The Glowing Edge » Boxing

I Love to Fight

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:39:26 +0000

You knew this. I knew this. But periodically I’m reminded.

Last night I went 4 rounds (at the end of my workout, I must add, because I’m vain. Also a masochist.) with a good friend and freaking awesome sparring partner at my boxing gym.

Sinclair is a phenomenal peer coach; he’s forever smiling and goofing around with the kids, and yet he moves so fast on the bags and in the ring you’ll wonder if he’s real, and not just a ghost. You punch, he’s not there. Except for that blinding mouthguard-enhanced grin.

He also spontaneously breaks out and dances. In the ring, in the gym. He just a dancin’ kinda guy. I love Sinclair.

And yesterday he offered to give me some rounds in the ring and I took them before he could change his mind.

All my joy comes out when I fight well, but with someone like Sinclair, it comes out even if I’m tired and draggin’ ass, which I was.

Somewhere in the middle of the second round, Sinclair did a little stutter step, looked off to the left, and before I could pivot he nailed me with a gorgeous stiff right. I stopped in shock — not because the right stung (it did), but because the whole combination was so unexpected and… so pretty! So danceable! And damned effective.

I immediately demanded that he do it again.

Well of course he loved that. He laughed and took me to the whupin’ shed again. And this time I tried to watch for it, but he still caught me. Fast boy.

I made him stop, of course, and insisted he show me the move. He did, patiently demonstrating several times and encouraging me to try it.

I got it in my mind, we bumped gloves and circled, I launched my offensive and waited for my opening.

Whoop, I slipped it in, and found myself reeling from his counterpunch. I say counter punch, but he actually anticipated my tricky new move and prevented it! That wily rat. Taking advantage of a mere uneducated girl. (See what cards I pull when I want my way?)

I shouted my outrage, and dug in for a battle.

He told me to bring it, and I did. What I had left, anyway. I caught him once or twice with a power right (my fave) and a couple of inside shots in the clinch, but I held off on the tricky new move, instead opting for what I knew worked.

That and any other slop I had left.

He shouted for our coach to come over and watch just as the bell for the fourth round sounded.

Crap. Tired as I was, I scraped the bottom of the barrel and dove back in. I had one goal: pull the new trick in front of Coach Massey and give Sinclair a little party favor to remember me by.

And I did it!

I was so overjoyed at catching him clean that I turned around in the ring (don’t ever do that, boys and girls) and demanded acknowledgement from Coach Massey. Sinclair was laughing his head off behind me.

Massey tried not to grin. “You need to sell that move better,” he commented dryly. “You got to look off in the direction you’re stepping off in. Make him believe it. Then the right.”

I sighed happily, and plowed back into my round.

Massey had 6 succinct words for me, as I staggered out of the ring.

“You gotta get in ring shape.”

He’s right. I’ve been out, maintaining “normal athlete” fitness levels, but ring fitness is a totally different level, and after my last fight, I took a break from it for a season.

But damn, people, it just feels so good to fight.

It’s it’s own motivation, truly.

If you’re thinking about boxing with any kind of seriousness, I hope you find a great gym, a great trainer, and an incredible sparring partner like Sinclair.

There’s plenty of joy in there for you, too.

Image: That’s me in the gold and black, fighting in Atlanta (my second fight).

Sustaining Damage During Sparring

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:39:39 +0000

A boxing sparring session is radically different than an actual match. If I had to choose between the two, sparring wins every time. It can be unbelievably beautiful to watch, particularly when the two boxers agree — implicitly or explicitly — to maintain a certain flow, to match and challenge each other but not overwhelm.

You see this kind of beauty in many professional fights, although not as much in amateurs since both fighters are jazzed on nerves and gunning for the knockout. It’s rarely as controlled.

Dave G. sent me the link to this incredible sparring session between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Vanes Martirosyan, and I’ve watched it several times now, just soaking up how fabulous it is.

But it’s clearly between pros who are at the top of their game and ungodly strong. Did you see all those uppercuts Martirosyan landed? Holy sh*t. Of course he got his nose bloodied by Chavez, but I’d rather have the bloody nose than have to take those punishing uppercuts.

And these guys are working for the cameras… This is not your average-Joe sparring session. (I’m fighting the urge to add “Do not try this at home, kids.”)

Dave asked a question about sparring, as well:

What is the damage you sustain after an average sparring session?

I sustained a bloody nose and again a bruised lip this week. Since a lot of the fighters matching my skill don’t show up anymore, it’s slim pickings. People tend to drop out a lot in martial arts I noticed. Anyway, if I want to spar I have no choice but to fight against the competitive fighter who is always around. I outweigh him about 30 pounds, but he sure is fast.

I am aware that you seldom get out unscathed from a session, maybe I should switch to headgear with a nose guard but those seem way too bulky.

I’d love to hear your take on this!

The main injuries are fairly simple.

I often have a headache the next day after a hard sparring match, but it’s usually treatable with an ibuprofen or three. I don’t really count that as an injury, but it’s part of the package.

My single most common issue is bruised lips, which isn’t surprising, since your lips and nose are the least protected parts of your face when you’re wearing headgear.

I have a friend (Hi, Eric!) who seems to get nosebleeds a lot, and that’s not too unusual for the same reason. We both hate the headgear with the bar across the face because they are so bulky and they obstruct your vision more, but it’s an option.

The black eyes are less common, but I’ve had a few. I would guess that heavyweights get them more than lightweights like me; our punches just don’t pack the same kind of power. I got every single one of my black eyes when sparring with a heavyweight partner.

I also got my broken rib during sparring, but that was more unusual. I’ve only seen that happen two other times in the years I’ve been boxing.

