
Scrappy thrill seekers aren't the only ones starting fight clubs though. Meet the Gentlemen's Fight Club of Silicon Valley -- a group of software programmers who meet every two weeks in a member's garage. In a conversation with "Wired," the club's founder, Gints Klimanis, explained that the Gentlemen's Fight Club isn't about therapy, but rather it's "about self-improvement through a seemingly destructive activity." The programmers fight to test their limits, conquer fear and learn to better defend themselves -- you know, against all of Silicon Valley's thugs. Sounds vaguely like therapy to me, but we'll let it slide. Call it personal development.
There's no in-house doctor, so the fighters have to be wise in how they attack, keeping the intensity within manageable means. The best they can do, Klimanis says, is take the severely injured to the emergency room. But that limitation doesn't stop anyone from getting bruised or bloodied; the gents face off with a handful of weapons. Fisticuffs aside, they batter each other with sticks, rolled magazines, aluminum knives (sans sharp edges) and wooden chairs.
A young man gets knocked out in a Taipei fight club.
(AP Photo/Wally Santana)
The programmers' club operates a little differently from its Hollywood counterpart. The key difference? The programmers wear protective gear, though they don't have any rules. They wear fencing masks, cups and gloves -- after all, they have to keep those key-stroking fingers nimble. The fights are timed and last for one minute each.
At the end of the day, the Gentlemen's Fight Club may be a bunch of programmers, but they're not wimps. Klimanis is a third-degree black belt in Kenpo karate. So here's the moral of the story: Don't mess with nerds. They may not be able to take you out, but you never know who's sitting in a cubicle nearby. And didn't you know? Nerds stick together.
