The Glowing Edge

Tag: jab

  • 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

  • Listening to Your Coach: The Mind-Body Connection in Boxing

    Listening to Your Coach: The Mind-Body Connection in Boxing

    Seventeen young men, most of the court-ordered to be there, are standing with me in lose rows in their boxing stance, guard up. Coach “One Bad Jab” Massey calls the shots.

    “Jab, jab, jab, squat. Jab, pivot…jab,” he calls, never raising voice overmuch, mixing up the timing of his commands, and watching us with an eagle eye. The shots are called slowly, with plenty of time in between for Coach Massey to walk among the rows with a boxing glove that is stuffed and taped to one end of a long shovel handle. These are standard tools in boxing gyms.

    The trick here is that if he jabs that thing in your face you DO. NOT. FLINCH. You don’t duck, you don’t do anything. Unless he shouts “Squat!” to the group, and then you better get low or risk having your head popped by his glove-on-a-stick.

    “I did NOT say ‘squat,’” Massey comments calmly to a young man who saw the glove coming and wrongly anticipated the coach’s command. “Give me 15 pushups.”

    The young man drops and the rest continue. This isn’t an exercise in jabs, or squats, or even overcoming the flinch reflex. They are lessons in listening.

    In fact, if you were to regularly watch the training sessions at Second Round, there would be plenty of days when you might think the coach was working harder at teaching the kids to listen than he is at making them sweat.

    And you’d be right.

    Why boxers need to develop an instinctive response to a coach’s voice

    There’s a lot of mental work that goes on when you’re in the ring. But then there are times when you’re too fatigued to work your strategy, or you’re under so much heavy fire you just can’t think, all you can do is survive. That’s one of your coach’s most critical jobs — to call the shots when you can’t do it any more. But it doesn’t begin there.

    1. Creating safety out of chaos

    Second Round held a sparring night for all of the new boxers in the gym recently. Once everyone was geared up and gathered around the ring apron, Massey climbed into the ring and called for everyone’s attention.

    Our kids are mostly there by court order. They have a lot of street tough in them. But even if they didn’t, most people come to a boxing gym expecting to “fight.” They have images of brawls, fistfights, and lots of anger and frustration coming out inside those ropes.

    Which is a big mistake, and the first one Massey points out.

    “What are we here to do?” he asks the kids, who are anxious and jittery, shuffling and bumping each other. But they think they know the answer.

    “Fight!” they tell him, and it comes out like a cheer.

    “No,” he responds, shaking his head. “We’re here to box.” He doesn’t elaborate, but his point will be illustrated soon, when they see how easily a more experienced boxer will evade their wild, messy, craziness in the ring, and return smart, quick, stinging punches as they flail around.

    “I have three commands for you to remember tonight,” he continues. “You’ll hear them from your ref at the beginning of your match, and you’ll hear them during your rounds. If you forget everything else while you’re in this ring, I want you to remember these three words.” He pauses to make sure he has their attention.

    “The three commands are ‘box,’ ‘break,’ and ‘stop.’” He fires off each word like a rifle shot, and they pop against the cinderblocks and echo back.

    He explains, but I know the real understanding won’t come until much later in their training. Because as they brawl their messy way through those initial rounds, these three commands help put the first, rough boundaries on what they are trying to learn. They keep the kids safe in a very chaotic place.

    If you can hear nothing else (and you can’t hear much) during the war of your first rounds, you hear those words, and respond. And that’s where a powerful relationship with a great coach begins.

    2. Stopping a new boxer’s tendency to overthink

    I’m a thinker. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. And when I was a new boxer, my brain frequently held me back in the ring. When faced with a complicated situation I wanted to stop and carefully analyze all the multiple pieces that were going into my work. But my brain wasn’t boxing-smart. And often there were too many pieces to think of at once, and I ended up paralyzed and unable to move, or else I just looked a mess.

    Over and over I would hear my coaches say, “You’re over-thinking it.” And I was. I found that often my body could respond more quickly and easily to my coach’s shot-calls than my brain could make sense of everything, stitch all the pieces logically together, and tell my body to execute the command.

    Sometimes you have to cut out the middleman. Sometimes the middleman is your own brain. Use your coach’s brain instead, because it’s boxing-smart.

