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Title: Maximum Potential
Author: Max Res
Date: April 2018
Language: en
Topics: physical fitness, working out, antifa, self-defense, community self-defense, Haymaker
Notes: This essay is part of a pamphlet by the same name published by Viscera Print Goods and Ephemera in Rhode Island. For inquiries, feedback, or discussion you can contact viscerapvd@gmail.com or their website, (https://viscerapvd.wordpress.com/][viscerapvd.wordpress.com]]) The other essays referenced in this article can be found here: Auto Body by Kyle Kubler ([[http://www.ultra-com.org/project/auto-body/][www.ultra-com.org]]) and Bodybuilding and Nation-Building by Adam Curtis ([[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/2989a78a-ee94-385e-808f-c9c7c38d1cb7)

Max Res

Maximum Potential

I started this essay with a dilemma—though my intent was to write about

anarchists doing fitness, it didn’t seem like there were any. Searching

yielded very little, and despite going to the gym myself my motivations

are less political praxis and more trying to minimize some of the

negative health impacts of late capitalism on my body. Yes, I lacked

anything particularly profound to say on the subject matter, but surely

in this age of people clamoring for physical conflict in the form of

antifascism there was someone writing or doing something relevant.

Maybe the problem is our aversion to the markers of fitness culture?

Jocks, hypermasculity, competition, vanity, perhaps the lingering trauma

of being pushed into a locker in high school all combine to make fitness

potentially unattractive to anarchists. And yet there were other,

not-anarchist nerds who were engaging with working out in ways that I

found interesting and two essays from whom I’ve included in this

pamphlet. The first is from the website Ultra, which describes its

contributors as “...those who have been transformed by the recent crises

and the sequence of riots, blockades, occupations and strikes that

followed” and includes “lift weights” on its list of central tenets[1].

In it, Kyle Kubler’s “Auto Body” gives us a fascinating genealogy of

fitness culture in the US rooted in the impromptu bodybuilding culture

of Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach in the 40s and 50s to the development of

its commodified, yuppy heir CrossFit today. The second is also a

history, this one written by Adam Curtis, and if you’re familiar with

his work at all you’ll be hearing his voice as you’re reading as it

comes though quite clearly. In his signature style, he uses

“Bodybuilding and Nation-Building” to connect the seemingly disparate

elements of yoga and the roots of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and in doing

so looks at cultures (one of the body, the other of imperial fantasy)

obsessed with the fantasy of a purer, stronger way of being. Both of

these pieces are great and I’m sure you’ll enjoy them as I did, but

neither of these is written by anarchists and I wanted to say a little

about what we’re thinking and doing for us, today.

This proved more easily said than done. Given the spirit of our era,

much discussion about anarchists doing fitness that I could find was so

steeped in the language and goals of anti-fascism that the a-word was

hardly present. Which, if you consider anarchy and antifa the same thing

(or if you’re into lifting weights next to statists) isn’t much of a

problem, but this is all to say that there isn’t a whole lot of stuff

out there that puts “anarchist” and “going to the gym” in the same

sentence without completing it with “to get better at punching Nazis”.

But for a look at how some anarchists are doing fitness, this essay will

consider Haymaker, which describes itself as a “popular fitness &

self-defense gym”[2] located in Chicago. In examining Haymaker’s attempt

to create a radical culture of fitness and self-defense we’ll see how

they challenge the practices of mainstream fitness presented to us by

Kubler and Curtis while also resembling them in its desire to shape and

mobilize bodies. To do this, we’ll consider the three points listed on

their homepage around which they organize themselves: strength,

solidarity, and autonomy.

strength

People associated with Haymaker frequently cite the desire to remove

themselves from a culture of fitness defined by machoness and normative

body types as incentive for starting a different kind of space. This

culture of getting big and the celebration of the ideal body is explored

inboth of the other pieces contained in this pamphlet, and Adam Curtis’s

exploration of the weird history of yoga in particular is filled with

all sorts of priceless overblown advertisements from the turn of the

last century filled with shockingly muscled men in loincloths promising

to return the reader’s body to some sort of perfection lost in corrupt

modernity. Set decades later, Kubler profiles CrossFit gym-goers as

solidly upper-middle class and ranks the popularization of the exercise

routine alongside “beards, tattoos, ‘work’ boots, and lumbersexuality”

in the culture of late capitalism.

