I have a wonderful friend who shifted her passion, not so very long ago, from weightlifting to boxing. Her name is Amy, and you may have met her here, as she’s frequently a part of the conversation.

Recently I received a beautiful email from Amy about a new dream being born in the community of her gym.

It reminded me a little of the Ignite Raleigh and Ignite Durham events I was a part of — but this one has a fresh angle that gives it added interest and power.

It’s called 5×5, and it’s an opportunity for people to share their dream for 5 minutes on stage, and ask for the judges to award them part of a $5000 grant to start bringing their idea to life.

I’ll let Amy share more in her own words:

When I spar with Shari, a friend and trainer at the boxing gym, I can hardly land a clean punch. There’s no hitting this woman: she’ll block your jab and smack away your right hand, no matter how fast the attack. And then she’ll wrap you in a hug and tell you what a great job you did.

That’s Shari in a nutshell. Life has thrown her a variety of punches, including cancer and a son’s disability, but nothing knocks her down, and nothing gets in the way of her concern for others, especially young people.

Even before Shari told me some of her many ideas on how she wants to help people, I could see the natural way she dealt out love, especially the tough kind, to the kids in our gym. She is exactly what they need. Which means she can do a lot of good elsewhere, too, as she’s proven time and again.

A local initiative called 5×5 night awards up to $5000 for great ideas. I helped Shari write up the idea she’s most passionate about: Mothers raising mothers. Experienced moms mentoring teen moms through parenthood and life.

Our boxing gym has offered space, so the money can be directed toward making the dream happen.

If enough people vote for her idea, she’ll be able to present it at their event later this month and possibly win the money.

All it takes is going to 5x5night.com and clicking on the green button labeled “Register Now to Vote.”

Once you’re registered, view the ideas and vote for Shari and THE VILLAGE.

This morning, when we were on the phone working out details of getting together to get this online, Shari started talking to me about bullying, something about a new kind of neighborhood watch, how she’s designed a window sticker. I realized that even as we were preparing to launch one great idea, she was ready with the next.

Your vote will mean a lot to a lot of people. Please note that voting ends in just ten days–December 13.

http://5x5night.com/

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I’ve been offline, trying to catch my breath between wave sets and wipeouts.

The turbulence of job shifts (I’m now working from home rather than from an office in another city), training shifts (my trainer moved out of state, my fight is coming up in April), and other big and small events and financial re-arrangements have significantly changed the shape of my days for the past month, and I’m working to discern how I will fit into my own life for the next bit of the future.

Out of necessity I withdrew from nearly all of my social hubs and just tried to hang on. Now the first and biggest wave of the set has passed (that was the biggest one, right?), and I’ve wiped out but I’m upright, catching my breath and trying to figure out how to meet the next one, which I can already see coming. Hell, I can see ten of ‘em from here.

I’m in transition, I know this feeling.

In boxing, we work to get good at transitions. The entire purpose of training with intervals, for example, is to get good at physically working hard (sprinting, punching, etc.) for a 3 minute period, then to recover well in 30 seconds or a minute in order to work extremely hard for another 3 minute space. During that recovery time you mentally shift into neutral and try to convince your body to slow down. Deep breaths, hands in the air if you have a stitch, slowing down the heart rate as much as possible. Standing straight, never bending double with hands on your knees. Straight and tall, breathing, looking forward.

I’ve rarely been aware of much outside my boxing corner during the periods between rounds. I don’t hear the perpetual thump of hip-hop over the sound system, the rapid-fire gunning of the speed bag, the shot calls of other trainers in the gym, or the thwack of leather meeting leather on the heavy bags. All those external stimuli are drowned out in the deafening roar of my blood and the heavy buzz of focus that narrows your vision to a 20×20 square of dirty canvas and the ropes that give it boundaries.

The one thing I can hear — and in fact what I am listening for — is a corner.

During the period between rounds, your corner is telling you that you performed well, that you can breathe, that you are okay. You stake everything on believing them.

After a few seconds your corner begins to set your course for the next interval. She outlines a strategy, notes what strengths you should employ, and points out the lapses in your opponent’s style or form and how you can take advantage of them. And in all of this, more than anything else, your corner communicates that she believes in you. I know few powers on earth more significant than that one.

