The Glowing Edge

Tag: Coach Massey

  • How Many Rounds Does it Take to Shake Off Ring Rust?

    How Many Rounds Does it Take to Shake Off Ring Rust?

    I lost my most consistent sparring partner to 6 months of overseas travel this year, and while I got rounds here and there when I could, there’s nothing like sparring two days a week, every week, to keep you in boxing shape. NO amount of conditioning (running, weights, etc.) can make up for straight-up ring time.

    So I was looking pretty sorry when she finally got back to the States, and was thankful (in a sick and twisted way) that Yvonne had not been sparring every week while she was gone, keeping in ring shape while I wasted away.

    A tiny bit of good news, if you’ve been out of the ring…

    Minor segue: I’m pretty sure boxing is at least a little bit like riding a bike. If you’ve been doing it a while, then you are out for a few years, it’s not nearly as difficult getting back in the ring as it would be if you were stepping into the sport for the very first time. Some stuff sticks with you. This is pure speculation on my part, but it’s 100% true, hah.

    Anyway, when Yvonne and I got back to the gym together after half a year, we were eager to test out our sparring.

    How sparring looks, after several months out

    One word: ragged.

    Okay, more words: rusty, sloppy, wild, uncontrolled, messy.

    Since I have weight on Yvonne, it’s particularly important for me to control my punches during our sessions, although having been a pro fighter for more than a decade, she can certainly take a punch. But if I’m doing good work, she shouldn’t have to feel all of it.

    Sigh. It was ugly. I couldn’t control my shots, wasn’t relaxed, and felt cardboard-y and frustrated. Intensely happy to be back to regular sparring, but annoyed at how ugly my work was.

    We slogged through the rounds anyway, knowing that the only way through the slop was… through the slop.

    Set your round goal and start low

    My goal was to get five rounds of good sparring every time I got in the ring, no matter what. So on our first day back the two of us set the round timer to 2-minute rounds with 30-second rests.

    We wheezed and groaned our way through and were damned happy to quit. Who knew two minutes could be so excruciatingly long?

    Well, we did. And we had suspected as much.

    Other things that help

    Other than having an experienced, trustworthy sparring partner, there’s not a damn thing that truly helps, that first time back sparring. Maybe not the first two times. But I found that one thing that did start helping was moving back to some basics.

    After getting in the first time, I decided I needed to work in three places:

    • Keeping my feet moving
    • Punching in combinations (rather than one or two shots at a time)
    • Slipping

    Sounds basic, no?

    Keeping your feet moving has to do with conditioning, and this kind only comes with training with sprints, agility dots and ladder drills, and, well…sparring. So I started doing some dot exercises when I could, and adding intervals on the bike during non-boxing days.

    For me, punching in combos comes back in when I practice in slow motion. Which NO ONE wants to do in the gym, because you feel like an utter ass when you’re doing it. But I tried to slow down during shadowboxing and think/move my way through combos, rather than delivering one or two punches at a time.

    This actually helps with slipping, too, because if you throw a one (jab), followed by a power two, you’re in position and weighted to throw a hook. You’re already shifted to the side. Voila, slip.

    In fact many of your shots go from one side of your body to the other in a rocking rhythm, and the boxing becomes  a kind of (in my case, sort of ungainly) dancing.

    The problem for me with slipping is simply that Yvonne’s shots are very (very) fast. She punches faster than I can see or anticipate. BUT, when you have this situation, you slip anyway, and sometimes you deflect the blow slightly, which is still a positive outcome.

    The magic moment

    After our first time sparring, we moved back to three-minute rounds (holy shit that was grueling). We sweated and struggled our way through a total of 20 solid (and by “solid” I mean we worked our asses off) rounds.

    And on our fifth time back — round 21 was suddenly golden. We floated through our five that day like dandelion seeds on the wind. Violent and mean-ass dandelion seeds, dammit!

    We both marveled at the difference. For me, it was primarily about feeling relaxed. I was relaxed, loose, and comfortable in the ring. It was awesome.

    20 rounds, Jack. It took us 20 to get back.

    That’s just four sparring days, y’all. That is do-able. So next time you’re feeling all “there’s no way I can get back in the ring,” remember that it may only take you about 20 rounds to get to golden.

    Warning

    After our golden-rounds-with-badass-mermaids-singing session, we were sparring for the first time with our team again, in front of our coach.