    I was teaching proper form for a jab to a friend recently when I was reminded of this again. She wanted to “talk through” each part at length; it’s a complicated creature, the jab. We’d been going through the motions carefully for a while, but the whole shot wasn’t coming together for her.

    Eventually I interrupted her verbal processing, which was getting us nowhere. “Stop thinking about it,” I told her. “Just pop it into my hand on my command.” And an instant later I called, “Jab!”

    And damned if she didn’t throw the prettiest bee-sting jab you ever saw straight into my upraised palm.

    Your body may be able to learn boxing faster than your brain does. You need both, but more than that, you need a coach to tell you when to shift gears.

    3. Getting you through rough rounds against superior opponents

    Your coach helps you build your strategy as you prepare to face a tough opponent. And while you may start your bout with your plan firmly in place, sometimes you find yourself outmatched or getting eaten alive by your opponent’s strategy instead.

    At some point you default to simply protecting yourself; you become all defense. You stop scoring, and you will lose the fight if you’re all on your own.

    A good coach in your corner can turn that completely around for you, in many cases. But you have to be able to tune out the roar of the room, the sound of punches banging against your ears, and the random cheers and jeers of onlookers. You have to have one channel only open, the one between you and your coach.

    When she or he calls the shots, you let your body respond. Your coach then has the control, and can guide you through the jagged reefs and safely into the harbor, if you can listen and respond.

    As it is in boxing, so it is in life

    I find myself saying this more and more these days. Good, clean boxing informs life, and vice-versa. Get a coach you can trust, just like you have mentors upon whom you can depend to guide and train you in the best possible ways.

    Nobody owes you training, no matter how much you paid for your gym membership. The best training is earned. It comes in boxing as it does in life, when you develop a relationship with someone who is willing to teach, if you are willing to listen and work hard.

    So who comes to mind as you read this?

    I’ll bet you have some coaches, mentors, and trainers who absolutely changed the course of your life. I hope you’ll take the time to leave a comment and share your story. And even pass this on to a coach or teacher you’ve deeply valued…

    My own fist bumps and grateful appreciation go out to Coach Bonnie “Queen B” Mann, and of course, Willie “One Bad Jab” Massey. Many thanks to both of you, as well as to several other incredible coaches who have worked with and influenced me — Terri “The Boss” Moss, Paul “The Italian Hit Man” Marinaccio, and more. You guys have changed my life for the better!

    Image: That’s me, being cornered by pro trainer Xavier “Bad Pads” Biggs during my very first fight.

  • First Time Sparring: Last Minute Advice

    First Time Sparring: Last Minute Advice

    You’ve done your heavy bag work, your partner drills, pads, and roadwork. Now you’re getting your chance in the boxing ring. It’s going to be your first time sparring and when you’re not thinking about puking, you’re stoked.

    And a thousand questions are running through your head. How hard should you hit? How many rounds can you go? Will you suck? Will you embarrass yourself? Will all your hard training pay off? Will you be able to take a hit and keep going?

    Congrats on a huge milestone in your training. Sparring is the holy grail of boxing; it’s even better than a fight, since you get to do so much more of it. Here are a couple of articles I’ve already written that may be useful to you:

    What You Should Know Before You Spar

    What to Expect the First Time You Spar in Boxing

    So. Last minute words of advice? You bet.

    1. It’s not about how hard you punch.

    Remember, if you hurt your sparring partner, you don’t have a sparring partner any more. First time boxers tend to let their fear power their shots; do what you can to calm yourself before ringtime so that you don’t drain your energy with nerves and so that you don’t throw hard and wild.

    2. Gloves up, chin down, elbows in. Keep a jab going.

    If you can do nothing else, do these four things. The first three keep you from getting hurt, and the jab should keep you working on some kind of offense. Jabs and straight rights are enough for your first time sparring. Don’t sweat it if that’s all you can remember to do.

    If you can remember all this and still have room to think and work, then keep your head and feet moving so you don’t eat every punch that’s thrown. (But that’s advanced.)

    3. Tell your partner it’s your first time sparring.

    Your trainer should let you go in with someone much more experienced than you, so that your partner can evade your wild stuff and bring the game to your level so you can get good work.

    Unfortunately, not all gyms are so careful. In that case, here’s what you do…

    4. Set the bar — go in punching with about half your power.

    That should elicit a response that is at about the same level.