There are several things that go into determining how much injury you commonly get during a sparring session.

The weight match of the sparring partners. I typically expect bigger partners to control their shots so that I don’t get hurt, but it doesn’t always happen that way.
How hard you both agree to work. It’s best if you can be explicit, but sometimes you think you have an agreement, but one person starts to increase their power. You have to continue to communicate — either with words or with force — or you can get in trouble here…
Experience level (whether or not you have good control of your punches). Newbies are notorious for causing damage, but more experienced boxers should be able to move faster and avoid the damage. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.
What kind of gear you’re wearing. Like I mentioned, I hate the face-savers, but I love a no-foul. You can see that both boxers in the video above are wearing groin protectors and both of them got shots that landed on them. These take the edge off rib shots, too, not to mention the dreaded liver shot.
The number and length of rounds you spar. I like being a part of a team session where we’re trading off rounds; you can endure for longer and get a lot of learning in. But there’s great value in sparring the same number and length of rounds you do in a fight, too. I almost never get to do this since I’m usually the only woman in the gym, and men’s rounds are 3 minutes rather than 2. But when I’m getting ready for a match I insist on 2 minute rounds so I can get used to the rhythm.
What kind of trainer you have. Sometimes one or another coach who is overseeing the sparring is out for blood, and is urging their fighter to rip you to shreds. I hate being in that situation, but I’ve definitely been there. I try to avoid this kind of session and this kind of trainer; I don’t respond well to being screamed at. But you do see it in boxing gyms, that’s for sure.

The truth is that I try to avoid bad sparring matches, although I’ve had a few, and I will go out of my way to set up sessions with partners I know I can trust and get the best work with. I’ll travel to another gym if I can’t get good sparring where I am, and I really try to maintain good relationships with several area gyms so that I can do this.

I also don’t spar all that frequently, since it’s pretty hard on the body. At my last gym we sparred every Friday, and you better believe there were plenty of people who showed up once or twice for a Friday, then dropped out completely or only came on other team nights.

There’s a huge (huge!) difference between training for boxing and actually boxing, and it’s definitely a big hurdle for people. I completely understand why lots of people would not want to spar; I really do. It’s not for everyone.

But I think it could be for more people if gyms would set the right tone, and help make the matches better.

I’d love to hear what everyone else has to say; leave a comment below and let’s mix it up!

Boxing After 40 With a Bad Shoulder

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:25:56 +0000

I took 6 weeks off of boxing lately, mostly just to rest, focus on work, and give myself a break after my last fight.

I’m not crazy, though — I kept up my runs and weights at home. I just didn’t do any boxing-specific work. No heavy bag, no sparring, no punching drills. I didn’t even show my nose at the gym.

When I went back for the first time this week I carefully stayed out of the classes that were training in the gym and did my own slow and careful workout: warm-up, shadowboxing, 10 rounds on the heavy bag.

The next two days showed me the muscles I had not been training while out of boxing: forearms, lats (although I swear I did lats!!), and some obliques. Also my neck was sore from carrying all the tension of the first workout back.

But amazingly, my shoulders were good.

I’ve had chronic bursitis in my hips and shoulders for as long as I can remember.

You gotta have shoulders to box.

You gotta have everything, I guess, but I never would have guessed that I could actually find work-arounds for the issues I have to deal with in my body’s performance, and still box well.

I was over 40 when I started this sport, and I was astonished that I could box well even though my hip joint issues meant I couldn’t run distance (for me, that means more than 4 miles).

Now I’m learning that I don’t have to punish my shoulder joints, either, in order to compete in the ring.

At first I sweated hard to learn to do dozens of standard push-ups, along with burpees, pull-ups, and the other shoulder-intense exercises. For several years I dealt with a level of everyday pain that I thought I would have to live with, if I was going to box.

Then I tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder (doing unassisted pull-ups), requiring 3 months of physical therapy and a lot of time out of the ring. That shoulder became — and still is — the single body part I most have to favor.

My physical therapist — a pro fighter a few years older than me — told me to cut back on the heavy shoulder work. “You’ll still box just fine,” she assured me. And I decided to test it out.

So I stopped obsessing about building the number of push ups I could do, and I started re-working my personal training workouts.

And my pain levels started to recede…

But the real challenge is in what to do when the whole team is working out together.

I began by thinking up a few alternate exercises.

For example, when the team is doing entire rounds of toe-taps on the medicine ball, I do steps instead, which hurt my hips less. When the team is doing burpees, I do deep lunges instead. If the command is for 50 standard push ups, I’ll do knee push ups.

It’s extremely difficult to be doing something different from everyone else on the team, but I try to tell myself that I’m 46 and they are 20, and I’m allowed. I can still meet them with a nasty-ass right when the bell rings.

This one single thing — not doing what everyone else is doing — is the absolute hardest part of my sport. I must have a big pride thing going on, because I absolutely *hate* having to do my own thing. But I’ve finally decided to do it anyway.

And I’ve found that my results in the ring are just as good, which is why I am sticking with it.

The second thing I’ve changed is to lower the weights, reps, and impact.

If the call is for 50 arm lifts with weights, I’ll do 30, or lighten the weight. I don’t shadow box with 5-pound weights, I use 1-pounders instead. Believe me, I could do all this stuff full-bore before, but I paid a heavy price in pain levels and injuries.

And there was simply no need to do that.

The third thing I’ve done is test the time limits.

By testing, I’ve found that I can do as many 1 minute (not 3 minute) sets of toe-taps as everyone else and still be relatively pain-free.

I’ve been working actively on that particular exercise, so I haven’t yet tested 2 minute rounds, but the 1 minute rounds are solid.