When you are in transition, you need someone to believe in you.

Someone to remind you of the many things you already know, to point out the skills you have worked so hard to build, and the goals that brought you to this point.

As I write this I am one week into training for my next fight, without the trainer I’ve loved, learned from, and counted on for the past two years . Her life has undergone a series of changes as well, and now she’s in New York launching her next big thing.

I’m sporting a black eye just turning to green and nursing a severely strained shoulder. My normal training schedule is completely wonked because I’m no longer at my office, no longer enjoying the work perk of a fitness gym one block from our building. I’ve missed two weight sessions and am looking at a week of restricted activity because of this injury.

I can feel myself thinking, “Well, you aren’t off to a great start, are you?” I took my first round hard, and am having a hard time figuring out how to get through the next.

Listening for the voice of a corner.

And there has been a new voice — entirely unexpected, but there nonetheless.

When I called Terri “The Boss” Moss, promoter of the upcoming Atlanta Corporate Fight Night, to let her know my job had changed, my trainer had moved, and I’d been injured and might have trouble getting ready for my fight, I was expecting her to be polite as always, but privately frustrated and annoyed. After all, she has a lot riding on this event, a thousand details to oversee, and lots of boxers to coach.

What I got was a corner. The voice of an experienced boxer, a woman who knows how training can go awry, who understands the position I am finding myself in, and who immediately began the litany of “You’re doing fine. Breathe. Here’s what I want you to do.” It looks like I may be driving down to Atlanta for some serious corner time.

I have to say this about the women boxers I have met during this strange and beautiful journey: you are the most incredible women I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine how I would have made it without you. Thank you for the hard training, the indefatigable spirit, and most of all, the graceful cornering.

Here’s to the next round.

Image by akeg on Flickr.

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1. I Won My Fight!
2. First (Unofficial) Match!
3. 3 New Lessons in the Boxing Ring

Ignite Durham is February 9, 2011 at the Carolina Theatre in Durham NC, and it’s time to get over to the Ignite website and vote for me. Again! Subject: “How to Win a Fight in a Bar” — c’mon, this is critical life information we’re talking about, you pansies.

Ignite speakers around the world have exactly 5 minutes to teach, enlighten, amuse, or inspire — and they get 20 slides which auto-advance every 15 seconds. Only the topics with the highest number of votes are chosen, although the esteemed organizers of the events also toss us a few extras for funsies. Plus there was the crazy dude in the red tutu last year.

Last year you voted for my presentation “13 Reasons Women Should Take Up Boxing” 253 times to get me into the show — thank you very much for the clicks, the hollering from the gallery, and the free beers you plied me with afterwards, I LOVE you my people! And of course, as a result more women around the Triangle are kicking ass and taking names. You are doing that, right? You better be.

This year we gonna crank it up a few notches.

You may know how to make love, but I’m gonna tell you how to make war. Give me 5 minutes and I’ll tell you everything you need to know to handle the roughest, toughest bar rat Patrick Swayze ever brought to Chuck Norris for a lesson in nice.

Don’t worry, out-of-towners. Go ahead and vote for me and after the dust settles I’ll send out the links to the video so that you too will be ready for your next bar fight. Hell, you may be looking for your next bar fight.

Everyone who goes to the site gets ten votes, you can give me three of them.

My homie Chuckie says, “Go vote for Lisa.”

Jack Palance says, “What he said.”

Related posts:

1. Ignite Raleigh 2: Women Kicking Ass in the Triangle (and some Zombies)
2. How to Win a Fight in a Bar
3. 13 Reasons Women Should Take Up Boxing

Not too long ago this weird little creature started showing up in his freaky poses all over my kitchen. One day he was resting in peace on a carefully folded tissue pallet in the windowsill; another day he and his death-defying grin suddenly appeared on the chair in the study.

He has a nice heft to him, none of that papery, light feeling you expect from a skeleton; and he actually makes a very pleasant sound when you rattle him. He jingles. Santa Skeleton.

The Maker crafted him from clay — which was fired by one of his teachers — then he carefully assembled the pieces with white yarn and toted him home, where he haunts our house with his feverish grin. Whenever he starts to get to me, I pick him up and jingle him, and his creep factor diminishes.