    If your partner ignores your “bar” — i.e., the level of power you’ve set — then you can either tell them to turn down their heat OR you simply return the power. Careful here, this is how inexperienced people get hurt.

    5. Decide how many rounds you’ll go in advance.

    If you regularly train on the heavy bag and have no problem making it through six rounds in a row, you can most likely make 3 decent rounds in the ring.

    If you’ve been doing Tabata workouts (I like mine with 40 seconds of ultra-intense exercise — like a sprint — with 20 seconds of rest, 4 times in a row) three times a week, you’ll have the sprint capacity you’ll need for 3 rounds.

    Some people say if you can run a 5k in less than 30 minutes you’ll be able to go 3 rounds — NOT the case at all!

    What you need is anaerobic conditioning, not aerobic conditioning. This means your body has to perform without enough oxygen. So measure yourself with sprints or hard 3 minute rounds of any exercise where you go all out, then recover 30 seconds, then go all out again.

    For your first time sparring, don’t go over your round limit because you’ll be boxing exhausted and you are more likely to get injured.

     6. Be willing to roll out after one or two rounds, if needed.

    Be friendly, thank your opponent, but avoid injury! Injuries suck, because they keep you out of the ring. Ring time is the holy grail! And you can always wait out a few rounds and roll back in.

    7. Pace yourself.

    If you come out guns blazing, you aren’t going to make it to the end of your first round. If you throw several flurries in a row, you’re gonna get gassed.

    Throw singles, doubles, flurries (if you can), and intersperse them with some defense and good footwork. This is really important because you don’t yet have a sense of how much energy sparring will suck out of you.

    Later (not your first time sparring!) when you’re practicing, include 30 second sprints at the end of every round. My current sparring partner and I go toe-to-toe for inside fighting at the 30-second bell at the end of every round. This helps us build capacity for 30 seconds worth of flurry work. You can also do it in shadow boxing or bag work by using the last 30 seconds of every round for one-two punching as fast as you can until the bell rings. Killer.

     8. Fight till the bell rings.

    This is crucial. You really do want to try and make it to the bell, no matter what. Train that way, think that way, fight that way. This is the sport we’re in, and finishing the round is a major indicator of your ability to make it in the sport. Unless you have an injury, fight till the bell rings.

    9. Final word: It’s normal to be afraid. Fight anyway.

    Everybody’s scared. I’ve been doing this for years and I still get gut churn when I’m sparring with someone new. It doesn’t take a hero to fight when you’re not scared; the real champion is somebody who will be terrified but roll under those ropes and get to work anyway.

     Congrats on your first time sparring! I hope you’ll report back here (or email me at Lisa [at] The Glowing Edge [dot] com) and let me know how it goes for you, whether any of this advice was useful, and what lessons and advice you have to share as well.

    And a huge thanks goes out to Michael Smith, a new boxer who emailed me to let me know he was about to have his first sparring session and got me started thinking about this again. Be sure to check out his boxing blog over at The Road to Pugilism. Kick ass, Michael!

    Creative Commons image by Fabio Macòr on Flickr

  • What You Should Know Before You Spar

    What You Should Know Before You Spar

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

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

    There are two schools of thought in boxing.

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

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

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

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

    A good trainer trumps everything else

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

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

    A rant, before I move on

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

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

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

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

    Okay. I feel a little better. Onward.

    Have some basic conditioning

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

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

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

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

    Use your jab

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

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

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

    Keep your gloves up

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

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

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

    Never mind about footwork

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

    The four biggies, and knowing what’s coming

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

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

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

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

    Sticking with it

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

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

     Image by Steve Tolcher

  • Boxing Lesson: Advance on the Jab

    Boxing Lesson: Advance on the Jab

    It may be that trainers have been saying this to me for years now, and I’m only just recently able to hear it.

    There is so much to be mastered in boxing that sometimes it’s all you can do to cope with the basics. You have to simply survive in the ring for a long time before you stop sucking and start to look like you know a couple of things. It can be incredibly hard to operate calmly when you feel like you are under fire, but I promise you, it does happen! You get one tiny building block, then another and another.

    I feel like I am finally at the point where I’m able to hear my trainers tell me to advance on the jab. Jay was saying this well before I was at Second Round, where I’m hearing it now from Coach “One Bad Jab” Massey.

