Walking into a new boxing gym for the first time is excruciatingly difficult for me.
In this particular case, there had been a number of obstacles to overcome even before I walked in the door. I’d heard about them, but couldn’t find an up-to-date website. Rumor had it they had recently relocated, and I knew they were downtown, but I’d driven up and down the area where I’d heard they were to no avail. Finally I learned about a larger organization with which they were connected, and boom, found a website. With a phone number.
After being re-routed to a different number, I finally connected with a human who was connected to the gym.
Nice guy, very polite and helpful. He gave me the address of the gym and I googled it only to see what I remembered as an abandoned building downtown, located in an low spot beside a parking deck. In Street View (photo above) it still looked abandoned.
Later that day I pulled into the lot and parked behind the sole other car there. A small “Open” sign hung crookedly in the front window, but otherwise there was no indication I was in the right place. I was dressed for training, but decided not to haul in my gym bag; I wasn’t ready to commit myself just yet.
Inside, the place seemed freshly sheetrocked, and a couple of silvery, unconnected HVAC pipes hung from the exposed ceiling struts. Several desks stacked with papers and a handful of metal filing cabinets populated the vast expanse of concrete flooring, and I could see a worn but serviceable pool table just beyond the reception area.
“You’re Lisa!” said the young man who had been riffling through a file cabinet when I arrived. He smiled and strode over to shake my hand.
Second Round, which is affiliated with a non-profit called Haven House, serves youthful offenders and gang-involved and at-risk youth between 11-21 years old. I was deeply aware of how incongruous I would be there, but I’d twice sparred boxers from their gym, met one of the coaches, and was feeling more and more like I needed to check them out.
I got the walk-through, signed the waiver, and worked one-on-one for about an hour in a light, checking-your-basics kind of overview with one of the coaches. I strained to hear his soft voice with its heavy island accent in the echoing gym, which with empty except for two teenagers watching surreptitiously from the nearby weight pit. A brilliant yellow canary trilled and fluttered in a tiny cage near the heavily reinforced doors.
A coach I recognized strode past, a handful of teenagers trailing behind. “Hey, Lisa!” he called, grinning broadly, and I was thrilled that he remembered me from when I’d sparred some of his fighters.
“Hey, Coach Massey!” I returned, waving.
When the first coach was finished with me, we stopped, he packed up the canary into his van, and headed out. I sat in the parking lot for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. Finally I went back in and perched awkwardly on a desk in the gym, hoping to watch and learn. People were starting to drift in, wrap, and begin their own routines.
Suddenly a familiar face entered my field of vision and I was instantly high-fived, hugged, and effusively welcomed by Reggie, one of the peer coaches I’d sparred the week before.
“You came!” he cried. “You came to work with us! I told you you should come.” He punched me lightly on the shoulder and I found myself smiling back. Reggie’s charm is hard to resist.
He stopped grinning and raised his eyebrows, suddenly serious. “You got a hell of a right on you. You got some power is what I’m saying. That was some good work.”
I flushed. He turned and pointed out a young woman just coming into the gym. “There’s your girl,” he said. “Didn’t you spar her one time?”
I had. She’d been fierce and incredibly tough; I had been on my own turf and because of that advantage, plus my height, I probably should have pulled my shots more than I had, but she never lost heart and she gave me hard game without stopping. We’d had three solid rounds.
“So what you gonna do tonight?” Reggie asked.
“I dunno. Watch? I’d like to train, but I’m not sure how to get going…” I trailed off lamely.
People had been incredibly welcoming to me, but there’s still that awkwardness that can only be addressed by gearing up, training hard, and showing that you have something to bring to the ring.
Reggie was off like a shot, had a word with Coach Massey, and suddenly I was in the flow, working in unison with the other boxers, moving from drill to drill, the sweat dripping off me to leave dark splotches on the concrete floor.
I put my lead foot inside a tire with another boxer and we worked the inside game, circling and punching. I did a series of burnouts on the heavy bags, dropping to the concrete to slog through 50 push ups when I didn’t top 100 punches in the first 30-second burnout period. (I broke a hundred every time after that.) The coach lined up weight benches end to end and we did two-footed hops side to side over the benches all the way down the line (miserable). There were medicine ball drills that made my forearms scream for an end to it all.
If you had asked me before I went to Second Round to train whether I was in shape, I would not have hesitated to tell you yes. Hell, yes.
I’ve changed my position on that.
Other than the periodic shouts of encouragement from the coach, and a few congenial shoulder bumps from Reggie, no one spoke too much; we were all working too hard. It was a wonderful place to be.
Later that week Coach Massey spoke to me about accepting a boxing match in Memphis in a few weeks.
I was still feeling the shock of transitioning into a new gym. “I don’t know, Coach,” I told him. “I just got here. I don’t even know if I’m ready.” I paused, watching the young men around me gear down.
“You train with me for three weeks and you will be,” he replied, grinning and flashing his gold tooth. I nodded wryly and rubbed my aching triceps. Those burnouts had kicked my ass. “Besides,” he added, “I’ve seen you in the ring. And you’ve had two fights in the past six months. You’re ready.”
In the end I asked him to let me try and settle in with the team for a couple of weeks, then I would decide.
Meanwhile, I’m feeling the pain of transition dissolve slowly into the pain of getting in top-notch shape.
Lots of ice packs are involved.
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