The Glowing Edge

Tag: struggle

  • The Hairball to Joy Ratio in Competitive Boxing

    The Hairball to Joy Ratio in Competitive Boxing

    ACFN6I’m still in that slightly blurry stage of tired where I don’t seem to have much to say about losing my fight in Atlanta this week. Actually, I have plenty to say (it’s what I do, no?), but very little of it is about the fight itself. I think part of that is the fact that my 6 minutes of actual boxing were overwhelmed by all the other craziness involved in making this happen.

    There’s this giant hairball which goes with boxing that can sometimes overwhelm the joy of the sport, and I think I’ve spent a lot of time experiencing the hairball (and poking, prodding, and trying to untangle the wretched, nasty thing) and my hairball vs. joy ratio is out of balance this time.

    Am I disappointed that I lost? Fuck yeah. Who isn’t? But it’s also really okay in another sense. I had a marvelous opponent (of whom I made a new friend), got to hang out for a very little while in a sparkling firework of a town with a range of interesting people, and was privileged to fight in an extremely well put-together event.

    I lost primarily for two reasons.

    1. I was feeling incredibly cold and low-energy and didn’t move enough. She was pretty good with her feet. (All that pro tennis she used to play, if I had to guess.)

    2. While I could work my defense pretty well by the second and third rounds, I absolutely failed to get inside her longer reach to build up my score. She had a long right cross that scored most of her points.

    Really, that’s it. It wasn’t a horrible fight or anything; and if it had been sparring I would have asked for another 5 rounds and we both would have gotten some good work in. So, overall the actual fight — while I didn’t perform like I wanted to — was really okay. And I would LOVE to box with her again, truly.

    But that 6 minutes counted for maybe 5% of the whole experience.

    The rest was a giant, pulsing hairball of…doom. Or irritation, if I dial back the dramatic echo a bit.

    And I can see you want to know more, more, more! So let me see if I can unpack some of the hairball for you, you lucky, lucky reader. If you’ve some experience of competitive boxing of your own, you already know much of this, but if not, you may be interested in seeing how the other 95% of training for and experiencing an actual match can sometimes be.

    If you’re already fit, don’t do a long training camp

    This is the first time I can ever remember where I simply got sick and tired of training. Training ate my life this time, and I crashed and burned, and (sort of) recovered. I didn’t enjoy this one the way I normally enjoy boxing training. It was just too much. Biggest lesson learned? Shorter training period! 6 weeks sounds good. More sounds like overkill.

    The single best way to train for a fight is to spar

    This was also the first time I have ever trained for a fight and had so little sparring. I was able to get weekly sparring up until Christmas, then only one sparring session in the month before the fight. Sessions were repeatedly cancelled, sparring partners were out of town, and other normal things.

    So I didn’t get sparring. And I still believe that the single best way to get ready for a fight is to spar. Once a week, minimum; twice a week is better. At least 5 to 8 rounds each time. (Along with your other training, of course.)

    It’s hard to hold weight steady when life is crazy

    I was having trouble controlling my weight in the last few days before my fight. I wanted to weigh in at exactly 145, but two days before the fight I was 144, the day before I was 143, and somehow during the long drive to Atlanta I lost yet another couple of pounds.

    I know those truckers thought I was nuts when I hauled my scale out onto the rest stop parking lots, kicked off my shoes, and weighed myself three or four times. If my weight dropped below 140 I could lose my fight, and I arrived at the hotel before weigh-ins at 141. During the drive down I’d been eating power bars, pouring water down my throat and trying not to pee. And most of all, I was twisting myself into a knot worrying about it.

    In the end, it all worked out — I just barely tipped 144 at weigh-ins. And had the best pee of my life immediately afterwards. Still, no fun was had.

    You want to be good at handling unexpected events

    I hate surprises. I try to factor as many of them out in advance as I possibly can. It didn’t work out so well this time.

    I was running close on time getting to my hotel, and because I couldn’t find a place to park anywhere to go check in, I got a little lost looking for a spot. Then I got lost, period. (No, I don’t have a GPS.)

    When I slipped into a vacant slot on the street and got out of my car to go see the names of the next cross-street up, the meter guy came and started to ticket me. I ran back and stopped him but was too angry and in a hurry to ask him for directions. I got out of there, quickly, found another spot, and logged on someone’s unlocked internet access and checked Google Maps, keeping my engine idling and watching for overzealous meter ticketers.