In opposition to this, Haymaker gives us a different interpretation of

strength:

“Strength is not primarily being able to resist or overcome forces

outside of us. To us, strength means overcoming our own weaknesses – it

means changing ourselves, together. Such strength is necessary if we are

to become a force capable not only of self-defense, but of social

transformation.”[3]

Expanding on this, in their promotional video they also express the

intent to create their “own ideas of fitness that don’t mean fitting in

with status quo body norms”[4]. Here and elsewhere we can see an array

of people—different body types, differing gender presentations, and

differing cultural practices (including a prominent selection of clips

showing people in hijab). A look at their calendar of events also shows

a number of “liberatory mixed martial arts” sessions specifically for

“trans, queer, and women-aligned folx”[5]. And while they place

themselves firmly in the world of anti-fascist physical training, this

concept of a radical gym space is also conceived of as an alternative to

a macho European antifa culture as mentioned in their Final Straw

interview.

This critique of strength as muscle mass and the culture of machoness

which can surround it isn’t all that novel—“Auto Body” shows us a

history of fitness in the US that moved away from the rougher, bigger

bodies of Muscle Beach and the first Gold’s Gym towards something more

accessible to the masses in which “you can get strong, but not too big”.

This is manifest in Planet Fitness’s “Judgment Free Zone,” which even

comes with a “lunk alarm” to shame people if they’re throwing weights

and is accompanied by a description of a “lunk” which could easily

describe any of the average denizens of these earlier spaces who, in

additional to slamming weights, is wearing a bodybuilding tanktop and

drinking out of a gallon jug of water. It is also manifest in the mantra

“strong is the new skinny” which calls for a more holistic and

personalized concept of strength[6]. With a nod to the fact that the

“inclusivity” of these mentalities and spaces often falls short of even

their own modest advertised goals, nevermind what one might consider

desirable in an anarchist space, what makes Haymaker’s critique

different is the emphasis on getting strong together, which brings us to

our second point.

solidarity

No less important to Haymaker’s critique is the alienation embodied in

much of commercial fitness culture, something which is reflected in my

own experience of going to the gym. Planet Fitness is about as far from

macho gym culture as you can get – surrounded by mottoes like “You

Belong” and “Judgment Free Zone,” much of the crowd when I go is older

people and especially older women. However, it and similar chains are an

embodiment of the shift identified by Kubler away from the DIY community

at Muscle Beach (where bodybuilders were improvising training routines

and some even living together) and the first iteration of Gold’s Gym

(where the front door was locked to keep out those who weren’t in the

know) and towards a mass product dominated by machines with operating

instructions and populated by consumers and staff members. A typical

workout consists of me talking to one person – the employee at the desk

who checks my card and says goodbye when I leave – with the rest of my

routine spent listening to music and working out alone in a room of

people, most of whom are doing the same (though you do see a regular

gathering of old men around the stationary bikes – clearly some of us

are more alienated than others).

Community is an attractive commodity in a world where alienation is the

norm, and this is no less true in the world of fitness. Beyond Planet

Fitness’s “You Belong” and halfhearted monthly pizza nights and bagel

breakfasts, Kubler shows us how CrossFit sells the experience of an

intense camaraderie through working the body which acts as a commodified

version of the long since extinguished days of Muscle Beach

(extinguished, by the way, by the long, flabby arm of the law). Compare

this to Haymaker’s concept of solidarity:

We believe in solidarity because we know our personal transformation is

also a collective transformation and, as the saying goes, an injury to

one is an injury to all. We vow to care for each other in times of

vulnerability and to keep each other safe as we become dangerous

together. [7]

The sell here is an attempt at constructing a community very different

from the examples given above – access is free, classes include a

section where participants improvise exercises together rather than

learning from an instructor, and their promotional video even includes

the promise of a juice bar and donation-based food pantry. Haymaker is

conceived of as the convergence of a “multitude of different bodies” in

a gym that will “cut across social divisions”[8] that they claim are

being worsened under the Trump presidency, and a place where, as they

put it in their promotional video, “leaving wouldn’t mean leaving

alone”[9].

But the primary way that solidarity and mutual aid are expressed at

Haymaker is in the form of self-defense training, something that’s

emphasized again and again in their interviews and promotional materials

to the point where they refer to themselves as a “popular fitness and

self-defense gym”. Self-defense here is a physical response to “a

political climate that’s increasingly violent, especially towards

marginalized peoples”[10], language which mirrors the general

antifascist stance since the election of Donald Trump and a practice to

which the gym traces a lineage going back to physical defense training

among Jews during the second world war and Indian nationalist physical

culture gyms under British colonialism[11]. Training at Haymaker is

advertised on the premise of reactive violence which is intended to

protect people endangered by racists and abusers and those entering into

street fights at antifa demos. It is through this violence and the

community which it’s suggested emerges from training for it that

community is formed. It’s this vision of community that leads to the

third point.

