The Glowing Edge

Tag: life

  • Fighting the Dread of Boxing Training

    Fighting the Dread of Boxing Training

    Having just moved to a new boxing gym, I’m once again reminded of how hard it is to make inroads into a new gym, a new team. I don’t mean overcoming the reluctance to train, but rather the simple and profound fear of boxing itself, and all the insanely hard work it takes to stand in the ring.

    Part of my newly re-awakened dread has to do with moving up several levels to train with a much more intense, powerful, competitive crew. I really did think I was in shape until I showed up at Second Round, and I’ve been struggling for several weeks to be able to train there two days in a row, without at least one or two days in between to recover.

    So my first tactic in fighting the dread of boxing training is — crazily enough — to train harder.

    My husband thinks it’s ironic that I run several miles, jump rope for 20 minutes and do hurdles on my “off” days. But we’re both starting to understand that some of that off-day training has to do with a mental leap that I’m making every time I show up at the new boxing gym. I need to know that I’m capable of working hard on my own, that I can endure the heat and the struggle without someone urging me forward; I need to believe that I’m doing this because I choose to do it, even on the days I don’t love it. The power is mine.

    I also maintain a fair amount of mental radio silence.

    Every day that I plan to go to the new gym I start to get gut churn around noon. I could give myself pep talks, but I’ve found that there really isn’t anything I can say to convince myself not to sweat it so hard. Boxing training is not about talk, it’s about work.

    You would think that I might have learned this life lesson by now. It’s true in my writing, which I do both professionally and recreationally. I don’t waste much time telling myself that I should write, or that I’m good at writing. I don’t spend much time planning my writing, either: I write. I sit down, power up my laptop, and do it. I make mistakes, I edit, I polish, I publish; that’s how it gets done.

    Unless I’m actually prepping for a fight, it doesn’t help me to think about boxing training in advance. Instead, I have to jam the channel. I mentally tune my brainwaves to a smooth light hiss, not unlike the sound of the ocean. And I trust myself to be able to face it when I’m actually stepping into the gym.

    It can be difficult to accept all the unknowns in boxing.

    If there’s a sparring opportunity, I get in the ring. It’s the hardest thing in boxing to do this, over and over again. And everyone who has ever rolled under the ropes understands firsthand how terrifying it can be to not know anything about the person you are about to fight. But there are other, more common unknowns as well.

    For example, I’m still learning how training happens in my new gym. There doesn’t seem to be a regular way of doing things (regardless of any schedule that may or may not exist), but team training does come together under the direction of a coach sometimes; it’s almost like the conditions just have to be a certain way for it to happen — and you have to be there at the right time to catch the wave.

    You also have to be willing to drop in on the wave when it happens.

    I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep up. I don’t know if I’ll hold back the entire team, or be able to give my drill partner the kind of work they want and need. I don’t know if I’ll slip the right way or get repeatedly punched in the face. But I’ll never know unless I jump in and take my place with the team. No one invites me to join in; I have to do it myself. But every time I’ve stepped forward, I’ve won another small nod of respect from my teammates and coaches.

    I’ve learned that I perform well under pressure.

    Channeling fear into energy takes practice. There are always plenty of fighters who are better than you. There are four boxers currently in the Olympic pre-qualification process at my small urban gym. Four! They are extremely skilled and they work far harder than I do, every day. It can be intimidating for me to walk in and share a heavy bag with one of them, or join their training rotation, but I do it. I work very hard to channel that intimidation into training energy in the same way that I let faster runners spur me on. And while I might find that I don’t measure up to someone else’s level, I have discovered that I consistently perform better when I’m challenged.

    More and more I’ve come to wonder if boxing imitates life.

    And I’m laughing, because boxing is so much gentler. There are rules, and safety precautions, and coaches. You get to leave the gym any time you want. You might be bloodied and bruised, but there are no broken hearts, or terminally ill friends, or moral dilemmas in boxing. There are no looming deadlines or financial disasters.

    But every day you step forward and fight, despite the dread. Not to win a prize, or build a record, or turn back the clock, but because it’s what you do. It’s how you live.