    It was a mix of clunky and golden. I was more tense, trying harder to please, and working more rounds, too. So it wasn’t all roses, but I was intensely thankful that Coach Massey hadn’t seen me for the first 20 rounds.

    Now you

    Everybody has seasons out of their sport. Leave me a comment below and tell me how long it took you to shake off the rust and get back in the golden groove. What tricks did you use? Were there any shortcuts? Did you have any “ah-ha” or “oh-fuck-no” moments? Spill.

    Photo Credit: Marco Crupi Visual Artist via Compfight cc

  • What Makes Sparring with New Boxers Really Good, or Really Awful

    What Makes Sparring with New Boxers Really Good, or Really Awful

    Thursday night is sparring night in our gym. Not everyone gets to spar; only the boxers who have been showing up regularly, putting in hard work, listening to the coach, and proving that they want to move up are invited into the ring.

    But all that doesn’t guarantee a good sparring performance. I’m always fascinated about the ways our coach, Willie “One Bad Jab” Massey subtly rewards the boxers who give him what he’s looking for…

    Last night there was a huge crowd; it seems like boxers come in waves to the program at Second Round, and we seem to be in the midst of a heavy influx. I counted four young women (ages 12 to 17, I’d guess), which is fairly unusual; and we don’t have a high retention rate for females.

    So I was surprised when it came time for sparring, when Coach Massey pulled about 6 guys (all of whom I’d seen in the ring before)…and a young woman from the crowd.

    Our gym typically spars the youngest or newest fighters first, and since the young woman was new, the coach didn’t put her in headgear, just gloved her up and put her in to work offense only with me. I noticed that two of the other girls pushed up through the crowd of guys to watch at the ring side.

    Good: A straight, clean jab to the face (and body)

    She had a completely respectable jab. It was straight, fully extended, and powerful. But even though we are about the same height, her first shots were aimed at my gloves and shoulders. “Punch to my face,” I told her over my mouthpiece, and she raised her eyebrows, hesitated a moment, then fired an easy one. I turned it neatly in the palm of my glove and nodded. “Yep,” I said, “Again.”

    As she began to realize I could avoid all her punches, she gained confidence. Punches began to smack as I turned each one, and a few didn’t make any sound when I began to add slips to my defense.

    Good: Throwing shots with varied timing, doubles

    She started out a bit predictable, her shots coming at me as if they were being fired by the second hand on a clock, but again, once I told her to vary her timing, she immediately adapted, which gave me a rush of satisfaction.

    And she didn’t immediately forget, either. I saw the coach starting to notice her from the side of the ring. “Double the jab,” he said, and after a few tries, she delivered. The tendency, when you’re new, is to not know that you have to bring the jab back to your face before shooting again — you try to throw once, tap twice, and it doesn’t work for a beginner. She fumbled the first few, but then got a double going.

    Good: Finding and maintaining the right range

    I realized she could do more, and I began to add footwork to my defense. She was a bit too squared up (most new boxers are), but I began to pivot and shift, forcing her to come to me to land her shots.

    The first step in starting to move around the ring with a sparring partner is learning how much room you need to land a shot on your opponent. Some shots fall short, some are smothered (if your opponent drives in); you have to find just the right range and work it. She had a pretty decent sense of range for a beginner, and I could tell more would come quickly.

    Once I turned on a little footwork gas, she ended up doing a fair amount of chasing me around the ring, but learning to “cut off the ring” will come later as well. She had basics, and she had…

    Good: Sufficient cardio for at least 1-2 rounds in a row

    It’s not at all unusual to think you have enough gas for a single round of boxing, and be dead wrong. Boxing demands anaerobic capacity, which is only developed with sprint training. That might be running sprints, but it can also be sprints flipping a tire, or doing kettlebells, hill cycling, or any exercise where you can get to your max heart rate and go for 2 or 3 minutes, then recover in 30 seconds and go again.

    This young woman stuck it out for two rounds before rolling out, and I think she had another one in her. Of course, being on offense only is a bit easier, but even so, her ability to work until the bell sounded was reassuring.

    I’ll look forward to seeing her back in the ring again, and I’ll hope that the other new girls will learn from her example.

    After she and I did a couple of rounds, and I worked a few more with two other boxers, I rolled out and let a couple of brawlers in.

    Awful: Brawling

    There are so many reasons why we decide to roll under the ropes, and ego is often a part of it. But mix ego with bad technique (or no technique), and you typically end up with a brawl. We don’t always have two brawlers in the ring, but just one is enough to make a mess of the round.

