The Glowing Edge

Tag: hard

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

April 6, 2012
Hey! Boxing Training is Not Killing Me! Isn’t That Nice?
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:
1. Heavy bag – Standard station – you punch it. Everyone knows the drill.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
August 15, 2011
Taking a Knockout Punch

I haven’t been knocked out yet, but I’ve been rocked hard plenty of times in the boxing ring. The only reason they haven’t been knockouts is because when you get hit hard enough to stumble dizzily around or hang off the ropes with a head full of stars, a sparring session will pause until you can recover. In an actual fight, your opponent would swing again and you would go down, without a doubt.

It’s actually pretty important to experience a knockout-strength punch during sparring because you need to be somewhat familiar with how it feels and what happens to your body. With enough preparation and practice you can actually manage pretty well in an incredibly adverse situation.

Once upon a time I would have been horrified to think about — much less experience — a knockout punch. But this is important information to consider if you are going to pursue boxing with any kind of seriousness.

The trick is to convince yourself, with whatever wits you can scrape up, that you must and will keep fighting. Periodically when Bonnie would rock me hard she would coach me through the resulting fog, reminding me to breathe, keep on my feet, and not show how bad I was really feeling. Jay, who hits hard and holds back little, also works with me on this.

I had one of my hardest ever single rounds of sparring recently.

I had already been in the ring for four intense rounds, but had been out while a couple of others got some work in. We had some fighters visiting from another gym, and they were incredibly good. Fast, strong, ferocious. Very polite and easy to talk to, but massively powerful in the ring.

We’d had several incidents of blood and rounds paused because of knockout punching, and even a minor brawl when one young man let his anger at being bested get control of him.

I had already decided, watching them work, that I wasn’t interested in sparring either of the two power players. I was filled with mixed feelings; wanting to have a chance, but also thinking that perhaps I wouldn’t be able to hold my own. And I’m still a bit new at looking after myself in the ring — getting out mid-round if I need to, or telling someone in very strong language to lay off the heat.

But midway through the session there was an odd pause between rounds, and all eyes fell on me. I looked up to see one of the visitors — Reggie, a peer coach from a gym called Second Round — bouncing in the ring, waiting for another opponent. Our team’s coach tipped his head toward me. “You’re in,” he said.

I groaned and closed my eyes briefly. Then I sucked in a deep breath and pretended to be nonchalant. I slipped my mouthguard back in and climbed up on the ring apron and ducked under the ropes.

We waited on the bell and I did a mental check-over. I was warm, the normal boxing jitters had been dispersed by my first 4 rounds. Well, until 10 seconds ago. But I’d rested a few rounds. My body felt okay, even though I’d had an 8 round sparring session two days before and a 4 mile run the day previous. No serious strain anywhere, I thought. All systems go.

“Let’s do it,” I said, as the bell rang and he surged forward to bang down my glove in the boxer’s salute.

He stayed in my range as we circled, so I accepted the opening and fired off a rapid series of testing jabs. He sent them back with incredible speed, but didn’t dance out. So I slammed in my first combination, putting the bulk of my power behind it: one-one-one-TWO, slip to avoid the returning punch.

A grin bloomed on Reggie’s face. “That’s some shit!” he crowed. “I like that shit! Bring it on.”

I couldn’t supress my own grin, even as I bobbed under his jab and set up a left hook-jab-two combination. All my power was loose and available in my body; I could feel it thrumming in response to the challenge — a race car fully fueled, warm, and accelerating.

Reggie stayed in range.

We began to exchange a furious series of punches; I’m not sure I’ve ever worked so hard and fast. My feet and head seemed willing to move for me so that my brain was free to formulate strategy. His shots were hard, but so were mine. A minute into the round he commented, perhaps with a bit of surprise, “You kinda loading up, aren’t you?”

I was in full-on kickass mode. “Too much for you?” I inquired, slamming him with a double right power shot. He slipped the first, but the second clipped him nicely above the eye.

