Boxing Out

Frank Kipp and his brother Thomas are doing a huge service to the Blackfeet reservation. They’ve opened up a fully equipped boxing club smack-dab in the middle of the harshest part of town. Surrounded by a public housing development that everyone on the rez calls “the Flintstones” because of its subprimitive, cartoonish look, the Kipp brothers teach boxing and fitness in a formerly derelict warehouse building they refurbished themselves. While Blackfeet kids are literally right outside their front door trying to get a local chapter of the Bloods gang off the ground, Frank and Tom are teaching good kids how to smash people’s faces in the name of self-defense. Here in Browning, fighting skills are essential.