    It sounds ridiculously simple, doesn’t it?

    For whatever reasons, I’ve either not heard it, or haven’t been able to implement it until recently. It could be that I was simply relying on my fairly good reach, and just never gave my jabs that extra push they needed to punch through, rather than to my target. Using your rear foot to push yourself forward in a short, strong burst on the jab gives you a couple more inches and really sends that jab home with a bang.

    This is an offensive jab, whereas many of my jabs are also defensive, thrown to keep someone out of my range or stop my opponent’s advance. That’s all good, but advancing on the jab is another way to intimidate, score, and control in the boxing ring.

    Check out one of my favorite fighters, Ana “The Hurricane” Julaton (8-2-1, 1 KO), the WBO super bantamweight world champion who recently defended her title against #1 contender Franchesca “The Chosen One” Alcanter (18-10-1, 9 KO’s).

    Julaton’s jab is unstoppable. She won the fight on this perfect shot, a handful of power rights and that sick left hook.

    Watch how she advances on nearly every single jab. It’s incredible to see, and it’s made even more powerful with the warp speed at which she moves. The fight begins at the 7 minute mark on the video below, and this video includes the entire 10 rounds. Ana is in the red and black.

    By the way, Ana Julaton just became the first female boxer ever to appear on a Topps trading card. Cool, huh? Oh, and since they gave Ana one, they had to give one to Manny Pacquiao, too.

    But around my house, we’ll be hoping for a Julaton.

    Image by maxtm on Flickr

    *Incidentally, the ref in the ring in the photo at the top of this post is one of the coaches at Second Round where I’m boxing now. He is frequently back and forth to NY (and many other places) as a boxing referee. I think he’s been doing it now for more than 40 years. I’m forever coming across him in video and photos.

  • Back in the Ring to Take Another Swing

    Back in the Ring to Take Another Swing

    In an attempt to lever myself out of my post-fight funk I’ve been listening to lots of hair metal, so that’s the post title and you can laugh all you want. But while hair metal might address the out-of-the-ring blues, it can’t cure it. There’s only one cure, and that’s to get back in.

    I had been lamenting via email to my fight sister in Ireland, Niamh, and she reminded me that down time is good and necessary after a big fight, and she recommended wine and chocolate cake (don’t tell your coach, she said) for the depression. Her gym mate calls the week or two after a fight “fat time” for obvious reasons. But I still seem to be losing weight and my appetite for chocolate cake is minimal, although I did have a drink when I went to see a favorite band perform live over the weekend.

    So it felt pretty good to get an email from one of the owners of a gym nearby me last week, while I was stewing in my misery. She has two women training at her gym (Two! Can you believe it?) and she invited me to come spar with them.

    As we exchanged emails and set up the date, I could feel myself perking up a little.

    When the night approached I started to feel the normal anxiety of going to spar with strangers. Boxing can be dangerous, and it’s just smart to approach an unknown fighter with caution. However, my first trainer Bonnie had been unreserved in her favorable opinion of this particular gym and had told me I could trust the coaches there, and that counts for a lot with me.

    Still, I found myself dialing Jay’s number that afternoon for reassurance. I knew he had to be at work soon. He didn’t answer, so I told myself to buck up and I drove through downtown and out to the warehouse district where the gym is housed. About the time I got there my phone rang. It was Fury.

    “Talk to me,” I told him. “I’m parked across the street from the gym and I’m not ready to go in yet.”

    “Hey, this is what you want,” he reminded me. “You are completely capable of handling anything you find there.”

    I took a deep breath. (Jay was supposed to tell me to breathe, but somehow I remembered this time.) “Yeah. I am.”

    “You just need to keep a jab out there. Keep your feet and head moving, that’s all. Basics. If you find yourself badly outmatched or getting injured, roll out. There’s no point in getting your ass kicked.” He paused, and let me have a moment to digest that. It’s always the biggest fear in boxing, getting slaughtered in the ring. And it does happen. All of us have been through it at one time or another.

    “And let me remind you that you’re not there to kick anybody’s ass, either,” he continued.

    I can’t tell you how good it feels to hear this. I’m capable of kicking someone’s ass. It’s true, and it’s exactly what I’ve worked for. But you save that for a fight. Which is where his speech — which I was shamelessly luxuriating in — would go next, I knew. I closed my eyes, propped my feet on the dashboard, and focused on his voice.