“That is some shit,” he called happily, and we bent to our work.

The best thing about working with him was not only that he made me fight my absolute best, but also that he didn’t hold back too much on me. He let me have it, but it wasn’t more than I could take. And even better, he didn’t stay constantly out of my range. Sometimes a superior boxer will simply not allow the less experienced fighter to land a punch. It’s exhausting for the newer person, and irritating as well. You want to get work in the ring, not run a race.

With a minute to go he landed the mother of all rights to my unguarded chin. It powered straight through in a split second. I didn’t slip it even a little bit, but took the full brunt of the knockout punch. My head spun to the right and my body followed. I staggered toward the ropes, and muzzily heard him saying over and over, “My bad, my bad.” I felt his two muscular arms wrap around my waist and hold me upright.

I struggled to find my balance, but with him holding me up, my body could coast while I worked to clear my head. Slowly the world quit swinging madly from side to side and the grey mist cleared. I pushed him off me irritably. “I wanna finish,” I slurred. “Just gimme a second.”

He withdrew to a respectful distance and I made myself walk the ropes, straight line, straight line, to my corner. Everything was shockingly silent. I felt like I was wrapped in wool batting, but I also felt pissed, and I was hungry for the rest of my round.

I shook my head gently to clear it, and motioned with my glove for him to engage. He nodded solemnly, put up his guard, and stood his ground. He was going to give me some free shots in payment.

So I launched every bomb in my arsenal, as fast and as hard as I could. He shouted encouragement and sent out a handful of combinations, careful with his power. His shots increased in intensity as my own faded. The thirty second bell rang.

My feet gave up before my arms did, so I shoved him into the corner, pinned his shoulders and laid into his midsection. I began to hear calls from ringside, my teammates getting into the action and eager for the hard and bloody finish. I drove my fist savagely toward his liver and heard him grunt; I felt a surge of satisfaction. He was banging me with short, ineffective punches to the head and shoulders, but I refused to give up the dominant position. He didn’t use his weight to push me off and pivot out of the corner, although I know he could have.

The bell sounded, and I had my victory. I staggered off of him, but he came toward me and threw his arms around me in a fierce hug.

“That was some good shit, I’m telling you!” he shouted.

It was.

Image by JD Hancock on Flickr.

May 8, 2011
It Will Be Enough

There are days when you train really hard.

You put in so much effort, you sweat and sprint and throw and suck for air. You push yourself through the last rounds, then the ab work and the slow stretches intended to keep your muscles from cramping on the long drive home from the gym. Or the gravel lot, or wherever you’re training.

The next day the soreness kicks in, and the lactic acid makes itself known in one or another muscle group that you didn’t realize you’d been neglecting.

Today I’m giving myself an unplanned day off of training. My knee aches, my abs ache, and I have a few spots I’m icing. (What’s up with that right forearm and wrist? Ah, the uppercuts. Need to stiffen that wrist, maybe back off on the arm power and put body power behind it.) My fight is coming up but I’m not fretting about a missed day of training.

I’m not fretting about it.

Because it will be enough. I will look back on this and be able to say that there were days when I could have added another set, another round. But on the whole, I’ve done well and it will go exactly how it goes in the fight because I’m doing all the things I set out to do.

If your trainer moves, you find another. Things shift, you muddle through the transition. If you can’t work in the gym, you work in a gravel lot. You don’t worry about the money. If your knee hurts, you rest it. You delight in the many cheers of your friends.

And you live in the midst of hard toil, intermittent pain, and the sheer joy of laboring toward something you love.

That’s what I’m doing. And it will be enough.

March 24, 2011
Does Boxing Hurt?

It’s funny how many people ask me this about boxing.

Short answer: yes. If that’s all you need to hear, that’s cool, but it’s one of those simple questions (like “Is there really a Santa Claus?” and “What does Paris Hilton do?”) that perhaps calls for a more complex answer. Lucky you! I’m here to elaborate.