I can’t change all my time limits, but I change the ones that hit my hips and shoulders the worst. Amazingly, sparring is not affected at all. Which is probably further proof — if I needed it — that just because I’m not starting every workout with 100 push-ups doesn’t mean I am going to suck in the ring.

When I was back in the gym this week for the first time in 6 weeks, I was struck by how many shoulder-intense exercises both training groups were doing.

One coach had the team doing literally hundreds of dips, followed by alternating-hand push-ups on a medicine ball. (If you start with your left hand on the ball and your right hand on the floor, you do a push-up, then shift quickly so that your right hand is now on the ball and your left is on the floor. Repeat. It takes balance, speed, and lots of shoulder strength.) Anyone who fell behind was assigned 50 more push-ups.

That session would have been a total loss for me.

As it was, I did my own workout, which involved exactly zero dips or push-ups. I’ll put some of those in there as I get going again, but it will be far less than those guys are doing.

In the end, my lesson has been — once again — that I have to know my own body and look out for myself. Even in the face of pressure from a coach or the team.

So I’m passing it along to you. Boxing is an incredible, joy-giving, empowering sport and with a basic level of fitness, you can do it. Even if you’re over 40. Even if you have cranky hips and shoulders. You can do it!

And so can I.

Image by walleydog

Holly Holm’s KO Fight Has Dangerous Ref (and Bad Corner)

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:45:09 +0000

The Holly Holm (30-2-3, 9-KOs) vs Anne Sophie Mathis (26-1, 22-KOs) “World Dominance” fight is bothering me, and it should bother everyone with a stake in professional boxing.

Both of these phenomenal, world-class boxers fought well and did absolutely nothing wrong. However, referee Rocky Burke and Holm’s corner were not only neglectful, but dangerous.

Holm is a punch-and-move technical boxer with tremendous foot speed, and Mathis is an out-and-out powerhouse brawler with a knockout right. It was an outstanding match-up, and the first five rounds were incredible.

In the fifth, Holm seemed to move less and trade more bombs, and the damage began to pile up on her. The ref called Mathis for rabbit punches (which can take a serious toll), but that was apparently his last good call.

In the sixth, Mathis dropped Holm to the canvas, and after FAILING to issue a count, the ref let a weaving, disoriented Holm face further mauling from Mathis.

At the bell, Holm’s corner had their first opportunity to make a exit plan, but they didn’t, as far as I can tell.

The seventh round was a travesty — not at all what good boxing should be.

Holm had no more legs, and mostly swayed and staggered, with her head drooping and guard wide, just taking shot after shot from Mathis.

At one point Holm was beat back into the ropes and actually became entangled, hanging drunkenly as Mathis ripped into her, tearing open a gash on her cheekbone before the ref finally made his way over to help Holm out of the ropes, propping her upright and signaling the fighting to resume.

Mathis unleashed two rights in a row on the incoherent Holm, putting her through the ropes and nearly onto the judges’ table. She was pushed back into the ring where she rolled to her side, completely limp, blood streaming from her face.

In the photo below you can see that Holm is still having to hold herself up by draping an arm over the ropes, even as she finally receives attention from her team.

Mathis behaved impeccably. There was no jeering, parading, or trumpeting over the fallen Holm. Mathis won the fight and deserves the title; of that there is no question.

Holm did her best to do what her inattentive corner left her in there to do. I can understand their decision to let it go in the sixth, but why they allowed their fighter to be brutalized in the seventh, when she clearly couldn’t protect herself, return a shot, or even hold herself upright, is unimaginable.

The ref failed her utterly. I don’t even have words for him.

Holly’s post-loss press video is heartbreaking…

The fiasco has garnered some press, but of course since it’s a women’s fight there won’t be nearly the outrage that there should be.

The thing I’m most curious about is what Holm’s conversations with her trainers and corner were like, in the privacy of their own gym, after the initial devastation of the fight was past…

I hate when fights are called too early, but in this case there was no doubt in my mind that serious mistakes were made, and that a fighter’s life was needlessly endangered, both by the ref and by the corner.

I know boxing is a tough sport, and people get hurt. But there’s a line, and this one went well past it.

What do you think?

Boxing Win in Wilmington

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:40:38 +0000

I had my first fight with my Second Round team in Wilmington.

It’s always a toss-up, fighting Masters, as to whether I’ll actually get an opponent. I weighed in at an event last month and my opponent didn’t show. Women over the age of 35 who want to compete in the ring are few and far between, then there is the further narrowing of the field because of weight class, experience level, geography, and the random unexpected injuries, family demands and other contingencies.

Because it’s so difficult to get opponents, my goal has become to get one fight every year. Last year got checked off with my October fight. (The December fight was classified “exhibition” and doesn’t count toward my goal.) This year got checked off with my fight in March. I’m feeling a little gleeful to have met and exceeded my goal for this year now!

My opponent got connected for this match through a coach in Wilmington about 3 weeks ago. He had let my coach know she was light and we’d have to get our weights closer in order to get the match. I got down from 142 to 135 and I think she came up from 125 to 132. And she drove 6 hours from Virginia to be at the event; I only had to drive two hours.

We both arrived just before weigh-ins were scheduled to begin. There were only 6 women out of the 44 total boxers fighting at this event, and only one Masters bout; I picked her out immediately. She was really beautiful, and just a bit shorter than me. I smiled and spoke to her. Not everyone wants to chat with their opponent in advance of a match, but she was entirely polite. We made weight, turned in our passbooks, and parted ways to wait out the endless, miserable hours of the day until we could get our fight.

I love pretty much everything about boxing except the day of a fight.