He probably hates that I keep killing his skeleton cred.

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Maker Faire is an annual event organized by the people who bring us MAKE Magazine.  Maker Faire:NC is a fully sanctioned event but is being planned and coordinated by Raleigh/Durham locals. It brings together Makers, Crafters, Inventors, Evil Geniuses, Scientists, Artists, and anyone else interested in learning from NC, SC, VA, DC, and beyond.

Maker Faire:NC will be held on April 25, 2010 from 9 am to 9 pm at Loehmann’s Plaza in Durham, North Carolina.  The plaza address is 1821 Hillandale Rd, Durham NC 27705.

And guess what? Maker Faire:NC is FREE!

Come gawk at gadgets, interact with inventions, and otherwise play, peruse, and perambulate.

I am soooo sorry about that last alliterative set. It’s hard not to get carried away by a great gathering of people who make stuff.

This video from the Full Size Maker Faire held in 2009 in California will give you a little idea of what it’s all about. This NC version may not be quite so big (yet), but you can bet it will be overflowing with the spirit of innovation.

See you at Maker Faire:NC!

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The Maker is forever leaving lovely little gifts on my pillow. These spring beauties were tied together with a length of vine into a tiny spring posy. Sigh. Nine-year-olds are dandy.

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This is our family nativity set, dutifully brought out every year, repeatedly organized by miscellaneous boys, periodically misplaced, wholly enjoyed. Joseph is always the most dishevelled looking; once his hair came partially unglued he was never the same. Several animals have disappeared over the years (I personally miss the chicken), and once in a while people mistake the llama/goat/donkey boy for Jesus, but typically the baby Jesus — whom we keep tied to Mary so he doesn’t wander off — is the star of the show.

Until Olive came to live with us, that is.

She loves the nativity barn! She hasn’t actually met the Baby Jesus yet ’cause she keeps sitting on him (hate it when that happens), but I think he’s probably used to this sort of thing. Olive sits on us all the time too. It’s what kittehs do.

You can see more of Olive and the Baby Jesus on my Flickr; be sure to turn on the titles, cause they’re lol-y.

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Besides the fact that this story features the triumph of a good deer over a clearly bad one, I like that the entire narrative is a single sentence. I was slightly disappointed that the knuckle sandwich never got delivered, but I also realize the author may have been facing some physiological issues he hadn’t encountered previously. Where are a deer’s knuckles, anyway?

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This is so me, without the New York Jewish mother bit. Or the red hair and five o’clock shadow. And those outfits, yikes! But, you know, it’s me.

I LOVE the tree! I don’t love the mess or the work but I love to have and see and enjoy the tree. And it really does completely interrupt your life — potentially in a good way, of course. The ornaments all have stories (in our house, most are handmade) and the lights are so lovely, and the smell is divine. And the kitten will try to pull it over and stuff will get broken and we’ll forget to water it and I’ll get sticky stuff all over my hands… sigh.

I can do without the other commercial garbage, but I really like the tree.

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Thanks to Megan Heuter and her blog Because I Played Sports, I finally saw this incredible advocacy campaign called the Girl Effect.

In Kenya, 1.6 million girls are high school dropouts. If they could finish their secondary education, they would make 30% more money – and contribute $3.2 billion to the Kenyan economy every year.

Or, they could become one of Kenya’s 204,000 adolescent mothers instead, and lose the economy $500 million a year.

A three billion upside against a half billion downside.

There are 600 million overlooked adolescent girls around the globe, and less than two cents of every international aid dollar is directed to them. The girls are overlooked because they are home caring for babies and the elderly, or handling cooking, washing and other chores for the family. They are less likely than boys to be in school (70% of out-of-school youth worldwide are girls), they are married and giving birth as children (pregnancy is the leading cause of death among girls ages 15-19 worldwide), and they are at disproportionately higher risk for HIV infection. All while they are still teenagers.

The point is not that we need to start new programs for girls. There are plenty of successful ones already in place, and the Nike Foundation, in collaboration with the United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls are working to gather national attention to support them.

I hope you’ll take the time to watch the video, click through to the site, and download the fact sheets. And definitely think of these girls this holiday season; think of them so often that you can’t wait to be a part of the team that is supporting them.

Here’s to the power of girls to change the world.

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