    “This is sparring, and you want to get work and give it. Lower your punch count and power if your partner isn’t as good as you are. Match what you find. And remember, if you tee off on someone you’re gonna get it back, so make a smart decision on that.”

    I know all these things. But it’s the second-greatest gift of boxing to have a trainer who knows what’s in your head and can help you win the mental battle of boxing as well as the physical game.

    The greatest gift of boxing is doing well in the ring.

    I signed off with Jay, drove across the street to the gym, and hauled my gear into the warehouse.

    NBS Gym is gloomy, cavernous, and cluttered with the detritus of three sports. There are a dozen or more wooden fencing strips down the center of the gym, a regulation boxing ring, a kickboxing ring, heavy bags in all stages of repair, a small free weight pit, some tractor tires with sledgehammers nearby, and shelves and stacks and piles of epee swords, jackets, masks, boxing gloves, kickboxing pads, and headgear. It smells like concrete and canvas and sweat; wonderful.

    I had hardly wandered in before I saw an arm raised and waving; they were watching for me. I tried to smile, remembered to relax my shoulders, and walked over to get the lay of the land.

    My sparring partners were obvious — outside of the coaches, they were the only two women in the gym. I picked them out of the milling group of athletes quickly, and we exchanged nods and waves. I was vibrating with nerves, but was reassured that neither of them weighed significantly more than me, so I would probably be fine.

    There are at least two kinds of scary boxers. New fighters are tough because they’re scared as shit, and throwing shots wild and hard. They can be unpredictable, and you can easily get caught if you don’t stay on your toes. But even worse are the heavyweights. No matter what they land, you’re gonna feel it. Twenty, thirty, forty extra pounds is huge in the ring, huge. And if they don’t control their power you are going to suffer, and the next day you’ll have a solid boxing headache, and maybe more than a few aches and bruises. Part of the deal.

    But these two women were closer to my weight, thankfully. The first, Amy, was close to my height (I’m 5’8″ or so) and I think pretty close to my weight, which is currently hovering at 143. Amy, I found out, had good reach, too. Maybe better than mine.

    The second, Amber, was shorter than me and also light. This would be okay.

    I took out my jump rope and found an empty patch of concrete between two fencing strips and their accompanying cables. I shut my eyes and tried to let the varying rhythms of my rope warm-up soothe me. I shadow-boxed a couple of rounds, worked the heavy bags. The trainers periodically glanced my way, but otherwise gave me space and let me find my own pace and timing. Amy and Amber both smiled generously when our eyes met or our work patterns intersected. I pretended Jay was lounging ringside, watching with his usual calm demeanor.

    When I was ready to gear up and spar, Amy was waiting. We touched gloves, and began to sound each other out.

    The first round was a little spooky — two women not sure what their fight plan is going to be, trying to determine how this would go. I felt stiff and nervous. I know I was leaving my guard down even though I was fresh, because her jabs were tapping my headgear with regularity. She had some combos in her, too. Body shots, yep. We were a reasonable match. This is going to be interesting! I thought, feeling my heart rise.

    On the bell I was intensely pleased to have one of the trainers walk over to my corner. Good coaching is so incredibly valuable, and sometimes ridiculously hard to get.

    “Your guard’s down,” she mentioned, without belaboring the point.

    Gotta fix that or risk embarrassing myself, I thought.

    “Get your jab out there more,” she continued. What, did Jay phone her?

    “Don’t worry if it doesn’t drive home, just keep it out there and make her think. You’re moving nicely underneath her shots, keeping your head going, that’s good. Try some body shots.” She was calm, professional, helpful.

    The second round was more intense. I was still shedding the last of my anxiety and boxing a little woodenly. I found myself impressed with her ferocity, and waited for my body to start operating in a better fashion. This wasn’t a match so I knew we could have as many rounds as we wanted, and I wanted. I took my time.

    My right hook came out before I could stop it. On Amy, it had no chance because we were both fighting outside. It was pure slop, wide and ugly. I gritted my teeth, and sure enough I heard a ringside comment, coach to coach, but not to me. But I knew anyway. I will straighten that damn thing out, I vowed.

    “Try a right cross instead,” was the only comment made about it during the interval. And it was perfect advice, of course.