Well, and cutting or gaining weight; those both suck, but they are at least bearable. The endless hours of waiting for a tiny, six minute test of your skill and power are excruciating.

Everyone has different tricks and coping mechanisms, but there’s no escaping the endless circus of weigh-ins, passbooks, medicals, getting your food/liquid intake right and timed, sitting for hours in metal folding chairs, finding a bathroom (this one didn’t have toilet paper), constantly tamping down your anxiety, keeping an eye on the time, meeting your opponent, staying limber, and maintaining sanity in the loud din of the crowd.

Every time I go through it I take a paperback to read, but this never helps. There are too many things you must pay attention to during the long hours of waiting. Even having my Shuffle (finally got the playlist right — the quiet stuff from my exhibition fight had failed at fight #2 in Atlanta, so I went back to hard rock) didn’t help much, because I constantly had to take out my earbuds to answer questions, find out what I was expected to do next, help someone find scissors, etc., etc., etc.

Finally I dressed out and sat for my coach to wrap my hands. I normally love this ritual, but in this case, I was wracked with anxiety because my fight got moved up at the last minute so I felt late, after all that damn waiting. I straddled my metal chair, draped my arms over the back where Coach Massey could reach them, and spent the next 15 minutes staring at the bright silver dog tag on his chest. It says “One Bad Jab.” It was his ring name, from his pro fighting days.

“Do you miss fighting?” I asked him.

“Hell, no,” he responded, laughing and flashing his gold tooth. For just a moment I felt entirely aligned with his sentiment. Why would anyone want to go through this misery on a regular basis?

“I miss sparring though,” he continued, and I nodded in understanding. All the guts and joy of boxing without the hellish hours of a fight day.

Once you’re wrapped and gloved, you become entirely dependent on your coaches. I had to ask Coach Mandy to find my headband and put it on me for the short period before my match. She gave me a drink of water. She found my mouthpiece (in my sock — this is a great place to keep it in the hour before you fight, btw) and checked my laces.

I made my usual joke: “I need to go to the bathroom,” I said as I stretched out and began to move. The big gloves make this impossible, unless you have a reeeeeallly close friend.

“Can’t help you there,” she said quickly, and we both laughed a little.

I continued to chatter nervously, almost mindlessly: what I should remember, how I should move; combos, tactics, offenses and defenses.

At some point she stopped me quietly with a hand over my gloves.

“You’ve already trained for this,” she reminded me. “You’re overthinking it. Just let your body perform.”

She was absolutely right, and it was the perfect advice, the best possible thing I could have heard.

The match before mine was finishing. I stood ringside amid the din of screaming onlookers as the two fighters ahead of me battled. I couldn’t hear Coach Massey’s advice anymore. He held pads for me but I couldn’t hear the combos. I shuffled like an anxious racehorse, frustration rising in me.

Finally, the closing bell.

Massey held one pad. “Gimme the power,” he said, “Jab, right.”

I sighed in deep relief. If there is one thing I can do, this is it. My jab was fierce, and the right was at full-scale knockout level. It was like a pistol shot: bip-BAM.

“Again.”

Bip-BAM. Bip-BAM! I could hear it echo in the rafters.

“Keep going.”

Six more combos in a row I gave him, every one as perfect and loud and solid. He grinned and shook his head, and his gaze did a slow circle of the crowd around us; all eyes were now on us.

Later I realized that the eyes of my opponent were probably also on us. Massey knew what he was doing, letting me show my power like that. Letting me go in confident in my own strength.

Outside of the actual fight, it was the best moment of my entire night.

I rolled under the ropes and felt the deep satisfaction of the ring settle around me. Time to do what I do.

My opponent surged out with a flurry. I tapped out measuring jabs and began to circle, assessing what I was up against. It’s probably better to go ahead and claim the early part of the first round, but I wasn’t really expecting such a long, light string of flurries. She had punches in bunches, no doubt.

It didn’t take me long to see what I would be doing. Her hands were busy, but she was staying squared up a bit, giving me a sweet little pipeline down the center to her face. An invitation to my power right.

Bip-BAM, bip-BAM, bip-BAM. Yep, those were actually gonna work.

My jabs weren’t connecting every time, but my rights were absolutely solid, and every single one was on target. I suppressed my glee and put my brain back in gear. She was not bringing pain, but she might be scoring with the sheer number of shots she was throwing.

In the amateurs it doesn’t matter if you can throw a bomb; a hard hit scores the same as a medium hit, so long as it connects. Bombs are intimidating, but they aren’t 3-pointers.

I had to shut down her scoring machine. I clinched, got my arm around the back of her head and squeezed and leaned, hard. The ref nearly decked me himself, breaking the clinch and yelling at me for my patently illegal move. But it broke the onslaught and didn’t cost me. They’ll warn you before they take a point.

I glanced over to see how my opponent was taking it. Her face was flushed from the power rights already. I absolutely had to keep her on the end of my jab and prevent her inside game.

She rushed back out and we worked hard to the end of the round.

At the break both of my coaches told me I was ahead, but I wasn’t confident about it. I knew I wasn’t moving my feet and I thought the judges might be counting her shots higher, even though they were coming mostly from the sides. I felt like I’d only taken one or two solid shots to my head — nearly everything else was on my arms and shoulders, which meant my guard was good, but I wasn’t moving around enough.

The second round was where I began to rely on Coach Massey’s strategy. Once you’re in and have tried your game, it’s unbelievably helpful to have someone calling your shots and guiding you through the hard mental work while you do the physical work.

My attempts at longer combos were not scoring all the way through; my hooks often missed because I wasn’t getting in position and getting them off before she moved. She was fast, and seemed to throw four and five shots at a time.