Beginning with the obvious, it hurts to get punched in the face. Ditto ribs, gut, and ears. Even with big, puffy 16oz boxing gloves and headgear on, it hurts. One’s nose, particularly, stings quite a bit when you get popped there. Teary eyes and bloody noses are not uncommon.

But here’s the cool thing: when you learn that you can actually take a punch, that’s pretty awesome. And when you learn you can last an entire round, that’s even more incredible.

But the simplest fact of the matter is that in boxing, you don’t spend most of your time being punched in the face (ribs, gut, ears). You spend most of your time training and conditioning. And that’s the biggest part of what hurts in boxing.

To really bring this home for you, let me give you the list of the top five tortures a boxing trainer inflicts upon her willing (yea, even eager) pupils.

1. Neck snaps. Heh. An accurate name if there ever was one. Lay on your back in the ring with your shoulders and head suspended over the edge. On the trainers count, snap your head quickly to the right three times like so: One, two, three, ONE. One, two, three, TWO. And so on to ten. You should be completing the ten snaps in about fifteen seconds total. Then you do ten to the left. Double time, now, and keep your eyes open. Now that your neck is starting to seize up, do ten to the front, really lifting your head as high and a quickly as you can. When your trainer finishes that set and starts everyone over again from the beginning, you may feel as if you are going to pass out or die. You should be so lucky; this is only the second set, and there’s still one more to go.

2. Ring slides. These sound and look innocuous, but they’re deadly. A group of five gets in the boxing ring and forms a circle, facing in. Aaaaaall you have to do is glide sideways, as fast as you can, in that circle with your teammates, for as long as the trainer says. She who holds the stopwatch is your master, and you are the slave. Now move it. At first it’s okay, but after about 2.5 minutes the bottoms of your feet start to burn. Periodically the coach will shout, “Switch!” and you change directions, but it doesn’t help. After several three-minute rounds of this, you will sob with relief when the trainer calls time. The next day you will have massive, slidey blisters on the bottoms of your feet. You will moan a lot and annoy all the people around you. You will avoid the gym like the Black Death.

3. Arm circles. When the trainer tells you to purchase a couple of two- or three-pound weights, do so immediately. Because if you fail to show with your little weights, they will punish you by making you use the five-pound or heavier weights, and you will experience serious agony in short order. Stick your thus-laden hands straight out in front of you and begin to make little tiny circles. Again, the count is One, two, three, ONE, and you’ll do 25 in the front, then without dropping your arms do 25 straight up above your head, then 25 behind your back (you gotta hunch over for those), then 25 with your arms extended out to your sides. Whatever you do, don’t drop your arms or the whole team will suffer for it. For the cherry on top, extend your arms out to the front again and Just. Hold. It gets worse. Because that’s only the first set.

4. Mountain climbers. Push-up position. Pull your feet, one at a time, up to your chest, as if the floor were a vertical wall and you were Spiderman climbing it. Pretend Dr. Octopus is chasing you and you have to go really fast. Do ten million repetitions, and keep your butt down. This is why it sucks to be a superhero.

5. Duck walks. Squat all the way — I said ALL the way down, until your behind is hanging an inch or two from the floor. Now walk. Quickly. While carrying a 12-pound medicine ball at the back of your neck, lifting it straight up in the air, then returning it as you duck walk. Do laps. This is the only exercise I simply can not do (although all my in-their-20’s teammates can). I’m guessing it’s the over-40 factor, along with the rice krispies I have in my knees.

There are more tortures, but I think you get the idea. Strangely, my boxing team meets twice each week for a two-hour session of this sort of thing, and generally speaking those of us who are on the team also commit to three other gym sessions on our own every week as well. Go figure.

So yes, Virginia. Boxing hurts. But for some reason, we do it anyway.

January 22, 2009