autonomy

It’s easy to see how practical this all is, at least to a certain social

set. If you’re concerned about physical conflict and feel unprepared,

training to respond physically gives you another tool to deal with an

attacker. If you’re in a protest situation where you may end up in a

fight, knowing how to fight better than the person you’re in conflict

with is to your advantage. Having a free space to learn those skills or

just work out and maybe make some friends sounds great, although this

seems like it may be the kind of space where friendship is mandatory,

and the juice at the juice bar in the promotional video looks… well,

you’d have to watch it and decide for yourself. But all that said, the

point of Haymaker isn’t the juice or even the self-defense and strength

training. At its heart is the concept of “social transformation” that’s

come up in each of the previous points, and that they put forward

clearly in their third organizing point: We believe in autonomy because

strength and care cannot grow amidst institutions that disempower us. In

this precarious world, we don’t expect anyone to come and save us. We

have to fight for ourselves and each other, because we’re all we’ve got.

This definition is a little complicated, in part because, like the

concept of “social transformation” mentioned in their point about

strength it implies a lot without stating anything clearly. Or to put it

another way, its use of simple-sounding language and concepts muddies

the radical implications of the ideas driving such a space. While this

makes a good talking point if you’re trying to hook a socially-minded

outsider, for this essay we’ll use the gym’s interview with Final Straw

Radio to draw out a more substantial definition of this term. The

interview with Final Straw is important for a number of reasons – it’s

one of two places I could find where, as opposed to the vague, popular

language used in interviews with people like Buzzfeed on their website,

Haymaker is identified as an anarchist project (the other being the

promotion on It’s Going Down)[12]. It’s also during this interview that

we’re told the deeper intentions of their project, where, despite all

the emphasis placed upon antifa tactics and self-defense in response to

violence under Trump in other interviews and promotional

material—antifascism is described as “a practical way to make ourselves

visible to others” and “an important and significant framework but also

to a certain extent quite limited for what we want to try to

achieve”[13]. A fair bit of this interview is spent discussing the

concept of autonomy, and the guests provide us with a couple of

definitions. In the face of a state by which we have become dispossessed

and helpless and that perpetuates violence against people though police

killings, “autonomy through collective organizing shifts our focus to

what we can control and prepare for and builds a politics of our own

values”—these values being communization, sharing, and care for each

other. Autonomy is also considered as a more precise term for anarchy,

in which they’re “creating the conditions of living together that

capitalism doesn’t provide”. The gym here acts as one of those

conditions, a material grounds for establishing this autonomy as part of

a greater project to “reclaim and reappropriate territory” that we’ve

been dispossessed of and a “nodal point” at which friendship is supposed

to turn into a culture of resistance. All of this is a far cry from the

limited scope of confrontational violence through antifa tactics that

characterizes much of the public face of the gym. It’s also refreshing

to hear some critique of antifa coming from people who are still located

very close to that milieu! But I’m left somewhat confused, because even

in this interview the concept of violence is still framed as defensive,

something that appears at odds with the stated goals of the project. If

we imagine a group of people starting a gym and attempting to reclaim

something that they’ve been dispossessed of by the state and capitalism,

what kind of resistance might they run into? Things like gym spaces and

equipment or food to make juice for the juice bar—attempting to

reappropriate these (that is, without someone paying for them or picking

them out of the garbage) will almost inevitably lead to some resistance

in which violence will end up being used, most likely the violence of

the state as the police are called by one’s landlord or some unhappy

store manager. What does it look like to face physical conflict with the

state rather than, as Los hijos del Mencho put it, “live-action role

playing in the streets and hitting each other with sticks”[14]? This

kind of interaction is described to us by one of its members in an

interview with a media outlet for Dick’s Sporting Goods of all places,

where he talks about how physical self-defense training didn’t help him

when he was brutalized by the police except that he felt more prepared

to “mentally react”[15] to the assault. This is something I again can

see the usefulness of, though it probably doesn’t make getting beaten up

by a cop at a protest any less unpleasant. More, mental preparedness for

getting beaten or tortured isn’t going to bring down the institutions

that disempower us any more than Jews training to fight in the Roman

Ghetto ended the functioning of that ghetto, never mind ending the

machinery of the Holocaust as a whole. While it may feel good to claim

that “strong people are harder to kill”—a slogan, by the way, that’s

also on the Ultra website—our present reality is one in which that’s

just not the case when it comes to the state exercising power over our

bodies, and to think otherwise is to risk falling into the positivist

self-improvement mentality that characterizes so many dietary regimens

and workout routines. But let’s assume that the people around Haymaker

understand this, aren’t looking for direct conflict with the state (at

least not yet), and that, despite the fact that they characterize this

project so thoroughly in its public image, antifascism and training

around defensive violence is just an opportunity to pull a wide swath of

potential allies to get involved in the deeper project of building an

autonomy that doesn’t (yet!) mean taking over buildings or driving the

cops out of neighborhoods. Let’s also assume that the statement of

autonomy isn’t a description of a lived reality but rather a goal

towards which establishing a gym is one part of a many-linked chain.