    And the unfortunate truth is that the brawler often won’t listen to instruction, which means our coach probably won’t waste much energy trying to teach him. Which is a shame, because that leaves the brawler in the same low position in the gym and ring, not improving his boxing.

    Here’s what you typically see in a brawler:

    • Superman-style punch launches, where both feet come off the ground
    • Off-balance fighting, sometimes falling to the canvas
    • Illegal shots to the back of the head
    • Lengthy clinching, sometimes with with knees thrown
    • Sloppy, slappy shots with wide, windmilling arms

    Sometimes you get profanity too, when a brawler feels he can’t get the better of someone. We don’t hear too much of that at my gym because Coach Massey will shut down the offenders pretty quickly, and he’s not prone to let them box again if they can’t control themselves.

    I don’t often get in with beginner brawlers, and prefer instead to let the big, experienced boxers take them on. But you don’t always have that, so sometimes you just end up with a mess. And, it’s there in pretty much every boxing gym you’ll ever be a part of.

    Interestingly, there ARE great boxers who are good at what they call brawling. But you’ll not see the messy stuff in the list above in their style. Instead, you’ll simply see an agressive, powerful, sometimes non-technical match — it can be incredibly exciting to watch.

    What about you?

    What do you see in your gym? Leave me a comment and tell me about what it was like when you started, or boxers and brawlers you’ve seen in the ring…

    Image: Marco Crupi, cc

  • 3 Completely Counterintuitive Boxing Secrets

    3 Completely Counterintuitive Boxing Secrets

    Boxing doesn’t always work like you might think.

    Last night I was training at Second Round, my home gym. The afterschool crew was working through their paces with Sinclair, so I did my jump rope rounds, stretching, and shadowboxing alone. Mostly I thought hard about very specific moves I was working on, particularly my (nearly non-existant) left hook.

    Over and over again I stopped, moved through the motions, and tried again at speed. Shadow rounds, then heavy bag rounds. It wasn’t coming together. I slipped left, hooked, feh. No power. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was.

    Then it all changed in a way I never expected.

    And I realized there are secrets to advancement in boxing that generally no one ever tells you about. Here’s what I learned…

    1. Don’t Expect Training

    Don’t expect your training to progress just because you managed to get your ass to the gym. In this game, you have to earn it.

    I spent an hour last night in the gym, failing to secure a left hook. I must have stopped 30 times in the course of six 3-minute rounds of shadowboxing, plus multiple rounds on the heavy bag, trying to slowmo my way into that hook. Nothing.

    But my trainer, Coach Willie “One Bad Jab” Massey, standing quietly by the ring at the outer edge of the gym, saw what I was doing.

    He saw the sweat running in rivers down my neck and shoulders and dripping off my nose. He saw me stop repeatedly to work the one specific combo. He knew I couldn’t find the left hook.

    Four rounds into my heavy bag work he came over.

    “I see you working really hard to land that hook. Let me show you why you’re not getting it,” he said, in his low-key way.

    Gratefully I stepped back from the bag and watched him slowly show me the move, first in his natural southpaw stance, then in the orthodox position. There are many subtleties.

    I was keeping my guard glove too high during the slip (couldn’t see my opponent), and not getting my shoulder behind the shot. Not keeping a solid 90 degree angle.

    In a regular boxing gym, you go and train on your own most of the time. Nobody is going to hold your hand and tell you every little thing to do. If you decide to slack through, you will be allowed. If you prefer to spend your time jacking around rather than sweating, you can. You’ll get little or no attention, and your form will suck. Practice doesn’t make perfect form. Good coaching plus practice is what solidifies your technique.

    A good coach will gravitate to the boxers working hard.

    Nobody will give you your training in boxing. You earn it.

    2. Miss the Bag

    This is what finally clinched the hook in my workout. I watched Coach Massey, then slipped and fired a few. Still no go. I pulled my guard hand down, put my shoulder behind the hook, but it didn’t feel consistent.

    Massey stopped me, and held up his hand opposite me, near the heavy bag.

    “Stop working the slip as the lead-in,” he told me. “Go ahead and fire your two past the bag to my hand, then throw the left hook.”

    “Past the bag?”

    “Yeah. That’s gonna put you in just the right position for the hook. You’ll see.”

