[cheese_van]

I certainly don't condone the experience I had in junior high school, although it seemed to work for our specific environment.

As a child I went to a well funded Catholic school in Chicago. Fighting was discouraged by priests who would put the two kids in a boxing ring - we were made to use gloves (but I don't remember helmets). Both kids would have a priest in their corner, but really for their own amusement. Then they would ring the bell and the two combatants would have at it.

What those who don't box don't know is that unless you are trained, boxing exhausts you almost immediately and the gloves very quickly become so heavy you can hardly lift them to punch. At the end of the first round, the priests would ask us if we wanted to continue, we would exhaustedly decline.

My only introduction to the ring ended with my opponent becoming a best friend, and most bouts ended the same.

Again, I'm not condoning this practice, and I'm not nostalgic about the period, but it seemed to have positive effects in a milieu that seems no longer to exist (I'm 73).