After all, the Breakaway Social Center with which the gym is affiliated

stresses patience in the process of realizing a “strategy of giving

ourselves the means to be more powerful and to face up to the need for

another way of life”[16]. Still, it’s hard to look forward to the day

when Haymaker and its cousins stop paying rent or needing to collect

donations when that day seems so far away, and I’m also not sure who

will defend those spaces when the state objects. I’m also somewhat

curious about how many people who get pulled in because of the antifa

sales pitch and increasing violence under the current president

(rhetoric or reality) will stick around when the wind goes out of those

sails.

maximum potential

To repeat, I like Haymaker as a response to the dominant culture of

fitness. Even in this critique I hope that the reader is able to pull

some of their strong points about redefining strength and offer a space

that is free, lacks some of the hierarchies of typical training spaces,

and is open to all sorts of people while also not open to cops or the

extreme right. Beyond the criticisms already mentioned in this essay,

though, there is an underlying presumption about bodies and their

potential to save us that overlaps with Adam Curtis’s look at the

history of yoga. In “Bodybuilding and Nation-Building,” Curtis observes

that the physical cultures of both Britain and colonized India arose as

a reaction to an undesired present – for Britain, an escape from a

waning empire filled with factories and slums, for Indian nationalists

an escape from what they perceived to be a weak, decadent body that

characterized its colonial past. For both Britains and Indians, the body

formed a site at which revolution could be affected. And while

Haymaker’s approach to fitness isn’t in search of some mythic past, it

too looks to the body—which they’ve referred to as “the most intimate of

material forces”[17]—as a tool for revolution, and strength as a means

by which to change the world. I also wonder at this celebration of the

material—the terms “material force” and “material resistance” that can

be found in many of their interviews and promotions. Can we draw a line

between this and the Indian physical culture described by Curtis as

trying to escape what they perceived as the weakness of their past? Out

of physical culture came a revolution in yoga that transformed it from a

practice that centered around a limited set of poses and emphasized

spiritual development to a yoga that showcased muscular bodies and feats

of strength a change considered necessary to end British colonial rule

and escape the burden of the past. In Haymaker’s description of the

material, they make some explicit attempts at differentiating themselves

from both “‘critical’ posturing that puts one on the sidelines of every

situation”[18] and what they observe as an anarchist fetish for form and

process rather than the material conditions which shape interactions in

a space. While the former is likely a shot at their anarchist critics

who aren’t interested in getting organized, there’s also a sense of

self-criticism here—looking back with a critical eye upon the wave of

insurrectionary anarchist activity in the US towards the end of the last

decade which emphasized movement; discreet, temporary projects;

anonymity; and the riot as a point in which people are changed and

community is formed. This wave crashed around Occupy, and it’s telling

that in Haymaker’s interview with Final Straw Occupy is singled out as

an example of anarchists favoring form over substance. It’s not much of

a stretch to consider Haymaker and related projects as offering a vision

of a winning, muscular anarchy that provides the substance that its own

weak past (or querulous cousins in the present) do not, one which is

necessary to change the world. As opposed to this, I would offer that

strong bodies can’t necessarily change the world in the way Haymaker

wishes. As mentioned earlier, the goal of becoming a “material force”

which establishes itself as autonomous from the institutions that rule

us doesn’t really follow from the practices of defensive violence or

strength training at Haymaker. Even if they were doing combat training,

there’s no amount of physical strength or confidence that’s going to

create the kind of “collective transformation” they’re interested in.