    Eventually I found my hotel again, discovered a metered parking slot after circling a few times, then the parking meter wouldn’t take my dollars. I put in the few coins I dug out of the bottom of my purse and bought just enough time to race into the hotel to check in and ask where their damn hotel parking was.

    That was when I learned that downtown hotels don’t provide parking for guests. You pay a good bit extra for that ($25/day), and if you plan to use a parking garage rather than the hotel valet, you have to pay every time you come and go.

    I raced over to two nearby garages, mindful of my meter time running out, and asked two very annoyed parking attendants for rates. I did some quick calculations and realized I’d have to pay the whole day rate more than once a day (due to coming and going), so I booked it back to the hotel and told the hotel valet where my car was parked and hoped he’d hurry, because my meter time was out.

    And by the thundering waves of Poseidon, I had to pee.

    By the time I got up to my hotel room, I saw that my weight was perilously close to 140. Shit. And the only travel food I had left was an apple and (I’m going to admit this) a few Corn Nuts. I ate it all, and chugged water. I had to get to the weigh-ins, and I was pulled about as tight as a Joan Rivers facelift.

    The giant hairball was gaining girth and momentum.

    Beware of drinking, odd food, and sleepless nights

    I hope I’m far too smart to screw up by drinking too much the night before a fight (I only had one much-enjoyed cocktail after weigh-ins), but I sometimes forget the many other factors that go into lowering your performance levels and increasing your stress.

    I wish I had brought my own foods. I normally always do this, because I am such a weird eater. I love to talk about junk food, but the truth is that I eat extremely clean most of the time. Almost no fast food, no processed stuff, no fast carbs, no refined sugars. All of which is fine, until you go on a trip and eat whatever is available. Vending machine garbage, fried food, white bread and pasta, etc. After a (too) long training camp of stricter-than-usual eating, I didn’t realize how hard the crap food would hit me. BYOF, y’all.

    Add to this mix a shortage of sleep. Is it hard for you to sleep in a strange place, too? I remembered to bring some over-the-counter sleeping pills, but they don’t always work. Feh. Bleary.

    I walked downtown with a crazy friend (Hi, Amy) to Peachtree Center and had a great brunch on fight day though. Kale, grilled chicken, broccoli, mushrooms…real food at Cafe Momo.

    Unfortunately, that was the last time I had a chance to eat before the fight. BYOF, as above.

    Triple your estimate for the time you’ll spend WAITING

    The hours of waiting feel endless, like sitting through the 1934 version of Les Miserables (running time 5 hours, 5 minutes) followed by 2012’s Rock of Ages (2 hours, but feels like 9).

    This is possibly the single factor I hate the most about ANY official fight, and the reason why sparring is the real joy-filled heartbeat of boxing for me.

    There are good reasons for all the waiting you’ll do. At weigh-ins, boxers not only weigh in and have their passbooks and gear checked, but they all have to go through a physical, usually with only a single physician in attendance. I’ve been at some fight nights where there were over 60 boxers, all of whom waited for 3 or 4 hours in order to be checked out. (Then they had to wait for their turn to fight.)

    Fights are expensive to put on, almost nobody is paid, and it’s a logistical nightmare unless you have dozens of volunteers who already know the routine and can help everyone get where they need to be in an orderly or timely fashion. Even when you have enough volunteers, it’s a lot of thankless work, and it takes a lot of prep time to pull one off, even on the day of the event.

    Fighters typically have to be at a venue at least a few hours in advance of start time; for this particular night the cab dropped me off around 4:30 pm, and the event was set for 7 pm. That was kind of a record for me, only having to be there 2 hours or so in advance, although of course then I had to wait another several hours to fight. At my last fight weigh-ins started at 9 am, and fights didn’t begin until that same evening.

    In this case, I had six hours of waiting at the event for six minutes of ring time. That’s a suck burrito, baby.

    The fancy is for the audience

    Most amateur fight nights, you’ll be lucky to have a folding chair to sit on, whether you’re a boxer or not. But even the time I did an exhibition match at a big-arena pro fight where the arena was nice, the digs for the boxers were still pretty grim. Pretty much everyone was crammed into a tiny 8×10 room with ancient carpet and a grimy couch; hands were wrapped by coaches in the narrow hallway as fighters shadowboxed, and there was always a wait to use the sole bathroom.

    Unlike most amateur fight nights, the venue for my recent match was gorgeous, with spotlights, a DJ, a three-piece jazz band, bartenders and caterers with spreads laid out on crisp white linens for fight attendees. Valets opened doors for women in sequined gowns and 4-inch heels, who strolled on the arms of their impeccably-dressed men down a red carpet (not kidding) to a brilliantly and professionally lit step-and-repeat for photo ops.