Massey 86′d my hooks. “Straighten it out,” he called from my corner. “Give me the straight right….Thank you.”

The right was scoring and I still had all bars in my power meter. I wasn’t gassed. My feet were not moving, but my one-two continued to hold the fort.

She was slowing and starting to pant. The left side of her face was beginning to swell. I felt like a robot, an automatron, an idiot on repeat. Surely I could do something besides this, surely. Lord I wanted finesse, grace! I wanted to move less like a wooden toy; I wanted to show beauty as well as power. Why can’t I be pretty in the ring??

“Go to the body,” Massey called from the corner.

I sent up a mental thank you, and suddenly had something new to do.

“Double the jab,” he called, and I did. I did lots of things, but there was one thing that worked every time…

At the round break, I had the feeling we were going change gears. I don’t remember what either of my coaches said (other than their reassurance that I was still ahead), I mostly only recall going back out, still feeling slow but strong.

Massey held me back, over and over again, with a steady call of “Wait for her…” She was struggling now, and I could stand and deliver. If I could time it just right each time, she would come forward into my shots.

“Don’t advance,” he warned, “Hold…”

It was hard, because I felt I had to advance to score, but he was right, she was coming and with a surge of joy I realized I was beginning to see her shots arriving. Midway through the third I ducked a spectacular all-in jab-right, and she went sailing past me; the crowd roared. Belatedly I realized I should have come up with a quick left hook.

I sighed inwardly. Someday I may finally put all the pieces of this game together, but not today. Today I was a particularly skilled kindergartener, and my rights would have to carry the day.

And they did.

My opponent was wonderful. She never quit, she barreled forward and burned energy at a ferocious rate. She threw far more combos than I did. She didn’t let the hard power put her out. She gave game to the very last bell.

I deeply respect that. ANY woman — or man, for that matter — willing to go through what a competitive boxer goes through deserves the title Bad Ass. Sara (I never heard her last name), I salute you. You were awesome.

I was happy to be handed the gold medal, and once again I was stunned at my instant “I want to do this again” response, even though I’d spent the 24 hours before my glorious 6 minutes in pure anguish.

There’s no rational explanation.

Only the challenge to be better. Only the relentless push to master my body and make it perform in concert with my brain in the complex intricacies of this sweet science.

And the sheer, brutal pleasure of a fight.

Image: Coach Willie “One Bad Jab” Massey with me after the win. Thanks to Cathy Linkous for the photo!

Getting Ready for the Next Fight: Cutting Weight and Mental Prep

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:15:45 +0000

Next fights are always iffy, partly because it’s boxing, and also because I’m in the Masters (over 35), and female. There just don’t seem to be that many of us out there.

I went to weigh-ins for a match a month or so ago and didn’t get an opponent, which is fairly standard in boxing. In fact, 12 of my team went, and only 6 got matches.

This time I am a bit more hopeful, but I’m keeping my expectations tamped down. I’ll be very pleased to get the match if it does come through, but it will not be a huge deal if it doesn’t.

My opponent weighs 125, which means I’ve been cutting weight, which is miserable, since I’m already on a clean diet and normally fairly light (142). But I’ve been managing, and I hope to weigh in at 136 if I possibly can this weekend. If she’s gained at least a few pounds we’ll be in range and the match will be on.

I was chatting with Amy Scheer about this and told her about the weird rule in boxing (not all jurisdictions follow it) that you can’t weight in 1. Unshaven — no beard or ‘stache, boys, or 2. In jeans or pants. I told her that I plan to weigh in in my lightest ever undies, shorts, and a tank.

To cut the weight, I’ve mostly chosen to eliminate sugars and processed carbs. No Cheetos (aaaaugh!). Goodbye to my periodic slice of whole grain toast. Tortilla chips reduced to 6 at any given time (I love hot salsa). No popcorn with the family (they have it all the time). No bread. No pasta. Bread and pasta were already nearly non-existent, anyway. Nothing processed or canned.

Even the sweeter fruits are gone — apples, oranges, and most bananas. Only raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and cherries remain right now.

I’m eating a ton of raw broccoli, almonds, bell peppers, fresh asparagus, lean meat, onion, spinach, egg whites, plain yogurt, cottage cheese with berries, almonds, smoothies…

And I’m adding more green tea and oolong tea. I drink at least 3 cups a day now.

I’m still fantasizing about what I want to eat after the fight. Hot fresh donuts are currently leading. (Hellllllooooo, fast carbs!)

And I learned something new from Amy as I described my eating plan and we discussed particular food choices. In addition to choosing the right foods and maintaining an excruciatingly careful timeline of eating every day (to avoid the insulin spikes), I told her about one cutback issue I’ve been aware of and successfully dealing with this time around.

There’s only a difference of degree between dieting and starving. When your leptin levels drop (because you’ve cut back calories, which I’m doing right now) so does your metabolism and fat-burning ability. It usually happens after a week of dieting. Leptin is doing it’s job to make sure you have enough fat and energy to survive. That’s not good when I want to cut weight.

So I have to increase leptin levels in order to convince my body I’m not actually starving.

Amazingly, this can be done with a whopper of a treat. It takes a week of cutting to drop leptin levels by half, but only one “overfeed” to bring them back up. So a hunk of greasy pizza, some mac n cheese, a coupla Reese’s PB cups — but only once a week, and not crazed. The point is to give your body a good dose of carbs and fat together and your leptin goes back up to normal levels.

Amy mentioned that this was called “Carb Cycling,” which I had heard of, but didn’t know what it was. I used my formidable Google skillz and discovered she was right.

