The Glowing Edge

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  • What Happens When You Get Punched in the Face

    What Happens When You Get Punched in the Face

    It’s easy to work out in a boxing gym, pounding the heavy bag, focusing on your combinations, power, footwork, and cardio. You can do round after round on the speed bag and double-end bag, getting your timing and coordination right. But when you get in the ring and get punched in the face that very first time, pretty much everything you’ve worked so hard to learn flies straight out the window.

    Mike Tyson said it well. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

    When you’re working with newer boxers, it’s not hard to accidentally tag them hard. Even if I’m pulling punches, working for touches rather than hard hits, sometimes they walk into one. And it is no fun, I know from experience. That damn glove pops you bam! on nose and you think, Shit! What the hell was that!?

    You immediately drop your guard, your plan, your everything, and try to figure out whether or not you’re bleeding, whether this is important, whether or not you intend to keep boxing.

    I did this to a friend in the ring recently, so it’s fresh in my mind. And I’m remembering my first few (dozen, hah) sparring rounds and how much of a shock it was to actually be hit, hard. Not necessarily because someone has it in for you, but come on, this is boxing. It’s going to happen. I knew that. My sparring partner who took two heavy straight rights from me this week (in the very first round, ugh) knew that. But it can still put a hard stop on operations.

    What happens in your head, when you take your first hard shot

    The first thing you experience is outright shock. You know you’re boxing, but being punched in the face is just not something we’re used to. How could it be? The shock is what causes you to falter, to stop working and stand there in disbelief.

    This is the first and greatest hurdle to get over in boxing, and of course there are lots of people who say “Why would I want to get over that hurdle? What an insane sport.” And I understand those people, I truly do. But the simple fact is that learning to take a punch taught me a much bigger lesson about myself, and about life.

    Let’s admit it, life is not an insulated little nursery school play yard. If you don’t grow a pair (ovaries or balls, you choose) NOW, you are actively, knowingly putting at great risk all the good gifts you’ve been given and the future you deserve to have. There are things in life you must fight for, or they’ll be taken away from you by force.

    Learning that I could take a punch and not be stopped in my tracks by it was one of the most empowering moments of my entire life.

    The pain sets in a second after the shock. And it’s tempting to let pain derail your plans the way shock can. Pain is powerfully persuasive. A straight shot to the nose stings, makes your eyes immediately well up, and sends a jolt of sparks across your whole face. Your nose feels squashed, although it won’t swell for another minute or so. Sometimes you bleed, sometimes your nose simply drips. It’s hard not to believe you’re seriously injured, but usually you aren’t. You simply aren’t used to it.

    What happens to the rest of your game

    Nothing, that’s what. You drop your guard and paw at your face. You stare at your sparring partner as if you’ve never actually met before. You shake your head and try to figure out what to do next. You swear over your mouthguard.

    If you have a good sparring partner or trainer, they’ll pick up the slack for you by telling you to get your guard back up and get your ass back in the game. The bell hasn’t rung, and it’s your job to keep working until it does.

    Why it’s important to get punched in the face, hard

    If you intend to box you are going to take some hard damn shots. It’s a thousand times better to experience this in the ring with a trusted partner than it is to learn it for the first time when you’re in a real match against an opponent who really is trying to knock your head off.

    The simple truth is you get experienced at taking shots. You find out what it is going to feel like, you begin to understand how to avoid the worst of the pain, you learn how to deal with the shock and keep fighting, blood or no blood. That’s a hugely valuable lesson.

    One time I was driving on the interstate when I saw a powerline suddenly snap loose and drop down across the highway, and a policeman on a motorcycle (right in front of me) hit the cable and went flying off his bike, right into oncoming traffic. It was a damned miracle that he wasn’t killed outright. I immediately pulled into the central lane that divided the highway and came to a quick stop, as did several other cars whose drivers saw it happen.

    I distinctly remember standing in the middle of the highway in shock, staring at the downed officer laying in the middle of a lane of traffic. It was exactly like being punched hard in the face. I was in complete shock when I should have been working with the other people jumping out of their cars to stop traffic, get to the officer, and call for help.

    Fortunately, others on the scene were more experienced than I was, and the end of the story is that the officer and the motorcycle were banged up but essentially okay. There were no other wrecks. The power line was taken care of.

    If I were to be in a similar situation now I know I would do a better job of shaking off the shock and working through a plan. Maybe I wouldn’t perform with style and grace, but I’d at least have a chance at it.

    One last truth, one secret joy

    My husband is reading Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis. (You may have seen the movie with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.) The author talks about how the major leagues are great at chewing up and spitting out hitters. You might be able to hit in the minors, but when you come up to the show, every pitcher in the game has studied your weaknesses, and if you don’t like ’em high and inside, that’s what you’re gonna get. They’ll find out exactly what you can’t hit, and pitch it to you.

    Sound anything like life? It’s definitely true in boxing. You have to get good at being punched hard in the face, because that’s exactly what someone is going to be doing to you. And the better you can shrug it off, slip it off, let it slide past without stunning and stopping you, the faster you’ll move up in the game.

    And the secret truth that every boxer holds tight in his or her soul? It’s empowering. It feels fucking awesome to be able to take a hard shot and keep fighting. No other way to say it than that.

    It’s a high cost, perhaps, but well worth the pay out.

    What do you think? What was it like, the first time you took a shot, in the ring or in life, and how did you do? Would you do better now? Leave me a comment and share your story!