    The fighters, however, were sequestered behind a filmy curtain in a long, narrow strip at the far edge of the main event room. For some reason, there seemed to be a shortage of chairs, and all of the 6 or 8 chairs that could be snagged were appropriated by coaches for hand-wrapping. Everyone else stood, sat, or laid down on the poured concrete floor, which was fiercely cold.

    The doors to the venue were all kept open so that the crisp January breeze flowed through during the long hours of waiting before the official start time arrived, making that concrete floor particularly wicked. I spread my thin scarf out to keep something between me and that vicious concrete, and laid down like many of the other fighters with my head resting on my gear bag. I kept both my lightweight jacket and my heavier coat on until shortly before I walked out for my fight. I don’t know how all the women in cocktail dresses kept warm; it’s hard to imagine I was the only hothouse flower in the place.

    By the time of my match I was feeling like someone had laid a sizzling-hot curling iron down the back of my throat. Even two days later my throat is still painfully sore. I’m pretty sure it was that damned cold concrete and chilly breeze.

    But this is the sort of thing you simply ignore. It’s part of boxing. The fancy is for the audience, and if they were as tough as you, they’d be waiting to get in the ring while you sipped your third dirty martini and smiled for the camera.

    Whine if you must, but suck it up. You might not be able to make the hairball your friend, but it’s damn well gonna be your roomie.

    Brace yourself for human drama cyclones

    I took my iPod and earbuds, but there’s only so much you can do about the human drama happening all around you. Hell, even I turn into a human drama cyclone (albiet a smallish, boring one) in the 15 minutes or so before I roll under the ropes. Boxing calls up strong emotions in everyone, and when you’re in extremis, all your wretched, painful baggage comes barreling to the fore.

    Worried about money? You’ll feel it strongly before your fight. Just split up with a boyfriend? You’ll be consumed with it before your fight. Shit going down at work, home, where ever… it’s all going to choke you like a mouthful of rancid, greasy flour and you’ll wish you could spit it out and get a clean breath of air and a double vodka to clear your head and dull your pain. Good luck with that.

    You have nothing to do but wait, for hours and hours. You’re most likely going to be in uncomfortable spaces. You’ll do nearly anything to avoid having to obsess about your fight. So you’ll probably interact with the other boxers, hear their stories, and because emotions are so ungodly high, be buffeted about by their dramas.

    And because every boxing match has a loser, you’ll see the women who are crushed by their loss, and the guys who had no idea they’d be taken down the way they were. There will be cursing, frustration, tears.

    I do try to insulate myself emotionally from some of it, but the truth is I’m also compelled by it. I can’t help but want to hear the stories and be a part of the incredible, scary, wonderful, terrifying thing that is happening to all of us together.

    But it’s also exhausting.

    You may have to fight stone cold

    I surfed the seas of human emotion for nearly the entire wait. I had a few minutes of joy shortly before fighting, followed by a miserable realization that I was feeling emotionally and physically tired, stiff, and absolutely freezing cold. Also my throat hurt like flaming hell. I asked someone to work pads with me for a few minutes and just that few minutes left me oddly weary. Trouble on the horizon.

    I was so chilled down during my first round I couldn’t get my body to move. That warmed up a bit as we went, but 6 minutes does not give you much time; you gotta work your ass off or risk losing the fight. I was barely moving and it was all over before I ever felt warm. I certainly never broke a sweat.

    This was the first time I considered that I may actually fight better in the heat than in the cold. But this was just one small tangle in the giant hairball, and not even a particularly unusual one. Most amateur events are held in gyms and community spaces that are drafty in winter and stifling in summer. For that matter, most boxing gyms don’t have reliable heating and cooling. Working HVAC is not something a boxer should need to function well.

    Factor in the toll that travel takes

    For me it wasn’t so much the 7 hours or so that it took to get to my fight location; it was more about the other hairball components, including getting around while in Atlanta. And getting home, which was a nightmare.

    I don’t have a GPS, but I had run off a series of Google maps: How to get to my hotel downtown (noting one-way streets), how to get to and from the weigh-ins from my hotel (which was walking distance), and how to get to and from the fight venue from my hotel. All of my maps were essentially useless for various reasons, and in the end it felt like so much stress that I simply decided to hire a cab to get me where I needed to go. Which, of course, also drove up the cost of the trip (3 tanks of gas, 2 nights in a hotel, two nights of hotel parking, cab fares, tips, a couple of meals — around $300).