The other thing I’ve been doing is following my normal mental prep plan.

This really only has three steps:

1. Envision all the women I see in the course of my day as a potential opponent.

I look at the women in the gym, in the grocery store, at the park and everywhere, and I size them up. Rarely do I immediately dismiss any of the women I see as potential opponents. If they are three times heavier than me, I think about how I will have to be fast in order to avoid their power hits. If they look small and quick, I run through my defenses against the inside game. If they have big biceps I go over my own strengths and brace myself for a slugfest.

This seems to really help with the shock of seeing your opponent for the very first time.

2. Work through a round or two of boxing in my mind as I go to sleep each night.

I imagine my opening moves, my defense, and my general energy level. I replay certain things over and over again, and make myself quick, strong, and mentally on my game. I try to go to sleep boxing well.

3. Radio silence at all other times.

It doesn’t help me to focus too much on the upcoming match. I just get worked up and have a hard time focusing on other things, like my full-time work, family, or the crazy eating plan I have to be on. So I maintain mental white noise on the boxing channel, which helps keep this whole event from draining energy.

And that’s it! That’s my plan, and it’s what I’m going with.

How do you get ready for a big event? Do you have a plan you follow, or do you just do everything on the fly?

Images by Peter Gordon and Ravensmagiclantern

Two Schools of Padwork in Boxing

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:19:51 +0000

I’m a “train for what you are going to do” kind of person.

Yes, I put in road and trail work, stadium stairs, jump rope, and so on, and none of those things are what I actually do when I roll into the boxing ring. They do give my muscles the kind of balance that only comes from cross-training, as well as a foundation of good cardio conditioning.

However.

And this is a big however…

I do most of my non-boxing-specific training in boxing rounds.

For example, here’s one of my current favorite workouts. All the work (except for the mile) is done in three minute rounds with 30 second recovery periods. And even that I sometimes do in three minute bursts, like a fartlek run, with 30 second recoveries.

Three rounds stairs
Three rounds hurdles (The hurdles are so intense I actually don’t make it continually through 3 minutes yet)
Three rounds jump rope
One mile to finish (are you happy I didn’t say “to recover” like your coach does? Heh.)

The point is to work hard for 3 minute segments and recover in 30 seconds, and then do it again — because that’s what you do in the boxing ring.

So I see these guys doing incredibly lengthy memorized padwork routines and I think, this doesn’t help me. It looks super-shonuff cool, it does! But it doesn’t look like what I end up doing in the ring.

I hear the arguments that it develops fast hands and punches in bunches, but the situation seems so forced. You memorize a sequence and move through it (like a kata in martial arts). But in boxing you aren’t throwing 32 punches in a single offensive. You have to think, watch your opponent, strategize on the fly.

Maybe I’m just jealous. I don’t have those long combos memorized, and they do seem to carry some cool cred in gyms. I wanna be cool, just like other people.

But I’m gonna stick with training that looks and feels like actual boxing. Check out the video below. THIS is what I think padwork should look like.

One of the things I like about this padwork training session is that the trainer is not smacking down the punches; he lets the punches come to him. The two of them move, stay loose, and circle just like you would in a fight. It’s the real thing, not a show.

Well, okay, it IS a show, it’s part of a press conference, obviously, but you get the feeling that they actually train like this on a regular basis. You know, minus all the reporters crowding the ring.

Padwork is one of the things I love best in boxing.

You get one-on-one time with a trainer or peer who is working on your game, your form, your boxing. You don’t have to share a coach with dozens of other fighters when you’re doing padwork, and you don’t have to factor in a sparring opponent. It’s aaaaalll you, baby. Whipped cream with a cherry on top.

I don’t get much padwork, but when I do, I’m intensely grateful for it, particularly when I feel like it’s going to really move my game forward.

Image by icantu on Flickr

What You Should Know Before You Spar

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:14:03 +0000

I have written about what you can expect the first time you spar, but my friend Amy Scheer — also a boxer — recently asked me what I thought a new boxer should know before getting in the ring for the first time.

She also framed the question this way: Which Comes First, the Learning or the Doing? You should definitely click through and read about her experience. The post below is my response.

There are two schools of thought in boxing.

The first — and the one through which I came into boxing — says that you have to earn the right to get in the boxing ring.

The second says throw ‘em in, knock ‘em around, wait to see if they are “man” enough to come back for more.

I’m sitting here trying to think of a justification for the hard knocks school, and I can’t. I think it’s bullshit, to be honest. I think it’s usually a way for the guys who are already “in” to keep all the others out. It’s all about who’s king of the hill. A boy’s game, not even a man’s.

But the way I came in isn’t easy either. Anyone who has ever rolled under the ropes knows just how frightening it can be. You don’t know what will happen, how you will hold up; you may not even know who you’ll be in with and whether or not you can trust them. That’s why I say again and again that the single most important thing you can have going for you in boxing is an outstanding, trustworthy trainer.

A good trainer trumps everything else

From the outside, boxing looks like an individual sport, but that isn’t actually the case. Not only do you need a great trainer, you also need a crew of boxers around you to encourage, support, challenge, and work with you. But even if you don’t have a team, you must have that trainer.

My trainer made sure I had several things before I got in the ring for the first time. And since I had such an outstanding trainer and such a great experience coming in to the sport, I’ve naturally copied her in pretty much all of my basic approaches to boxing. (Any mistakes I make, however, are my own!)

A rant, before I move on

I need to get this out there. Putting two inexperienced boxers in the ring for the first time together is minimally useful at best (what can they possibly learn?), and dangerous at worst.

Would you ask someone who doesn’t know how to swim to get in the pool and help your child learn to swim? Of course not. That’s ridiculous.

