He was always a person I admired, for different reasons, which I will explain on another occasion.
Having him suspended for not having accepted to go to fight in Vietnam, caused him to interrupt his career; just like me, surely many other people stopped watching him box and listening to his ideas in general, his way of being and feeling.
Now, during the month of August 2022, by synchronicity, I meet him again. A case that I will expose in part II or III of the posts that I will publish in the future on Synchronicity.
I learned that he had already died in 2016 and that he had suffered from Parkinson’s disease. What a shame with an athlete like Muhammad Ali. Tri-heavyweight champion. I believe him to be the greatest boxer of all time.
So much for my reunion. I found out that I could watch his fights on my cell phone.
I started watching them one by one and remembered two or three of the ones I had already watched.
This post is about Ali’s trotting in the ring.
It is a very special trot that he does it backward and to his left side. If he were left-handed, perhaps he would do it in the opposite direction (this would have to be investigated in the future).
He performs it by jumping, dancing, frolicking, as any other fighter would do. However, not all of them do it from the 1st round to the last, as Ali can do it, alternating it in different rounds. In fact, not many boxers fight with this tactic.
Sometimes a whole round is spent trotting, but most of the time it is during intervals that take only 15-20 seconds.
Ali performs this style always jumping on his two lower limbs, to his left side and with slight steps (small and short) backward. He performs it by circling around his opponent, always spinning around him, and at a constant distance, which anyone could say is defined by the reach of his fists. And it is true.
He also does that “jogging” to the right side but it is not his natural way and surely does not achieve the same results and looks clumsy and insubstantial. I recommend that he be observed more closely.
To emphasize that he does it backward could sound false, because he would lose the distance of reach; however, if we observe him carefully we will see that in each small step backward -of marginal size- the opponent advances that same distance as if Ali consciously practiced it and intuitively knew that his opponent would follow him in his trotting. This, too, I recommend that it be studied thoroughly.
I will point out about this re-encounter.
There are 4 important dates that I should point out from what I was thinking and planning about the Blog, which are related to this Post.
On September 26, 2019, it occurred to me to develop a Post about walking backward, which allowed me to investigate the benefits that could be achieved with that way of walking (Future Post WALKING BACKWARD). This practice is carried out by Ali with his special trotting during his boxing matches. Surely he also performed it during his rehearsals, drills and exercises that he used to do in the gym.
On February 20, 2020, I had the idea of writing another Post about the Kaaba, because it was a millenary walking practice where they communicated with divinity by circling around a divine center (Post THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND THE KAABA CENTER). Ali also performs this type of circling around his opponent, and something else, his gaze is focused on a single point (Many would say that he performs it this way to hit his opponent and stay alert of his attacker). Future posts THE YANTRA AND THE WALK; and THE MANDALA AND OUR WALK.
On June 15, 2020, it occurs to me to combine some exercises that I was practicing on my own person, in addition to walking backward, that would force my brain, and I was able to experience between 10-12 exercises of this type (Future Post BRAIN GYMNASTICS WHILE WALKING-EXERCISES).
In this period I gained good experiences in addition to the ones I have always had, as I was able to force my mind to deploy new efforts to keep me walking in conditions out of normality. In the near future, I will publish this Post. It details 2 exercises involved in Ali’s trotting.
Finally, on September 21, 2020, I decided to expand the research and analysis of the practice of spinning to a central point because it has more implications, of the physical, mental and spiritual types, and of greater importance (Future Post WALKING AND CIRCUMAMBULATION). Ali is a practitioner of circumambulation, as he fights in the ring with his way of trotting backward and circling around his opponent. He renews himself physically and spiritually. And I’m pretty sure his trainer and handler Angelo Dundee should have known that (About circumambulation).
All this has led me to read some of what is written about his spiritual strength and religious creed.
I would like to say very briefly that I am not a supporter of any religion, nor do I like politics; I only believe in art, engineering and economics, which are my “professional de-formations“.
As it is known, Ali converted to Islam in 1964 and probably already had in his genetics this practice of circumambulation (*); hence with greater conscious force he carried it out in the ring.
Besides these relationships that I have described, the most relevant thing is that I observe in all Ali’s fights, I repeat: in all his fights, two things: one, that every time he feels attacked or harassed, he resorts to that walk to keep away from his opponent and anyone would say that it is to escape from that harassment; and two, he also resorts to that walk when he feels tired. It seems that this walk replenishes him spiritually: trotting backward, circling around a point.
Surely there is a 3rd reason why he resorts to this circumambulatory tactic: to knock out his opponent; but I cannot say for sure.
To describe this trotting is not easy, it is necessary to observe him in practice above the ring. Briefly, it is: Walking -Alí trots- slowly backward and to the left side. Circling slowly without stopping and keeping a distance of one center.
Always like this.
This has induced me to analyze the distance of all circumambulation, because it surely has implications of the physical and mental type, but above all spiritual. That is to say, this reinforcement of Ali’s spirit to perform this practice with a certain distance in his jogging around his opponent, surely had a determining implication to have a greater strength, both physical and spiritual.
As we can see, this practice is not natural in the walk of the human being; it is a way to force our body and mind to reach other energetic forms to better develop our functions and also to generate that the mind has other brain areas that have been dormant.
I have decided to make the 2nd part on this subject of Muhammad Ali’s trotting because of the data that I have been able to observe in my research, it is possible that I can establish and verify an important correspondence between the following parameters (besides others that I will be noticing): Ali’s age, the strength of Ali and his opponents, the reach of both adversaries, the round or rounds where we observe him carrying out this jogging in order to “recharge” spiritually, psychologically and physically, which in turn would lead me to prove my thesis.
In this second part, I will be able to analyze if there is a “high” correlation between the number of times Ali uses this tactic in a fight and the greater or lesser difficulty he suffers against his opponent.
The fundamental element that will give channel to my following analyses and evaluations of the collected data, will be this spiritual “recharge” of Ali.
For the time being, here are some of the fights where Ali trots in some of the rounds, although I repeat: in all his fights since 1960 he does it.
As I was saying, the post is about Ali’s trotting in the ring that many commentators call DANCING, and this leads me to take more into account my appreciation for dancing, specifically dancing backward. This modulation in the dance can be observed in many types of dance and I myself perform it in the Tap Tap dance [Video where this sequence is appreciated].
(*)Why walk around a sacred center? These configurations that are generated around a Center and that are all arranged concentrically in a radial and symmetrical way, make up the totality of the mandala, which should be the subject of deep analysis for the people who generate them. Their function and knowledge, in this case of the KAABA, can serve us as a representation of these unconscious images that during the 7 turns that are made around the Sacred Center has its interpretation within Islam as a meditation (inner search and inquiry of the divinity that we all have inside), a contemplation (to perceive our mystical inclinations to seek contact with the divinity, and likewise, to seek reconciliation of our contradictions in the self – as mentioned by C. G. Jung -, and to have contact with the divinity. G. Jung-, and to have contact with our archaic origins) and a transformation (the mandala itself is the symbol that results from the practice that during millennia periodic and habitual actions were carried out and recorded in the unconscious and that make contact with the archetypes, for the transformation of the personality of the individual who evokes them).
As something unusual, tomorrow when we go for a walk, let’s take a few steps backward, very carefully so as not to fall, and let’s observe all our reactions and experiences that we have. To trot like Ali is very difficult, you need to be an athlete and gymnast.