    The third round finally started to feel good. I started to tap down her jabs and return an overhand right. We had that precise exchange about six times in a row before she determined how to stop it. I felt myself grinning. My brain was starting to operate, and hers was too. She landed a smart solid right to my chin and I nodded. “Nice,” I commented, both of us appreciating the beauty of a punch perfectly timed and weighted. And we both laughed when she tossed out a wide and ridiculous right hook. Just us women, being crazy, loving our work.

    “You can hit harder, you know,” one of the trainers mentioned from below the ring after the third round. “She’s doing fine and you are too. Go ahead and box.” I was starting to feel a little weary but also quite happy. “Also try a few uppercuts. She’s coming in low for those body shots.”

    Uppercuts are so hard to land, but I thought it was worth working toward.

    She also told me to try punching off my retreats. Jay had been working on that with me too. It’s awkward, moving backward and throwing a jab at the same time, it takes a shift of balance and the exact right timing. I suck at it so far.

    She was still fast on her feet during the fourth round and incredibly game, but her punch count was dropping precipitously. I started waiting on them, and worked to redeem the tired final round from my last fight in Atlanta, where I wanted badly to return at least one more shot than was thrown by my opponent in every exchange. I did okay on that this time.

    It was good, it was all very good work. We rolled out after four and took a short break. I sat on the apron of the ring, leaned against the ropes, and relaxed into the pleasure of a warehouse filled with working fighters and waited for the next session. This is so much better to me than many things life has to offer, so much more encompassing.

    I wish I had discovered boxing years ago. I hope more women will find it early on, too.

    Amber, like Amy, was instantly likeable. She has such an open smile, and freely chatted with me both before and after I sparred with Amy. In fact, she cornered a bit for me, and had very well-reasoned, calmly delivered, and effective advice. I was looking forward to our session.

    And I wasn’t disappointed. She brought game, even though she had a difficult time landing a lot of her shots. I have height and reach on her, and was still able to fade off most of her punches. If she had been a better boxer I would have had trouble for all that damned fading. It’s a bad habit of mine, and I need to slip to the sides more, rather than fade backward. If you’re in with an aggressive boxer, they can surge forward as you fade and set you on your ass right quick.

    After the first couple of rounds I could feel her frustration rising. She was having trouble getting inside on me, and I’m quite sure she experiences the same thing when she spars Amber. She shook her head a few times but relentlessly pushed her attack. I stayed primarily on defense and threw mostly jabs. Miraculously, my guard stayed high and tight. Now why couldn’t I have done that in the earlier session? I felt comfortable, and coasted far more than was appropriate. But I was relishing my joy at being back in the ring, being pressed by fighters so full of game, coached by trainers so confident and at ease.

    Amber and I did three or four rounds, I can’t remember. But I do remember how happy I felt leaving the warehouse. Driving home, singing songs by Warrant and AC/DC and King Kobra. I have it all, don’t I?

    I have it all.

    Image by BinaryApe on Flickr.

  • More Women Boxing After 40!

    More Women Boxing After 40!

    In January of 2011 I got some new comments on my post 9 Reasons to Start Boxing After 40. One of the women commenting was Jenny, who is 46 years old, living on the West coast. She had recently started taking boxing classes, lost some weight, and was excited about her next step in boxing: making the move from group fitness classes to private boxing lessons. That’s her in the picture.

    Jenny and I spoke via email about how she is choosing to spend time (and money — she’s taken some smart and creative measures to find the money to pay for her gym membership) taking care of herself.

    I wish I had learned that lesson long before I did. For most of my life I thought I could never leave the house in the evening or be unavailable to do things for my husband and sons. It was just crazy, but I know lots of women have struggled with that.

    Jenny gets it. Her story is filled with the joy of boxing and personal discovery, and she gave me permission to share some of what she’s written here. May it inspire even more women to find their own strength, passion, and confidence!

    Keep rockin’ it, Jenny.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

    I was so nervous about my first lesson. I could tell my teacher was too; we really didn’t know each other that well.

    We started from the very beginning and worked on the basics: how to stand, where to put my hands, etc. He likes a more sideways stance to your opponent. It has been hard to get used to because at first I felt that my jab needed to come from a leg twist. Now, 6 classes later I really get how I need to stay grounded and find the power through my legs. My jab is getting better.