    And I did. The leading right popped smartly into his palm, and I was in perfect hook-loaded position, so I was able to turn that nicely into the bag. Pop-bam, two-hook, sweet as you please.

    Working on a heavy bag is nothing like working with a sparring partner, but it’s great for practicing technique. And it’s very counterintuitive, but you can use the spaces around the bag to work as well as the spaces on the bag.

    After Massey left, I continued to work that hook by shooting my two past the bag, then throwing the left. And it worked very nicely.

    And that brings me to my third boxing secret, which isn’t as counterintuitive as the first two, but follows nicely from those points.

    3. Finish the Equation

    Like I said before, working the heavy bag is nothing like working in the ring. The bag does’t slip and dodge, duck and pivot, or otherwise respond smartly to your offense. It’s always in range, and it always takes your shots — so you don’t have to maintain your balance, keep your feet moving, or avoid an opponent.

    In order to really advance in your boxing training, you need to take what you learn on the mats and at the heavy bag and translate it into working in the ring with a sparring partner.

    Even if you just box for fitness, finding a trustworthy partner who will let you work lightly through some rounds in the ring will completely revolutionize your training sessions. You’ll be forced to move more, work harder, and you’ll get an incredible calorie-eating workout.

    So finish your boxing equation and get in the ring to try your freshly-minted (or solid bread-and-butter) skills, because everything is different in the ring.

    Got counterintuitive training tips and secrets of your own? Share ’em in the comments, and gimme goods to post about next!

    Stay strong!

  • The Geography of Boxing Guts

    The Geography of Boxing Guts

    There is a visually simple way to understand where you are — and change your position — on the fear scale in boxing.

    Sparring can be scary, of that there’s no doubt. And there’s always dread to overcome when making the decision to roll under those ropes. But there’s actually a very physical way to shift yourself forward and make it into the ring.

    The first thing you need to understand is the difference between a regular sparring night and a hard sparring night, because if you are going to see the absolute truth about where you stand and make real progress in shifting yourself forward in boxing, you need a hard sparring night.

    On a hard sparring night, things get very clear, very quickly.

    A single look at the gym will tell you everything, and you can make your decision about whether you decide to fold and watch or play and win.

    And you absolutely will win if you play.

    Because just being willing to get in the ring during a session like that will move you forward, no matter how you actually perform during your sparring.

    But there’s more to it than that. Let me see if I can explain…

    The typical sparring order and match-ups

    In most of the gyms where I’ve trained the littlest boxers typically go first in sparring. Maybe it’s because they’re small or young, and their parents will be waiting to get them home, fed, and off to sleep.

    After the younger ones have their ring time, the rest of the team begins to work, not necessarily by rank, but simply based on what the coach wants to achieve with each boxer. I might get paired with someone who is a fast puncher because the coach wants me to practice my defense, for example. Or a heavyweight will get put in with a visiting heavyweight because the home boxer rarely gets a chance to really unleash as well as experience the power and pain that another person of the same weight brings to the ring.

    If a boxer is behaving poorly, refusing to take instruction, and allowing their emotions and issues to cause them to brawl rather than box, the coach might put them in with someone who is technically better and who can pound a physical lesson into them. Incidentally, that lesson is called “get yourself under control, boy” and it’s still hard for me to understand, but my husband says it’s a guy thing. It looks like a street fight, and it’s often bloody, but it seems to be a part of the way boxing works.

    And as I mentioned earlier, there are also different kinds of sparring nights. Some are more easygoing and filled with stops and starts, and some are all-out war.

    War nights are good to have on occasion, because a real boxing fight is not about patty cake. It isn’t you and your buddies, messing around. It’s serious hard work, and it can be  brutal.

    Every gym has war nights. My gym had one recently, too.

    What happens on a war night

    There were maybe 15 to 18 boxers training in the gym when the coach sent everyone to gear up and went and took his place ringside on a painted wooden stool.

    The young kids did not go first.

    Instead, Coach put in two of the top boxers in the gym, instructed everyone to ignore the bell, and calmly uttered the one word that causes every fighter’s engine to roar to life, “Box.”

    Those are the first two clues to a hard sparring night. Different order of business, no bell boundaries. Your gym might keep to the bell, but no bell means you’re about to work quickly all the way to failure (and then you’ll work some more).

    The top boxer stayed in the ring as multiple fighters rotated in and out. I’ve been in that “stay in” position in other gyms (with less skilled people than Second Round) and it’s something everyone should experience once in while.

