MARK NESTI: MISTER, CAN WE HAVE OUR BALL BACK PLEASE? Posted on February 28, 2012 by leaders Boxing. An ancient and noble art form, where one individual attempts to defeat the other by using their body as a weapon. Something lauded across cultures and time for being the perfect vehicle to teach self-discipline, and physical and moral courage. Or, just an excuse for over hyped intensely aggressive spectacles of violence? What took place in Germany recently between two British fighters appeared to give great ammunition to the bien pensants who campaign relentlessly to ban this sport. The evidence is gathered to argue that participating in boxing is associated with many physical and psychological ailments. High profile examples of disability and illness in former boxers seem to point to the end of the sport? But the underlying issues are surely universal and can be applied to all of sport. Sport, like life, involves moments of courage. And courage sometimes means being able to stop and withdraw rather than continue to act. Aristotle and Aquinas defined courage as a mean point residing between cowardice at one end, and recklessness at the other. These great thinkers claimed that fearlessness was in many ways the opposite of courage because it represents a one-sided effort to keep going despite the damage done to oneself and others. In contrast courage requires the person to act bravely but not mindlessly. In other words, courage is about entering the unknown with one's eyes open! It is this virtue