    The first few lessons we only worked on jabs and straight rights; now I’m up to hooks and uppercuts.

    After a jump-rope warm-up, he gets me in the ring and I do some shadow boxing to start so I can loosen up and get my feet working. I feel like such a dork when I shadow box. I need to practice on my own in front of a mirror — I’m still really stiff.

    My favorite is pad work. I love it. He moves all around and makes sure that I don’t turn my back on him, that I stay loose and maintain my correct stance while moving around. It’s a lot to remember.

    And he’s also big on bopping me in the head. I’m getting better. He was only able to get me about 8 times today before I really blocked him. And that’s down from 12 last time. I made the mistake of telling him, so today he felt challenged to bop me 13 times. But he could only get in 8!! Yeah for me.

    I just absolutely love it. It’s my favorite hour of the week!

    I don’t even know where I’m heading with all of this or what my goals are. I just turned 46 and I want to keep getting fit and healthy. A still have a few bad pounds to lose and some good pounds to gain.

    I don’t know if I’ll ever make it into the ring with anyone, but I’ll see where it takes me.

  • Ana Julaton on Her Way to Becoming the Face of Women’s Boxing

    Ana Julaton on Her Way to Becoming the Face of Women’s Boxing


    While many of us were agonizing over the misfire of the Holm-Hernandez fight on December 4th, Ana “The Hurricane” Julaton (6-1-1) was battling her way toward her second world title in less than three months.

    This woman’s jab is beautiful! Full extension, perfectly measured, amazing power. I watch her jab and I don’t regret a moment of the epic struggle to get my own jab in shape. Just seeing Donna Biggers’s face after the fight in the video above was a reminder of just how devastating this single punch — perfectly executed — can be.

    Julaton WinsIn the December ’09 title fight with Donna Biggers (19-9-1) that jab is what kept Julaton’s opponent at bay. I also saw lots of big, swinging overhand rights that took a toll as well, and every time I hear the sharp pop of one of Julaton’s devastating ribshots I wince in sympathy and hope my own hooks keep coming along.

    While the World Boxing Council investigates the confusion around the Bad Blood scene of Melissa “The Hurican” Hernandez and Holly Holm, another “Hurricane” is taking the boxing world by storm. Julaton is taking a break for the holidays, but has her eyes on yet another world title.

    This is a woman to watch.

  • Bettah WATCH OUT for my jab, baby.

    Bettah WATCH OUT for my jab, baby.

    jab

    Well, well. I received the UNDIVIDED attention of both my trainers last night, and the Shred of the Century ensued. Apparently my jab is more poorly constructed than a Louisiana levee. So it got bulldozed and I proceeded to throw ten bafillion left jabs on command, mostly wrecks.

    One of my coaches put me through the jab shredder and the other one kept dogging my stance. I already knew my stance needed adjusting, but as you know I can only think of one thing at a time, and pretty soon I was in such poor form that I would have had trouble going the distance against Paris Hilton in the ring.

    Well, okay, let’s not be extreme — I’d have put her on the canvas in no time, and used my crappy but ingrained and heartfelt left jab to do it. Heh.

    Whew — just got lost in that fantasy for a minute. Where was I? Oh yeah, whining.

    The evil glowing laser of destruction was humming so loudly and focused so intently on me that eventually my team mates abandoned their heavy bags and came to watch the show. They began to offer their own versions of advice on my jab, stance, guard, position, reaction time, mouthguard, eye color, and choice of hand lotion. I think I took it well. I bit no one, and counted that my victory. And I threw forty craploads (and I mean that intentionally) of jabs.

    I threw so many left jabs that when I got home my sports bra had abraded a line of skin off the left side of my back. It’s a wonder I can move my arm today. But I can, amazingly. Of course, I can’t move it through the motion of a CORRECT LEFT JAB, but I can do 40 standard push-ups in the midst of my regular workout today and hardly notice.

    Okay, I feel better now, thanks for listening. My jab must be fixed. My stance must be fixed. We have the technology. We can repair me.

    And I want to say that I’m actually very grateful for my coaches, whom I adore (in a sick and twisted way), for having taken me to the woodshed. Better them than the boxers I face in the ring. And a particular squeeze of affection fist bump goes out to my team mates, who really did offer me good advice and believe in me despite my inconceivably grotesque left jab.

    I plan to show them my new one up close and personal.