Physics, Punches, and Gender Expectations: The Lucia Rijker Documentary

"So I punch like a girl...but maybe I could kick your ass."  -Lucia Rijker

"OMG, I am SOOOO into reading about love horoscopes.  It's like, totally something I follow about celebrities.  It's SOOOO interesting!" I heard this little gem from one of the girls sitting next to me on the plane to Honolulu.  No, not girls - these two next to me were girls in women's bodies.  They were mid-twenty somethings in terms of physical age, but mental middle-schoolers.  What a shame, I thought.  Six hours removed from media and internet; you could fill each of those hours with literary mental giants the likes of Whitman, Faulkner, Kerouac, Palahniuk.  Engage in the lost art of...thinking...real, introspective, substantive reflection and reading...sans computers.  But, no.  For six hours I watched them flip their hair, take plane selfies, and read magazines plastered with half-starved, photoshopped reality stars, idolizing them for...what, exactly?  For being followed by cameras?  For looking good?  For being shameless about a need for attention?  For having sex on camera?  For...an example?  An example of what?

Who else can girls really look up to these days?  And as an example of what?

For me, Lucia Rijker has always been a woman I look up to.  Not only as a fighter, but as an example of how a woman should be.  Strong and peaceful.  Powerful and classy.  Disciplined and determined.  Confident and kind.

Lucia Rijker

I've always loved the Lucia Rijker documentary Shadowboxers (see video above for YouTube link to documentary).  It highlights women's boxing in 1999, a primordial time in female combative sports in comparison to the modern-day Rousey era.  Moreover, it's a great look at Lucia Rijker "The Dutch Destroyer."  Dubbed "the most dangerous woman in the world," Rijker has a professional boxing record of 17-0, fourteen of which were by knockout.  Most of you might recognize her as "Billy the Blue Bear" from Million Dollar Baby.

More than a fighter, Rijker is a devoted professional martial artist in mind, body, and soul.  She is a Buddhist who speaks four languages, devoting daily energy to meditation and chanting.  She is the kind of woman you want to listen to whenever she speaks because you know there will be some deep-reaching wisdom to be found in her words about fighting, training, about life.  About more than horoscopes or celebrities or who's fucking who.

In this ten-minute clip from the show "Sports Science," Lucia breaks through expectations and proves that some women can in fact punch just as hard (if not harder) than men.  Her punches answer the doofy question in the beginning, "can a GIRL possibly hit as hard as a GUY?!?" with a solid, "of course, and as a measurable fact, I punch harder than a lot of guys."