The kind of potential they see in the body runs into the trap of

futurity—what they see as progress, we could consider akin to running on

a treadmill, the body getting stronger but tiring over time, the great

goal of autonomy from the institutions that oppress us always out of

reach. I’ll end this essay with some open thoughts —I don’t know if

there’s a better way to run an anarchist gym, but it’s worth further

considering what anarchist fitness could look like when not motivated by

revolutionary goals or a defense mentality: — What if training focused

on training the body for avoidance and stealth rather than face-to-face

confrontation? What does training to avoid security cameras or to act

casual when questioned by airport security look like? After all,

blending into a crowd while one’s adrenaline is rushing after doing

something dangerous and highly illegal is also a study in bodily

movement and mindset all of its own. That said, I feel like a lot of

skill training ends up being less about immediate ends and more about

making the person who’s training feel like they’re accomplishing

something and giving them the comfort that they’re in control of their

lives. Fitness consciously motivated by totally mundane incentives

(confidence in one’s body, avoiding some of the unpleasant health

impacts of living in Society, etc.) in some ways feels more honest. — I

feel a reflexive unease at the concept of my body as a tool or weapon

for struggle. If we want to call it my most intimate material, I don’t

find the idea of making it serve “the struggle” very attractive. I also

think that the body can be undependable, when it can appear as a

stranger to me. While strength can be a nice idea, I think understanding

the world through weakness (that is, my limitations, where my strength

and the strength of others fails) is more informative. — While I

appreciate the potential usefulness of violence in response to the

violence of a friend, partner or stranger, I also think it has an

attraction that can be misleading. This attraction comes in part from

the sense of having a simple answer to a complicated problem, one which

anarchists (along with the rest of society) often handle badly. I think

that violence used against an abusive partner or friend who has hurt us

can achieve some desired outcomes, but can also complicate things and

produce undesired outcomes which are neither simplifying nor worth

celebrating.

[1] Ultra (n.d.). Retrieved from

www.ultra-com.org

[2] Haymaker Gym (n.d.). Retrieved from

haymakergym.org

[3] Ibid.

[4] [Haymaker Gym]. (July 12^(th) 2017). Haymaker Official Video [Video

File]. Retrieved from

vimeo.com

[5] Haymaker Gym April 2018 calendar (n.d.). Retrieved from

haymakergym.org

[6]

See for example Amy K. Mitchell’s “Why Strong is the New Skinny, and Why That’s a Good Thing” in The Huffington Post

“The bottom line is, weight aside and skinny aside, you won’t be

happy unless you are holistically strong: Strong in body, mind, and

spirit”. Retrieved from

=> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-k-mitchell/why-strong-is-the-new-skinny-and-why-thats-a-good-thing_b_8467376.html www.huffingtonpost.com

[7] Haymaker Gym (n.d.).

[8] viiiHaymaker Official Video.

[9] ixIbid.

[10] [Mong Phu]. (July 3^(rd) 2017). Original Haymaker Collective Video

from Unicorn Riot [Video File]. Retrieved from

www.youtube.com

– note that this is not a friendly source, the original has been deleted

from the Unicorn Riot website and this video now lives through

circulation by alt-right-ish people. Why this was deleted is unclear

(it’s nowhere in Haymaker’s promotional material either), but the quote

and sentiments expressed in it are reflected other interviews with

members as well. The (now dead) source URL is here:

www.unicornriot.ninja

[11] Anonymous contributor. “Announcing Haymaker: Popular Fitness and

Self-Defense in Chicago.” It’s Going Down, April 11^(th) 2017. Retrieved

from

itsgoingdown.org

[12] During this interview we’re told that not everyone associated with

Haymaker is an anarchist so perhaps this is part of the term’s absence,

but the fact that neither it nor autonomist, appelista, etc. appear on

their site or in most other interviews or promotional material where

they’re describing themselves makes this decision appear to be more

about salesmanship rather than inclusivity.

[13] The Final Straw Radio. (June 4^(th) 2017). Podcast special:

Haymaker Gym in Chicago [Audio Podcast]. Retrieved from

thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org

. Of interest is the fact that this critique of antifa also occurs in

one of the few interviews they have with an anarchist source (though not

on IGD, for obvious reasons).

[14] Los hijos del Mencho. “Against the World-Builders: Eco-extremists

respond to critics.” Anarchist News, January 14^(th) 2018. Retrieved

from

anarchistnews.org

[15] Sarit Luban. “The Chicago Gym Using Fitness As Political

Resistance.” Good Sports, September 19^(th) 2017. Retrieved from

sports.good.is

[16] Breakaway Autonomous Social Center (n.d.). “Who we are.” Retrieved

from

breakaway.center

[17] Antifascistfront. “Introducing Haymaker, Chicago’s New Anti-Fascist

Gym.” Anti-Fascist News, April 19^(th) 2017. Retrieved from

antifascistnews.net

. See also their interview with Final Straw where similar language is

used.

[18] Breakaway Autonomous Social Center. “Who we are.”