Sure, they can both splash around in the shallow end and maybe they’ll be fine, but did they learn to swim? Did they gain skills? Have they moved forward?

About the only good thing you can say about that situation is that they both got to get in the water. How much better it would be if they both got to get in the water with someone who can teach them something and also keep them safe?

Okay. I feel a little better. Onward.

Have some basic conditioning

Before I began sparring, my trainer ensured I had a basic level of conditioning. I had come to her gym with what I thought was decent cardio (I’d been running regularly), but I didn’t realize that boxing is more like a series of hard, three-minute sprints rather than a lovely string of 10 minute miles.

She got my cardio up enough to make it through a single round my first time. Ever try to sprint for 3 minutes without stopping? Yep, that’s pretty much what it felt like.

She wanted to instill in me from the beginning a principle of boxing that sounds easy but is actually incredibly difficult: you fight until the bell rings. You don’t quit partway through. You come out working and you finish the round. Period.

Bonnie made sure I could go a round before she put me in for one.

Use your jab

Before I got in the ring for the first time I had a crappy but dogged jab.

I knew from repeated drills that a jab was the foundation for all of the punches in boxing. I didn’t yet know how to advance on the jab, but at least I had something to get out there in front of me so that I could force my opponent to stop an advance.

I know a jab can also be offensive, but most new boxers need some basic defense before they worry about offense; chances are that they’ll be in the ring for their first sparring experience with someone who is — hopefully — much better at boxing than they are. A solid jab will help protect you in this situation.

Keep your gloves up

It was the one piece of advice Amy got before she rolled into the ring for the first time, and it’s good advice. “Cover up,” her trainer said. “Protect yourself.”

This goes with a defensive jab; you need to bring that glove right back to your chin and keep it there, parallel to the other glove. It’s like having two big pillows in front of your face; they will deflect and dilute the power of a punch to your face.

It’s also good to keep your elbows in and your chin down, but that’s more advanced. Still, a tight guard is what you need for protection, because slips, ducks, and other evasive moves won’t come until later.

Never mind about footwork

I’d love to say that a first-time sparring student should have footwork, but it isn’t likely that they will. You might have practiced some footwork, and you should certainly understand the basics of stance, balance, and how to move without crossing your feet, but chances are that once you get in the ring for the first time all that will fly out the door and you will mostly forget about your feet because you just have too many other things screaming for your attention.

The four biggies, and knowing what’s coming

So there are basically four things I think a boxer should have before getting in the ring: a good, trustworthy trainer, some basic conditioning, a jab, and a tight guard (gloves up, chin down, elbows in).

The thing for a new boxer to know is that they are going to hit and be hit.

That is a crazy thing to get your head around for someone brand new to the sport; especially if they’ve never hit anyone in their entire lives up to that point.

Bonnie didn’t actually throw any punches at me the first time I was in the ring. She just let me throw them and feel what it was like to be in, moving hard, working my jab. The second time she threw easy punches, let me feel about half of her power. It was terrifying at first, but once I realized I could take it — and give it! — I was amazed. It was invigorating. I loved it!

Sticking with it

It got harder, of course, and I nearly always dreaded sparring nights, but I went.

Because I knew what every boxer knows after a while: you can work the drills and train for cardio all you want, but the real learning happens in the ring.

Image by Steve Tolcher

I LOVE Not Being the New Person in the Gym

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:54:46 +0000

It is so incredibly hard to claw your way up the learning curve — and I’d rather say the straight-up learning cliff — in boxing. You can put years into it, and still feel like a beginner.

But once you’ve gotten solid enough in boxing to get in the ring and spar (for me that took a few months), you’ve made it to the first big ledge. You can stand there for a minute and try to catch your breath.

Every time you spar is an exercise in overcoming fear, but it actually gets easier (did I just say that??) if you are doing it regularly with people you know and trust.

The next ledge up is your first official fight. What a life-changing experience. I was terrified for the ten days leading up to my first match, and the fear multiplied by about seven bazillion once I actually rolled under the ropes and took my place in the blue corner, waiting for that first bell to ring.

But once you get to this stage on your climb, it gets ever so much better, I promise. It is never, never easy — this is boxing, after all — but it does get less terrifying, and it’s that first fight that really makes a significant difference in your mental attitude about the fight sport you hate and love.

There’s a certain amount of boxing cred you get when you’ve been in the ring, particularly if you’ve had official fights. And that cred goes such a long way in helping overcome the natural suspicion and stress involved in shifting to a new gym, getting a new trainer, going to spar at another gym, or having another boxing team coming to spar with your team.

Twice this week I’ve enjoyed the peace that comes with not being the new kid in the gym.

On Wednesday I traveled up to NBS Gym to spar with Amy, who is a 25 year old technical writer who will kick your ass for you if you let her. Amy has had a couple of fights like I have and helps condition the team at NBS. I have sparred with her once before, and I really like getting ring work with her because she’s pretty near my weight (she’s actually 10 pounds lighter, so I actually have an advantage, which is nice for a change) and she has a fantastic, let’s-go-get-em attitude.

But the absolute best part of our work, which included me finally getting my first good sparring in a while, was that I wasn’t a bundle of nerves walking in this time.

I wasn’t a new boxer and I wasn’t unaccustomed to the ring. Damn, but that’s nice.

Last night I went to train at my own gym and noticed the same general effect.

I drifted in around 6 pm, and saw that there were three new guys training with a team boxer. A couple of my teammates were getting through their stretches and I fell in with them. After a few minutes, the coach put us all to shadowboxing 6 rounds together in front of the two old busted mirrors that are leaning against the cinderblock wall opposite our ring. The new kids were sloppy and tired by the end of the 6, which didn’t bode well for them. Shadowboxing is the warm-up.