    CC image by ennuiislife on Flickr

  • I LOVE Not Being the New Person in the Gym

    I LOVE Not Being the New Person in the Gym

    It is so incredibly hard to claw your way up the learning curve — and I’d rather say the straight-up learning cliff — in boxing. You can put years into it, and still feel like a beginner.

    But once you’ve gotten solid enough in boxing to get in the ring and spar (for me that took a few months), you’ve made it to the first big ledge. You can stand there for a minute and try to catch your breath.

    Every time you spar is an exercise in overcoming fear, but it actually gets easier (did I just say that??) if you are doing it regularly with people you know and trust.

    The next ledge up is your first official fight. What a life-changing experience. I was terrified for the ten days leading up to my first match, and the fear multiplied by about seven bazillion once I actually rolled under the ropes and took my place in the blue corner, waiting for that first bell to ring.

    But once you get to this stage on your climb, it gets ever so much better, I promise. It is never, never easy — this is boxing, after all — but it does get less terrifying, and it’s that first fight that really makes a significant difference in your mental attitude about the fight sport you hate and love.

    There’s a certain amount of boxing cred you get when you’ve been in the ring, particularly if you’ve had official fights. And that cred goes such a long way in helping overcome the natural suspicion and stress involved in shifting to a new gym, getting a new trainer, going to spar at another gym, or having another boxing team coming to spar with your team.

    Twice this week I’ve enjoyed the peace that comes with not being the new kid in the gym.

    On Wednesday I traveled up to NBS Gym to spar with Amy, who is a 25 year old technical writer who will kick your ass for you if you let her. Amy has had a couple of fights like I have and helps condition the team at NBS. I have sparred with her once before, and I really like getting ring work with her because she’s pretty near my weight (she’s actually 10 pounds lighter, so I actually have an advantage, which is nice for a change) and she has a fantastic, let’s-go-get-em attitude.

    But the absolute best part of our work, which included me finally getting my first good sparring in a while, was that I wasn’t a bundle of nerves walking in this time.

    I wasn’t a new boxer and I wasn’t unaccustomed to the ring. Damn, but that’s nice.

    Last night I went to train at my own gym and noticed the same general effect.

    I drifted in around 6 pm, and saw that there were three new guys training with a team boxer. A couple of my teammates were getting through their stretches and I fell in with them. After a few minutes, the coach put us all to shadowboxing 6 rounds together in front of the two old busted mirrors that are leaning against the cinderblock wall opposite our ring. The new kids were sloppy and tired by the end of the 6, which didn’t bode well for them. Shadowboxing is the warm-up.

    And at the end of the 6 rounds, the coach called everyone over. “You, you, and you,” he said, jabbing his hand in the direction of each of the new guys. “Far end of the gym. Heavy bags. Work some jabs. Team, get on your circuit. You know the drill.”

    The new kids eyed us enviously — and maybe with a little resentment — as we went our separate ways.

    And I felt that silent thrill that I wasn’t banished to the shadows, and the parallel misery that comes with knowing that I would be working with no round breaks for the next 15 three-minute rounds under the eagle eye of the coach, being constantly evaluated, hounded, and corrected.

    And it was miserably, damnably hard work. At the end of 15 rounds (heavy bag, angle bag, headache bag, rope ducks, and toe-touches on a medicine ball) with no round breaks (did I mention the “no breaks” part?), we were put into the ring for mitt work rounds. After which we were graciously allowed to rest by jumping rope for four rounds.

    Thanks be to all the boxing deities that I can do this without puking.

    It’s usually only the new kids who puke.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • Boxing Update: Curiosity Killed the Cat

    Ok, when I first posted about learning to box, I promised to keep you up to date. Those of you who see me regularly in real life have trouble getting me to Shut. Up. about it already. I even convinced one of my instructors to let me film him for 12seconds.tv (he’s a machine).

    Up until now I’ve been working on a heavy bag, the focus mitts (a little) and that’s about it. So yesterday I stepped in to talk to the woman who runs LA Boxing here in Cary, Bonnie “Queen B” Mann, professional boxer for 13 years and world championship title holder — the first woman from NC to take home the Big Belt. And it IS a Big mamma-jamma Belt. I actually stepped in to talk to Bonnie about coming with me to a networking event for which I was the keynote speaker; I planned to use boxing as an illustration for how to get started with social media.

    As we were chatting, I mentioned my intense curiosity about what it would be like to actually get in the ring and throw a punch at a real person.

    You know what they say about curiosity and the cat?

    Now it’s on, baby. I’m getting special dispensation to miss church on Sunday (gasp!) in order to show up for her class, after which she’s gonna gear up and put me in the ring with her. Understand, now — Bonnie will not be throwing any punches. I’m supposed to punch her. Never fear, there’s no actual chance that she will be injured in any way. Please worry about me, however.

    I was fine fine fine on the heavy bag. Fine, I tell you. Aaargh.

    It gets worse. Remember the speech about boxing and social media? Well, Bonnie DID come when I spoke at Cisco about social media, and she brought her giant championship belt, too. I politely introduced her, raved about boxing, told everyone I was having my debut with Bonnie in the ring on Sunday, ha ha, ended my happy little speech, and started Q & A.

    And a woman in the back raised her hand and asked if my bout with Bonnie was going to be broadcast on video. I may have reacted somewhat strongly with my “Absolutely not!” because I saw a dozen sneaky grins light up in the room.

    People, this is NOT something you want to see. If you’ve gone out clubbing with me, you know how dorky and ridiculous I look when I dance. It’s not like Elaine bad, but it’s bad. I’m probably at least that dorky looking when I box.

    I hope for your sake that it’s not bad enough to be viral.