Chess was the passion of his brother Héctor and the pride of his parents, who took them both to classes in the afternoons and to tournaments over the weekend, but he never got hooked. “They stuck a lot in my eyes and that, for a child, can be very good or very bad. I started at three years old and ended up tired, for a long time I stopped playing. What always caught my attention was boxing », recalls Jonathan Rodríguez about the path that led him to rarity: he is the only Spaniard who has twice played a World Cup of chessboxing . A chess round, which lasts four minutes, a boxing round, three minutes long, and so on until the KO or checkmate, it doesn't matter. But let's go back to the beginning. Of all.

«As a teenager I was fascinated by those men who hit each other without rhyme or reason, I did not understand why they did it, I was curious, even though I saw it very difficult. One day I went to a gym in León and I started training in scanning because my parents did not want to. They preferred chess, of course, ”says Rodríguez about his adventures in the ring where he was one step away from being a professional. At just over 20 years old, in 2008 and 2009 he got on the podium of the Spanish Middleweight Championship and was ready to jump when an injury cut everything short. Everything? Well, a call from the Castilla y León Federation would open a second door for you.

In 2003, a Dutch artist based in Germany, Iepe Rubingh , came up with a performance inspired by a comic: he would unite the supposedly most cerebral sport and the supposedly most physical sport in one. It was a complaint against prejudice, an exercise for reflection, but soon the idea got out of hand. He opened a gym in Berlin, found many interested people, and since his field was art, he began to sneak chessboxing matches at festivals and exhibitions. She arrived in Spain in 2009, in Salamanca. At the Arts Festival she organized an evening and the Castilla y León Boxing Federation helped her find participants. Only one thing was needed: that the selected fighters also knew how to play chess.

"See the board at high pulsations"

«And I was amused by the invention. It had been an eternity without playing chess, but I practiced a little, I fought with an Asturian boxer, I won and they invited me to a stage in Berlin to learn more about chessboxing . The truth is that they were very prepared there, mixing boxing and chess sessions to get used to seeing the board at high pulses, "says Rodríguez, who would soon have his chance in the new discipline. As Rubingh observed in various concentrations that he had gifts, that he was able to think about the chess minutes after the exchange of blows, he offered to participate in the World Cup.

In 2013, in Moscow, he faced the German Sven Rooch and in 2014, in Berlin, he disputed the rematch. Both times he lost due to errors on the board. «In chessboxing the most difficult thing is for the brain to work in chess, but I think that boxers can achieve this with training. In boxing, after all, you spend all your time thinking, there is not much difference », analyzes Rodríguez, who now works as a boxing coach at the Municipal Sports School of León and thinks about, someday, organizing an event of chessboxing in Spain.

From India to Berlin

By then, yes, perhaps the sport has already changed. Last May, Rubingh, who was an inventor, president of the International Federation and chessboxing practitioner , died at the age of 45 from a heart attack and the entire specialty, which depended on him, staggered. To the rescue, several leaders from India have appeared, a country where the mix of boxing and chess has permeated, especially in the most humble neighborhoods of cities such as Calcutta and especially among young girls. It also maintains a certain pull in some gyms in Berlin and in several former Soviet countries, where the last world champions have come from.

«It seems like a geek invention, but in reality it is a very interesting sport. For me boxing and chess are very similar because they push the limits of the mind. Also, it is useful to destroy stereotypes. Boxing is not violent and chess is not nerd. The chessboxing demonstrated, "concludes Rodriguez, now retired, who says that has once again returned to park your board. Chess, after all, was the passion of his parents and his brother, his was boxing, although in the end he managed the strange feat of putting it all together and getting to play - twice - a World Cup.

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