Checkered Past

Back to reliving the past, I made a point while in Germany last month to visit Berlin, the home of Chess-Boxing.

Yep. You read it right.

A round of chess, a round of boxing, a round of chess and so on…

Originally, my timing was perfect. A title bout was scheduled for the weekend I had planned to be there. Alas, things changed, as they usually do. And you roll with the, um, punches.

I ended up catching a practice. “Practice? PRACTICE?? We talking about PRACTICE???”

Their gym was pretty nondescript, in the basement of a rec center. I watched folks play badminton on the main level while waiting for chess boxers to arrive.

The chess boxers there were pretty cool, inviting me to a future bout in LA this spring. I want to go. Especially since story-telling photos were few and far between during this stop. I liked one image a lot, which is a success, right? The rest just look like folks boxing. (I won’t even bore you with them.) I’ve seen some images of title bouts and they really dress up the venue nicely for photos.

Check, dude.