    The real stressor in this case was getting home again the next day, as an ice storm moved in and forced me to change my travel route in order to try and stay ahead of the worst of the weather.

    My slightly lengthier route helped me avoid the storm for the first 6 hours, then I crossed the NC state line and the sleet wall hit me like a sledgehammer. Traffic slowed to a crawl as we struggled to drive on sheets of packed ice, with more sleet falling hard. I passed at least 10 wrecks, including one pickup truck flipped over onto its cab. I drove between 15 and 30 miles an hour for the next three hours in low visibility and terrible conditions, finally arriving home as my wiper blades were failing and the right half of my windshield was entirely obscured by ice. I had to break a heavy layer of ice just to get my door open.

    I hate winter.

    And 3000 words later…

    I’m ready for a break. I’m ready to recover the joy of boxing, which I find most in sparring. My next fight will damn sure be in-state, and if I can have TWO big wishes, during warm weather.

    Meanwhile, I’ve vented a bit about the hairball of competitive boxing, and I can’t believe you actually read the whole gawdawful thing. I love you for that.

    And I love boxing, I truly do. But it ain’t no bed of pink Bourbon roses, y’all.

    Special high-fives to my worthy and powerful fight opponent Lisa Belcher, the incredible boxing women of Atlanta, and Terri Moss, promoter of Atlanta Corporate Fight Night. More fist bumps to Cheryl Smyth and Connie Gomez-Joines, NC boxing girlfriends who made the long trip to see the fights, loaned me boxing gloves at the last possible minute, bought me drinks, loved me despite my moodiness, served as my “entourage,” and who just may be on a future ACFN card.

    And most of all to YOU. For cheering, listening, and continuing to push along with me on this crazy-ass journey of ours. You inspire and amaze me.

    PS: I had my long-awaited Cinnabon cinnamon roll tonight, sore throat be damned. It was amazingly delicious.

    Image by Action Fighter Media

  • The Universe Isn’t As Fragile As You’ve Been Led to Believe

    The Universe Isn’t As Fragile As You’ve Been Led to Believe

    The reason I was the only seventh grader to make the varsity basketball team at my high school was because I was driven. I ran like hell and worked my ass off. I’d been playing suburban driveway ball since I was a toddler, mostly against older boys who had zero interest in “letting” me win.

    We were a championship team, so of course I rode the bench most of the time, and once in a while when it was safe to slip in the last string I got in a game. But I never really understood until many years later what made the rest of my team so very good, when I was only ever adequate.

    Pinpointing the deception

    Several years ago I saw a documentary called The Heart of the Game, and I finally was able to put my finger on it. I had learned how to play rough roundball at home on the concrete, but as I grew up, there was a clear sense that those rough-and-tumble practices needed to be sharply curtailed.

    Like most southern white bread suburban girls, I was brought up to be nice. I had a sense that I was tougher than the face I had to put on in public, but I felt like I was being told that the reason I had to be so nice and so careful was because the world was a very fragile place.

    Like if I bumped up against the world as a teenager or an adult, the world might be damaged. People would get hurt.

    It was a long, long time — decades — before I learned that this was a lie that would damn near wreck my life.

    Meanwhile I carefully kept my knees together and my elbows in and tried never ever, ever to brush against other people. Certainly never to body check, smack, chuck, hip sling or head butt, or careen wildly like a bumper car at the State Fair into trees and chairs and china cabinets.

    Barely breathing, barely moving

    Believing that the world was unbearably fragile held me back on a thousand levels. I was naturally curious, naturally energetic, forever wanting to dig in, turn over, unpack, dismantle, and understand things. But I didn’t. I was careful. I was so I was careful I barely shifted the air currents with the weight of my longing. I held my breath a lot.

    People everywhere were falling off bikes and getting black eyes and eating juicy peaches straight from a neighbor’s tree while I carefully tried not to take up any space not explicitly allotted to me. It was like all my psychic clothes were a few sizes too small. I got good at barely moving, so that none of the metaphysical seams ripped.

    Ever felt that way?

    Learning to bang (when your culture says “be nice”)

    The trailer for Heart of the Game makes it look like it’s a story about the inner-city tough girl who battles for her eligibility to play, but what I took from it was that this one rather unexpected coach taught his girls how to play with their whole bodies. How to slap, slam, dive, and hurl themselves into the game for the win. Which is exactly what happened when they committed their bodies, and not just their hands and feet, to the game.

