On Saturday I had one of those experiences that make all the hard work of teaching worthwhile. One of my 10 year old students accompanied me to the hip-hop chess Federation mind over matter presentation at O'Connor high school in San Francisco. He had experiences there he will remember for the rest of his life.
The event included a panel discussion on life-changing experiences with a mixed martial arts champion, one of America's most respected chess masters, a very philosophic member of the Wu Tang clan and a prominent hip-hop producer.
Bronstein, my student, was, like everyone else there, fascinated by the panel. But his real revelations came at the chessboard. Dozens of people were involved in formal and informal competition. Rustin managed to defeat a top player from the host high school while simultaneously winning against another student. Then he had the opportunity to play against Wu Tang clan's RZA. Much more below the fold.
What's all this about hip-hop, chess, and martial arts doing in a political blog? the hip hop chess Federation he exists to cut across cultural lines and bring together young people interested in any of those topics. Every event includes a Life Strategies panel discussion about social and cultural issues, and each time the panel was the best attended activity of the day. the chess community is very diverse, but African-Americans have never been a major part of the tournament scene, though that has been changing in the past two decades.
Because the chess is a generally respected activity, it can lead to many good opportunities. The goal of the organization's founder and leader, Adisa Banjoko of Oakland, is to bring the African-American community into that opportunity pool by overcoming stereotypical perceptions to make the game more appealing. African American kids tend to shy away from chess as teenagers because it isn't considered cool. Well, when the Wu Tang Clan turns up at your school and raves about the game, a lot of minds are changed. The same is true when the martial arts experts gave exhibitions and proclaim their love of the game and, more importantly, why they believe that the skills acquired by playing chess are useful in life situations.
An article about the HHCF remedy for gang culture in the Guardianis a good read.
Getting back to Brunston's day, after a bit of fun playing and defeating many older kids and adults, he listened as International Master Emory Tate, the armed forces champion who never lost a rated game during his multiyear reign, is one of the fiercest players around and his games are always quite entertaining. I've played him four times in official competition and lost three times, with just one victory where he made the mistake of playing into my favorite opening strategy. He discussed how being the Armed Forces champion allowed him the luxury of representing the Army all over the world providing experiences he could never have afforded otherwise. It was his goal from the moment he considered signing up and he made the most of the opportunity.
Second was MMA star Alan "Gumby" Marques of Heroe's Martial Arts. He and Denny "300" Prokopos of 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu gave MMA demonstrations. The link between chess and martial arts is clear. Almost all heavyweight boxing champion shave been chessplayers, and Lennox Lewis is a huge fan. There are many common strategies, including the key idea that you can't attack successfully until you have a weakness as a target, and usually have to create the weakness.
Next up was RZA from the Wu-Tang clan. Brunston has very little experience with rap music, but was very impressed by the discussion of how chess is useful in overcoming life's challenges. RZA is very articulate and has a tremendous amount of knowledge of philosophy. It was impossible for the mixed race audience not to be impressed by his intellectual comments. He and Wu Tang even have their own chess server, Wuchess.com.
Finally, award-winning rep producer Rakaa (Dilated Peoples), whose addiction to chess largely came from his friend RZA. See him and RZA discuss it.
With all that inspiration, Brunston was fired up. When RZA challenged me to a game (he's always challenging any chess master who shows up and we've played may times" I offered up Brunston as a warm-up. RZA has no official ranking, but i put him at 1700-1800 on the USCF scale of 100-3000. Brunston just graduated from the beginner section and is in the 600s. According to the stats, Brunston's chances were between 0 and 1%.
The game started with RZA playing casually as Black, and Brunston following my teaching as White. RZA figured he could beat the kid easily and concentrated exclusively on the queenside, where he seemed to have a huge advantage. But Brunston play like a master and utterly destroyed RZA'a position. Unfortunately, RZA's king proved too tempting a target and Brunston overplayed the position and lost. Up to that point, however, he was playing like a master in front of not only his teacher, but Emory Tate as well. it was perhaps the best game he ever played, and he found some very sophisticated subtle moves that I never expected from him.
For a 10 year old to have such experiences all in one day is a wonderful thing and as his teacher I was immensely proud of him. It was also good to see him enjoying his day in an inner-city school surrounded by many kids from a culture he doesn't see in his suburban environment. It was quite obvious that race and ethnicity held absolutely no importance. Unfortunately, many of the parents of my other students refused to let their kids go to this event because they were scared by the image of hip-hop culture. We need a lot more encounters like this, and I'm proud that they hip-hop chess Federation, which I serve as chief arbiter (referee) and resident Chess master, is working to address the residual problems of race and culture in America.
It is also rewarding to see that good people like Adisa Banjoko can manage to collect enough sponsorship to put this event on. In the current economic climate this is increasingly difficult, and we will have to work hard to put together RZA's title defense as HHCF champion in the fall. Our plan is to bring the event to the half Moon Bay pumpkin Festival which draws huge crowds of people who are mostly financially comfortable and probably have not had much contact with either hip-hop or mixed martial arts, though our chess area at the annual festival has always been fully attended.
bringing people together from diverse cultures is essential to realize the dream of our nations founders and great leaders. It opens up opportunities for people from cultures that are not at the top of the financial pyramid.
I just wanted to share this positive moment with you. We all need good news once in a while.