    When the coach puts you in and makes you box to the end of your ability with a string of fresh fighters, you not only feel great to be in that position, you learn a lot about your strengths and your limits. You find out what areas of training you’ve been neglecting. You discover how long you can last. You learn how to defend once you’re played out.

    The top boxers at my gym went in, one after another. The shots were not training level. No one pulled punches. No one messed around. Everyone threw full power, all out.

    About 5 minutes in, someone went over to the boom box and turned the volume way down until all we could hear was the relentless slam of leather against flesh, the bright pop of a glove against headgear, and the dull thud of a perfectly executed body shot.

    The church of boxing had been called to order, and the supplicants focused all their attention on the ferocious litany in the ring.

    This is the time when you can see, visually, exactly where you are on the fear scale.

    Where boxers stand

    On a hard sparring night like this, the unspoken code is: watch or leave.

    Every heavy bag hung undisturbed. The constant chatter of speed bag was silenced. There was no intermittent clang of weights being racked. No one skipped rope, or shadowboxed, or chatted aimiably on the ragged, garage-sale couches at the back of the gym.

    And if you find yourself in a holy moment like this, look around to see where everyone stands. Physically.

    Most of the fighters were ringside, leaning up against the ring apron, watching the action through the lower two ropes.

    One man stood, jump rope in hand, about 6 feet back. Periodically he would wander over to the heavy bags. I was fairly certain he would not get in. (He didn’t.)

    A thin young teenager stood nervously next to the freestanding pull up machine. I thought he might not get in, either. (He didn’t.)

    Anyone further back than that is most likely doing their best to avoid the battleground and stay out of the fight.

    Which is perfectly acceptable.

    But the phrase “know where you stand” is particularly useful here. If you want to shift your fear, you need to walk forward. If you want to tell your body that regardless of what your brain says, you intend to spar, you need to stand where you are actually touching — connected to — the ring.

    And here’s another piece of that same puzzle…

    Are you ready?

    Last night I suddenly realized, during this moment, that although I was leaning against the ring apron, peering intently through the bottom two ropes at the action, I had not geared up.

    In fact, neither had the guy with the jump rope in hand, by the heavy bags.

    It’s true, I was late coming in, and was only warming up as everyone else was getting ready to spar, but now that the game was on, what did my relative unpreparedness say about my willingness to get in the ring?

    It was clearly a war night. I’ve been here before; in fact, the first time I experienced it I bailed. I needed to take stock and make a decision about how much I would allow my fear to rule me.

    I turned and walked to the back of the gym, quietly gathered my gear, and returned to the side of the ring and began to gear up.

    The unspoken request

    If you expect to be put in the ring on a night like this, you have to mentally request it. Your posture, your attitude, your engagement level all have to tell your coach that you are willing to get in if he calls your name. He’s not going to call everyone, because the stakes are higher, and there needs to be room for people to keep themselves out of the fight even if they stay in the gym.

    This is about eye contact. About listening intently to whatever comments and instruction the coach is giving the fighters. It’s about leaning in, both mentally and physically, no matter how much the edge of the ring feels like the edge of a blade.

    The test of fire

    The coach at Second Round is phenomenal.

    A former pro boxer himself, Coach Massey completely understands the dynamics of fear, and the geography of boxing guts. He works with, rather than against his boxers. He rarely raises his voice, but instead trains us to hear his voice anywhere in the gym (no matter the din) and respond to his instruction. He will take me farther than I would go on my own, and I can count on him to judge accurately when to push and when to leave be.

    Last night there were many other issues to be worked out among our top fighters before I could get a chance to box, but I was ringside, I was geared, and I was mentally asking to fight, despite my fear. I knew he would call my name, and finally I heard him say, without even looking in my direction, “Lisa. On deck.”

    I swallowed hard, levered myself up onto the ring, and waited outside the ropes for his signal.

    As it happened, I was in pretty good shape for my challenge. I’m keeping up with my workouts and doing my sprints. Earlier in the week I had gone 6 rounds or so with no bell, working on inside fighting only. Trey, a beautiful, powerful light heavyweight had given me plenty of hard work, forcing me to stay knee to knee, leaning into me and making me bump him off with my shoulder and dig in with right and left uppercuts before finishing with a left hook to his head. Over and over. Slowly I shed my fear of his powerful shots to my body, and quit hopping backwards to my more comfortable outside fighting position.