And at the end of the 6 rounds, the coach called everyone over. “You, you, and you,” he said, jabbing his hand in the direction of each of the new guys. “Far end of the gym. Heavy bags. Work some jabs. Team, get on your circuit. You know the drill.”

The new kids eyed us enviously — and maybe with a little resentment — as we went our separate ways.

And I felt that silent thrill that I wasn’t banished to the shadows, and the parallel misery that comes with knowing that I would be working with no round breaks for the next 15 three-minute rounds under the eagle eye of the coach, being constantly evaluated, hounded, and corrected.

And it was miserably, damnably hard work. At the end of 15 rounds (heavy bag, angle bag, headache bag, rope ducks, and toe-touches on a medicine ball) with no round breaks (did I mention the “no breaks” part?), we were put into the ring for mitt work rounds. After which we were graciously allowed to rest by jumping rope for four rounds.

Thanks be to all the boxing deities that I can do this without puking.

It’s usually only the new kids who puke.

Hey! Boxing Training is Not Killing Me! Isn’t That Nice?

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:11:06 +0000

I took a month – five weeks, actually — off of boxing training this summer. I ran a time or two, hiked one week, but I was entirely out of the gym, out of the ring, just out, period. For multiple reasons which are blah blah blah.

So it was with some trepidation that I headed back to my gym last Wednesday; I was pretty sure payback would be a bitch.

I was actually quite relieved to walk in and see that Coach Massey wasn’t there. I figured I’d get to train on my own and sneeeeeak back into team training later.

Nice thought, anyway.

Another team boxer’s father was there — actually he’s always there; he’s a wrestling coach and has boxing chops as well — and as soon as I walked by him he told me to fall in with the other three or four members of the boxing team as soon as I had a chance to warm up a bit. I nodded agreeably, figuring I was still safe. This man almost never gets up from his position in the spectator’s chairs, although he does drive his kid pretty hard from the sidelines. Which has paid off, I might add — she has 7 national wrestling championships, and is fast rising in the boxing world as well: she’s 15 years old and soon she’ll be able to kick my ass with both hands tied behind her back. She might could do it now.

Tangent: Here’s a fascinating difference between Second Round, where I train now, and LA Boxing, where I used to train. At LA Boxing, if there were ever any parents there, they were there to make sure the coach was working hard. At Second Round, parents are there to make sure their kid is working hard. Interesting, no?

I stretched, jumped rope, and casually dropped in with my team for shadowboxing rounds. Six rounds later Coach Baker hollered for us to hit the stations near his chair and we dutifully lined up:

Heavy bag – Standard station – you punch it. Everyone knows the drill.
Angle bag – I really, really like this bag because it’s a bit lighter, therefore it swings around a lot so it’s easier to get good footwork, pivot, and slip practice.
Wrecking ball – Tough bag for me, ours feels too high (which is saying something, because at 5’8″ or so, I’m not short). I can easily duck under it, but have to strain to land uppercuts. Also I hate when it hits me in the head, which is why it’s also called the Headache bag.
Medicine ball – This is for toe touches. You stand and hop lightly from one foot to the other, touching the toes of one foot to the top of the 12-lb ball each time. We work all around the ball, toe-touching with the ball in front of us, behind us, and also hopping over it side to side. These are pretty hard for me; very strenuous.
Rope – We have a rope strung between two poles just below shoulder height. You have to duck quickly under it, throw a flurry, duck back under, throw another flurry. Pivot at the end, return with same. Don’t touch the rope, ever. Be fast.

On the face of it, these are actually pleasant stations — no sledgehammer, no sparring with one foot inside a tire, no sprints, no bazillions of push-ups or mountain-climbers. This is really not training hell. You stay at one station for 3 minutes, get your 30 second round break, then move to the next.

Just a nice quiet day at the beach, eh?

Maybe, for the first time through. But before we even began the first training round we learned that we weren’t going to get the 30 second recovery period — Coach Baker told us just to work through that.

Do you know how much I depend on that round break? How much I’m deeply, deeply in lust-need-desire with every one of those 30 seconds? Like a junkie, I love that break.

But truly, even without my (snif) 30 second round break, I was okay for the first 5 rounds through the stations. Even when Coach Baker told us there was no walking in the gym, and we were to run from one station to the next, I was okay.

The second 5 rounds was a bit more painful. Quite a bit.

And I may have cried on the third time through, but by that point it was hard to tell what was blood, what was sweat, and what was tears.

When he finally released us to our final 4 rounds of work — always jump rope at our gym — I had to stop myself from collapsing in sheer gratitude. Oh, thank you for jump rope rounds, thank you! What a merciful coach!!

Seriously, after 21 training rounds like that, jumping rope is a chance to breathe again. None of us had spoken during the rounds, there simply wasn’t enough oxygen for it. After 5 or six minutes on the ropes, we started to look around again, smile at each other. We’d survived it! There wasn’t much rope tricking (crossovers, sprints, fancy footwork); we were too fatigued. But we began to chat amiably and remember that we were humans. One nine-year-old, one 15-year-old, three seventeen-year-olds, and me (age forty-five). We made it.

And while I thought I might be in pretty bad shape the next day, I wasn’t! So I went in again on Friday and did the exact same training routine with six team members and Coach Baker again.

Except this time we only did 20 total rounds, rather than 25, glory hallelujah and pass the Gatorade.

And yes, during the jump rope rounds at the end on “easy” Friday, there was quite a bit of celebratory tricking.

Image by atoach on Flickr.