    It’s who I am honored to be.

    Image by jnyemb on Flickr

  • Why I Box

    Why I Box

    I box in a suburban gym. Everything is branded “LA Boxing” in chirpy red and blue. The branding makes me think Hollywood weight loss, and in fact, most people are here to lose weight or get fit. It’s clean, carpeted, and full of sunshine most days. There are no cement floors, wooden pallets, musty lockers. The lockers are tidy cubbyholes like you would see in an elementary school.

    None of this fits with my fantasy of being part of a dark, cramped boxing gym with big, quiet Rocky types or ropy bantamweights and their arthritic old-man trainers. But it’s certainly reflective of my life, none of which ever took place in New York or inner-city Chicago. I’ve lived most of my life in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee or North Carolina. Mine is a universe of shopping malls and bedroom communities, two car garages and Saturdays mowing the lawn.

    Contrary to my initial experience at LA Boxing, there are actually plenty of women at the gym, I just never see most of them. It seems like most of the women go to kickboxing classes and rarely come to a boxing class. It reminds me of the seventies, when great waves of women suddenly decided to sign up for jazzercise and self-defense classes. I never did that, not because I thought anything was wrong with it, but because I was motivated by different things.

    I love having discovered how orderly boxing is. In boxing you have a stance, there are ways you move and duck and punch that remain the same, no matter what. There’s a purity about it that I love.

    I also love the sense of heart and tradition. There’s a lot of theater and drama here, but also a lot of incredibly difficult work, endurance, pain, and even legend associated with boxing.

    Boxing engages my competitive spirit, my desire to be good at something that not everybody wants to do, and my desire to learn from masters. The sport demands my strength, my intellect, my focus, and my patience.

    I train in a suburban gym, but I’m a part of something with history and passion. I don’t box to lose weight. I don’t box in order to be able to defend myself. I box because boxing is beautiful, difficult, and inspiring. There are heroes here, and I want to know and be a part of their greatness.

  • The Clarity You Gain After a Close Call

    When I hear the thunder I call his name.
    I hear something bumping in the garage; the rain comes in sheets.
    Opening the front door, I see him in the yard, carefully arranging white metal folding chairs behind a pitching net. Is it raining?

    What are you doing? I call.
    I’m doing this, he replies.

    I stand on the front porch, thinking how green the grass looks, how the rain has flattened it, and I have slipped through a veil. I take everything in and catalog it.
    He smiles crookedly: one front tooth.

    I’m going to take a shower, I tell him.
    Okay, he says, giving me a small nod to add importance to my actions.
    I am the stranger here.

    * * *

    It’s been a long time since I wrote a poem.

    Last week the Husband had a close call when he was helping with some demolition at the new facility our church is moving into. He was carrying a large mirror out to the trash when it shattered, fell, and sliced his forearm open to the bone. He was high on the triage list, and got into the ER, sewn up (deep sutures for the muscles, “mattress sutures” for the surface, it was awful — for me, maybe for him too), and was discharged within two hours, a record in our family. Friends helped me with the boys and transportation, and I have said thank you to God and the connected forces of friendship, medical science, and healing a million times this week. When we got home I felt as if the world had suddenly resolved into high definition, crystal clear focus, and it was beautiful. From the cracked pavement to the unmade bed, beautiful.

    The next day, Sunday, I woke up to a heavy rain. The Husband and the Ice had already headed out to church and my oldest was still asleep. The Maker, true to his name, was bumping about in the garage, ferrying equipment through the rain and into the front yard for… a construction of sorts. Like everything else, to my renewed senses it seemed incredible. An act from a play on another planet. I turned around and scribbled the poem on a scrap of paper.

    A few days later in the week I emailed local artist Ruffin Hobbs who was going to do a commission for our company. Minutes later I received a reply from his wife, who reported briefly and movingly that her husband had suffered a terrible accident and died two weeks previously. I stopped everything to phone my husband, hug my children, and ache for a woman I’ve never met.

    I have appreciated the intense clarity of focus, but even a middling-proximity to the suffering and pain of the world can become excruciating.