    On war night my gas was good, I wasn’t already tired out, and I felt mentally as solid as you can in these situations.

    My first opponent was a fierce young man named Shaq. He’s fast, but he’s smaller than I am, so I knew I could take his power. I intended to give him a taste of my hard right, and I was primed to stick with the inside game if he forced the issue. I planned to employ every illegal tactic I could (our coach is pretty lenient on this issue) to tip the scales in my favor. I’d already seen some damn messy (and bloody) brawling, and I’d heard the coach tell us  that just because a shot was ugly didn’t mean it wasn’t effective. I was ready.

    No bell, just the word from the coach. I rolled in with guns blazing, and Shaq let me dominate the first minute or so.

    He’d already been fighting and I was fresh, but I started to suspect he was “going easy” on me, so I pinned him to the ropes and growled at him. “You better bring me something to work with, dammit,” I told him, and before I could finish up with a suitable threat, he had spun out and rocked my head back with the most beautiful, crispest jab ever thrown.

    “Nice.” I commented, “Thank you.” And we were on.

    We worked a couple of rounds I think (no bell, hard to figure it), before the coach switched up fighters again, and I ducked out feeling wonderful. I knew he would put me in again (he did, with a very tired Trey), and I might not look as fresh or fight as well, but I’d already won the real victory.

    I’d gone forward. I’d shown I was ready. And I got in.

    And that’s the most beautiful part of boxing.

    Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery, creative commons license

  • When Sparring is Magic

    When Sparring is Magic

    I can’t remember when I last had one of these days, but this week it all came back to me in one of those clear, beautiful, pristine experiences of pure sparring magic.

    Sparring is always hard boxing work. It’s actually much more pleasurable than having a fight in many ways — less stress, less endless waiting, more actual time in the ring, and you often learn more as well.

    But in the sporadic sparring experiences I’ve had in the past 6 months or so, I haven’t had one of these surreal days in the ring where everything came together like magic. This week they clicked.

    Coach Massey was training a team of people in a different gym, and I wanted to get up there to see Eric, a friend of mine, who recently started competing. I also hoped to get some new and different work — working in a new gym with new people is a great way to shake up your training routine and test yourself. I hate it, and love it at the same time.

    The dread that comes before

    I woke up with the dread churning in my stomach. What if I suck? What if I humiliate myself? Have I been training hard enough? I have to stop slacking on my intervals. Etcetera. I forced down some bran flakes for breakfast and had a banana an hour or so later. I hydrated constantly. I stopped periodically during my morning to get mentally centered, rolling the tension out of my neck and reminding myself to relax.

    And of course I took a wrong turn on the freeway and was abysmally late. Ugh.

    But the moment I walked in, Coach Massey hailed me from ringside, and I immediately saw my friend Eric shadowboxing in the back. The place was filled with sunshine (unlike every other gym I’ve trained in recently) and the doors were propped open for the breeze. A former trainer of mine was working hard in the ring with a man holding pads and wearing a heavy punching vest; both of them glistened with sweat.

    A pleasant surprise

    And get this: two women were geared up and waiting to roll under the ropes next.

    Two women! Both about my size. About to spar! In case you’re missing the import of this, let me assure you that this is unprecedented where I live. I rarely have the chance to train with one woman, and two is somewhat mind-boggling. I watched them for a moment and realized I was going to get a chance to get good work in — both of these awesome women were paying attention, working hard, and neither seemed out for war or bloodshed. This wasn’t going to be an ego session; it was going to be honest boxing labor.

    I was so excited I could barely stand to warm up. I gave Eric a hug and put in a halfhearted round or two of stretching and shadowboxing before I eagerly geared up and stood ringside, waiting for my chance.

    Do women box differently than men?

    Just this week I had been having an email conversation with Adam Welsh (you’ve heard from him before here on TGE) about a comment pro boxer Anne-Sophie Mathis made recently about preferring to spar with men, because in her experience, “men are much more technical, their body language is more beautiful. The girls are certainly more vicious and aggressive, but they lack a little consistency…”

    I’d been turning this thought over and over again in my head. ARE women more aggressive in the ring? If we are, it’s because we know that we have to fight twice as hard to be taken half as seriously. Or at least, that’s my feeling. But I hesitate to paint with so broad a brush, and say that all women are like this…

    But I was ready to say that I preferred male sparring partners, too. Not for the reasons Mathis states, but because I’m more used to them, and they don’t seem to need to prove anything with me (most of the time). There’s not much respect to be gained by a male boxer from beating the crap out of a woman — but if she brings game, there can be a good sparring session for both partners.

