{"id":20248,"date":"2020-04-06T21:23:48","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T21:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20248"},"modified":"2020-04-11T15:34:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T15:34:07","slug":"how-mandela-stayed-fit-from-his-matchbox-soweto-home-to-a-prison-cell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-mandela-stayed-fit-from-his-matchbox-soweto-home-to-a-prison-cell\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mandela stayed fit: from his ‘matchbox’ Soweto home to a prison cell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gavin Evans<\/a>, Birkbeck, University of London<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The spread of the coronavirus has forced millions all over the world to retreat to base and abandon outdoor exercise and gym sessions. If they own a big house and garden, it\u2019s manageable, but many live in shacks, cramped houses or tiny high-rise flats. How can they avoid going to seed during lockdown? Gavin Evans takes a look at how former boxer and South African liberation struggle icon Nelson Mandela<\/a> adapted while incarcerated in a tiny cell on Robben Island.<\/em><\/p>\n

February 15, 1990: Nelson Mandela wakes as always at 5am and begins his hour-long exercise routine. The difference this time is that instead of a prison cell, his gym is the front room of his \u201cmatchbox\u201d house<\/a> \u2013 so-called for its small size \u2013 at 8115 Vilakazi Street, Soweto. And soon he\u2019ll be besieged by journalists, well-wishers, diplomats and family members.<\/p>\n

I get to interview him a few hours later to ask about his plans. His answers are clear and concise and I\u2019m too nervous to probe deeper. But towards the end I toss in a question about boxing, and his stern demeanour changes. He beams with delight and begins to chat about his favourite fighters and how he followed the sport in prison.<\/p>\n

Mandela started boxing as a student at Fort Hare University<\/a>, and then trained more seriously when studying, working and struggling in Johannesburg during the 1940s and 50s, although he didn\u2019t fight competitively and was modest about his prowess. \u201cI was never an outstanding boxer,\u201d he said in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom<\/a>. \u201cI was in the heavyweight division, and I had neither enough power to compensate for my lack of speed nor enough speed to make up for my lack of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he relished about it was the rigour of training, a routine periodically broken by arrest and the demands of the \u201cstruggle\u201d, but not often. He wrote:<\/p>\n

I unleashed my anger and frustration on a punchbag rather than taking it out on a comrade or even a policeman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Refuge in exercise<\/h2>\n

Mandela believed this routine was the key to both physical health and peace of mind.<\/p>\n

Exercise dissipates tension, and tension is the enemy of serenity. I found that I worked better and thought more clearly when I was in good physical condition, and so training became one of the inflexible disciplines of my life<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
Nelson Mandela was a boxing enthusiast. The photo depicts him circa 1950.<\/span>
\nGettyImages<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four mornings a week he\u2019d set off for a run and three evenings a week he\u2019d work out in a Soweto boxing gym \u2013 his way of losing himself \u201cin something that was not the struggle\u201d. He said he\u2019d wake up the next morning feeling refreshed \u2013 \u201cmentally and physically lighter\u201d and \u201cready to take up the fight again\u201d.<\/p>\n

From 1960 Mandela led the underground campaign of the African National Congress\u2019s military wing, umKhonto weSizwe<\/a>, moving around the country disguised as a chauffeur, with trips abroad to rally support, so his boxing training became sporadic. The \u201cBlack Pimpernel\u201d, as he was dubbed, was arrested in 1962 \u2013 the result of a tip-off to the apartheid police from the CIA, it has since emerged<\/a> \u2013 and spent the next 27-and-a-half years in jail, 18 of them on Robben Island.<\/p>\n

Life behind bars<\/h2>\n

When Mandela arrived, a prison warder sneered: \u201cThis is the Island. This is where you will die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the challenge was getting used to monotony. As he put it:<\/p>\n

Prison life is about routine: each day like the one before; each week like the one before it, so that the months and years blend into each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The daily routine of Prisoner 46664<\/a> consisted of gruelling manual labour \u2013 working in a quarry to dig out limestone and using heavy hammers to smash rocks into gravel. This was draining but he decided not to use it as an excuse to abandon his exercise regime. From then on it started at 5am and was carried out in a damp 2.1m squared cell rather than a sweat-soaked Soweto boxing gym. \u201cI attempted to follow my old boxing routine of doing roadwork and muscle-building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d begin with running on the spot for 45 minutes, followed by 100 fingertip push-ups, 200 sit-ups, 50 deep knee-bends and calisthenic exercises learnt from his gym training (in those days, and even today, this would include star jumps and \u2018burpees\u2019 \u2013 where you start upright, move down into a squat position, kick your feet back, return to squat and stand up).<\/p>\n

Mandela would do this Mondays to Thursdays, and then rest for three days. This continued even during his several spells in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n

Beating TB<\/h2>\n

In 1988, aged 70, he contracted tuberculosis, exacerbated by the damp cell, and was admitted to hospital, coughing blood. He was moved to a prison warder\u2019s house in Victor Verster Prison<\/a> near Paarl and soon resumed a truncated version of his exercise programme, which now included laps of the prison swimming pool.<\/p>\n

He was released from prison, along with other political prisoners, on 11 February 1990<\/a>, nine days after the African National Congress and other liberation movements were unbanned<\/a> by the apartheid government. He went on to become the first president of a democratic South Africa, from 1994 to 1999<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inevitably as he reached his 80s, his exercise routine was moderated but never abandoned. He died on 5 December 2013<\/a>, aged 95, of a respiratory infection.<\/p>\n

Mandela believed a lifetime\u2019s habit of exercise helped him to survive prison, ready for the challenges that lay ahead. \u201cIn prison, having an outlet for my frustrations was absolutely essential,\u201d he said \u2013 words that might be taken to heart by those facing months of coronavirus-prompted lockdowns in cramped conditions.\"The<\/p>\n

Gavin Evans<\/a>, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of London<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gavin Evans, Birkbeck, University of London The spread of the coronavirus has forced millions all over the world to retreat to base and abandon outdoor exercise and gym sessions. If they own a big house and garden, it\u2019s manageable, but many live in shacks, cramped houses or tiny high-rise flats. How can they avoid going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[7898,2995,2374,7559,7689,1719,3385,7899,3301,5046,7895,7894,4691,7893,7896,7897],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20248"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20302,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20248\/revisions\/20302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}