Never was Hypnotised

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 654, 4 May 1929, Page 18

Never was Hypnotised

Carpentier, Famous French Pugilist, Denies Persistent Rumour

“But I did give myself up to Bescamps." he says; and he reveals the All sorts of theories used to be advanced by the various sporting writers in their various journals to account | for the success which attended me in the ring * writes Carpentier l ; hut per- j haps the most extraordinary theory j of all in explanation of my -good for- ; tune was that I acted under the hypnotic in fine nee of dear Descants ; and was a sort of boxing Trilby, with my genial and good-humoured ‘friend as the SvengalL His Piercing Eyes. I am proud to think that, my perpeopie to such an extent as to make : such a thing was possible; but at the same time I do want to enjoy what little credit may be due to me as a • boxer without, In any way, detracting from the invaluable services which Be scamps rendered me during our long association. The American papers did not hesitate to ascribe my fighting ability to my being hypnotised, and they even went further, and described how, be- 1 fore a fight, during the process of training, Descamps was always at i hand, and each day would come to me in our training quarters and, piercing me with his eyes, would repeat, slowly but emphatically, “'Georges—you must give yourself to me. All your thoughts and worries are to

• pass from you to me, and you are to I think of nothing but your fight. I take from you all but your fighting spirit." ; He would then make a few passes before my eyes and so put me into . some form of mesmeric trance, they j declared. Nothing of the kind took place, al- \ though there is a certain amount of truth in the idea that De.soa.mps rej lieved me of all worries and troubles. Not by any hypnotic means, however, j but by the simple, unroman tic process , of keeping me in entire ignorance of I anything likely to cause me worry and by seeing I was surrounded by everything calculated to Inspire me with a belief that I could not be beaten. There is more psychology in boxing than most people imagine. It is in one's training quarters that the fight is really won. And it was there that i Descamps gave me the greatest possible help. Such help as no other boxer has received in the course of ; his career. When once a fight was arranged I did. in fact, belong to Descamps. I gave myself up to hirr» completely. I lived on nothing else but the fight and concentrated every effort to that end.

i Every effort, I say. bsx not every tkongiit, for realised very quickly th&x the ssresx way of greT.tixg stale ari 1.0 gi~e ones vkole being up to the fesßEEßsees of stating fi*. This may so and contradicrory, bat it is not. for the simple reason that, vills I v&s Irving for me Ssiil the only 1* ay I could attain that right degree of preparation vras by having my mind taken off it from time to The idea mat any real fighting man could he hypnotised into knocking cut . an opponent is funny. It vro-nld re- ; quire more than the usual amount cf suggestion-, I should imagine, to control a man so that he could get into ■ a ring and. in a sort cf tranc-e. fight his ~ay through fifteen or tvrenty rounds, as the case might be. W her T rai ni n g Hov could Descamps, or any other man, kaov vrhat is passing in the mind of the man vrh-o not hypro- ; Used and then, in that millionth part of a second. Sash the counter to the No. Ido assure my readers that I . *was not hypnotised, and vrhen I say I gave myself up to Descamps, I mean mat X gave myself up to nim once I entered training quarters. TUs word vas law there and I never sought tc question it. If anyone wanted to see me they could do so only by permission of Bescamps. He took the responsibility for everything. The one thing in which Bescazn ps encouraged me most of all was the cultivation of ihe fighting spirit. Without that I should have got nowhere, and. to my mind, that is vhere many other boxers failed in the past. You cannot have that fighting spirit if you are worried about anything, or if you lack the least confidence.

I have never feared failure, but I *ssri2l be easy to beat this man or that - •man.” But I have always told myself ! that by getting perfectly fit and Ihor- . I oiighly prepared and by hard fighting 1 I ail the time I could win. I have lever feared failure, but I have never been guilty of deceiving myself that I could win without real effort on my part. I was always confident that this effort would pull me ; through, and I never entered the ring with any sort of qualms. With BHJy WzVs Only the other day Bombardier ; Billy Wells and I were talking over | this very thing in my dressing-room at the London Alhambra. We agreed that it was impossible to get anywhere unless one had that confidence and that absolute freedom from worry. I have seen men go into the ring a bundle of nerves. I have seen them biting their lips and gazing around with the most hopeless expressions on their faces, and 1 have known that they were beaten men before ever the fight commenced. I remember during the war wondering whether I had lost anything in the ; way of a punch, as a result of insufficient training in consequence of my : military duties. One day I was in Paris and went Into a little place where I found Ba-doud—well-known in England—sparring. He invited me to put on the gloves and I agreed to do so, at the same time telling him to let me down lightly, as I was naturally out of training. I knew at the time it was useless to say this to Badoud, as he could no more fight lightly than fly. Sure enough, we had not long been at it before he landed a real good punch which made me grunt. I felt then that I was entitled to see what sort of a punch I had left, and I spared about for an opening, which came. I made a feint with my left and then landed with the right full on the chin. • It was a quarter of an hour before he : came round: but his first words were, ! “Bravo, Georges." Those words were as music to my ears, for I realised that I still had my t punch, although Be scamps was not there to hypnotise me.