    But yesterday I changed my mind.

    Both these women were so good to work with. Christy was — amazingly — a new Master’s fighter. I’m not sure I can name even ONE other female Masters boxer in North Carolina. My opponents are always out of state. Christy and I were exactly the same weight and height. This NEVER happens!

    The second boxer, Erica, was perhaps in her early 20s, and had just won the Golden Gloves. A bit lighter than me, but same height.

    I would work with both of these women any day of the week, any time. They gave good game, and I know I drew great pleasure out of our work and got some good stuff in.

    Burning off the edge

    First Coach Massey put me in with Nassir, a former trainer of mine, and he effectively warmed me up and burned off my nervous edge, although it’s hard to box with him because he’s so fast. He can stand in the middle of the ring and never move his feet and you still can’t seem to nail him with a solid punch. If you give him his feet, just hang up your gloves and go home; you don’t stand a chance of landing anything.

    If I had to name his weakness it would be that he depends so much on his hyper-speed that he punches less than he probably should. But I wouldn’t be idiot enough to tell him that while I was in the ring with him.

    Next I had rounds with each of the women, and suddenly the pace was slower and I could see everything that was happening (which I can’t do with Nassir).

     The step-off

    You know how boxers have a little switch-foot stutter step thing they often do in the ring? They’re in their stance, right foot and shoulder forward and left foot back. Then suddenly, they switch stance (left foot and shoulder forward) and step off? Easy, right? Yeah, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. My sparring partner Sinclair was working with me on this move a few weeks ago. And it was just not happening unless I expended superhuman effort.

    In the ring with these women, it suddenly was there for me. I didn’t have to think about it, it was just magic. My brain worked on other things and my feet did the step off at the right moments entirely without my input. It was beautiful.

    Coach Massey saw the first one and whooped. I had no idea what he was excited about. I could feel the glide, the move, the pure lack of effort, but I didn’t know he was watching my feet. Both of us paused in our round and looked at him.

    “Lisa pullin’ the step-off!” he hollered, and I grinned, taking full credit even though I’d had no part in it.

    Boxing is so like this. You work your ass off on something and NEVER get it right for AGES, then suddenly, it’s burned into your muscle memory and it comes together. Magic.

    If you do it once, it’s a fluke. But I was doing it regularly, every round, with just the right timing.

    What the hell? But I wasn’t complaining.

    It made me feel great that Coach called over another boxer and instructed her to watch my feet to see how I was doing it. It’s just a good thing I didn’t have to explain it, because I have no idea how it got there, hah. I probably couldn’t have done it on command.

    The slip

    This was another muscle memory move that came together nicely, but this one happened because I wasn’t in with Nassir or Sinclair, or any of the regular guys I fight with who are blazing-fast. I was in with women closer to my own experience level, and I could Flat. See. And evade. Damn near everything.

    Thank you, Baby Jesus and all those hours spent eating punches while struggling to overcome the hop back, flinch, blink, and turn away reflexes. It was worth every sweaty hour of that work. I was ducking under (!) slipping side to side, and keeping just inches out of range.

    I did notice that I tend to slip right more commonly than left, but NEVER have I slipped so many punches that I noticed such a thing before!

    Ahh, I love the magic.

    The fuel

    The last good piece about this awesomely awesome sparring experience was that I didn’t gas out. I had the fuel I needed to do what I was asked to do. Gotta tell you, I CURSE those intervals when I’m running steps, but I am SO glad I suffered through them when I perform well in the ring.

    Your heart just needs that kind of hard training in intense, 3-minute bursts with 30 second recoveries in order to be able to show any kind of chops in the ring.

    I hate intervals, but I’ll tell you now, I’m a believer.

    And I’ll keep doing them.

    Meanwhile, I’ll be curious to see if my next sparring experience goes as well as this one did. Can’t wait to work with Christy and Erica again! Ladies, I salute you; you were gutsy, beautiful, and I enjoyed every second of our work together…

    Stay strong everyone, and if you’re struggling and wondering if it will EVER come together — it will! Promise.

  • I Love to Fight

    I Love to Fight

    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).

  • Boxing Win in Wilmington

    Boxing Win in Wilmington

    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!

  • Trying Out a New Gym

    Trying Out a New Gym

    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.