    He taught them to bang. And they learned that it was not only good, it was amazing. And it won ballgames.

    I saw the film about the same time I was learning to box, and I can’t tell you how utterly synchronistic it felt. Like I’d finally gotten a significant message the universe had been trying to send for nearly all my life.

    Like the universe had been trying to deliver a letter to me that the culture around me kept stamping “return to sender.”

    Why do we get taught not to move, not to take up any space? I’m still working on that, but I’m looking at who benefits…

    In other words, I’m seeing that lots of people got ahead of me in line. I allowed pretty much anyone to take things I had if they wanted them. I worked long hours in order to meet everyone else’s needs, hoping there would be enough for me afterwards.

    It’s still hard to really pin down who’s to blame, and truthfully, I don’t waste a lot of time on it. But I am aware of what it cost.

    The high cost of failing to fight

    Does it sound weird, “the cost of failing to fight”? It still rings oddly in my ears. But failing to answer the bell of the world, failing to learn to throw a punch, failing to push against the forces that sought to hold me back cost me.

    Because there are forces seeking to hold you back.

    I didn’t know that, all those years. I thought everyone else was just rude (if they were shoving against me), or lucky (if they were winning at life); that the world was just a periodically hard, mostly random place. When in actuality, the world is crammed to bursting with opposing forces, and most of the other people are fighting for something. Those of us who aren’t fighting are being bruised and squashed and left behind.

    Our marriages are breaking under the strain, our kids are going astray, our carefully planned savings accounts are taking a nosedive, and most of all, we aren’t living the dreams we believed we could, all those years ago. Of course, for most of my life I thought I would be able to live the dream only if someone out-and-out gave it to me…for being so undemanding, I suppose.

    Surprises along the way

    I had to come to the breaking point before I learned to fight, which in turn taught me to live, and even more, to win. I had to get to the point of being ready to leave everything — marriage, kids, life in the cookie-cutter house — before I finally realized I could have all that AND more. If I just learned to understand what I wanted and how to fight for it. And I had to overcome my fear of hurting someone, or bruising the universe.

    And I’ve learned that the universe is built pretty damn well.

    This bad girl is sturdy. Marriages can go through some nasty shit and come out stronger (can I get an amen?), and kids are shockingly resilient. People overcome amazing setbacks and come out shining.

    And once you join in that flow, that fighting way of life, things seem to get easier. Not like “less work” easier, but like “achieving the dream” easier. It’s like finally you’ve joined a team that can battle its way to a championship.

    Rambling, sorting, organizing as I go…

    These are the things going on in my head these days, and I’ve said versions of this so many times in recent emails and conversations that I finally decided to try and get some of it written down. Not sure how coherent it is, but I’ll keep working at it, and maybe you’ll have insights to add as well. Or questions that will help me clarify things.

    I have questions for you, too.

    Did you grow up fighting for what you wanted? Or did you learn to fight later in life? If so, what was the catalyst for you?

    Or…are you still waiting to learn?

     Creative Commons image by K.M. Klemencic via Flickr.

  • Two Women Gear Up for Their First Boxing Fight

    Two Women Gear Up for Their First Boxing Fight

    Atlanta’s Corporate Fight Night is not your ordinary boxing event. Neither is Terri Moss, the world-champion fighter who promotes it, an average woman. At her tiny gym off an alley in Decatur, Georgia, some extraordinary relationships — and life-changing experiences — have their genesis.

    These days more and more women are turning to boxing workouts to increase their fitness level. The thousand-calorie burn (for one hour of hard boxing work) is a compelling draw, but a few women hear the siren call of something much bigger and more powerful.

    Recently I spoke to two women who will have their very first official boxing match on June 7th at Atlanta’s Corporate Fight Night. One is 23 years old and in the first difficult year of her career. The other is 43 years old and a new empty-nester, a woman looking at life from a different stage. Both women face the same ring, but very different challenges.

    Kelsey Smith is a Pre-K teacher just finishing her very first year of teaching. She had a boxing fitness class in high school that she enjoyed, and after college she looked up the nearest boxing gym in order to get started again. Decatur Boxing Club turned out to be nearest, but it was boxing trainer, promoter, and champion fighter Terri Moss who helped her make the transition from one class in high school to training for an actual USA Boxing-sanctioned bout.

    Like many women, Kelsey, who is blogging about her journey into boxing at Road To Fight Night, is intrigued by how different boxing training is from a simple rote workout. “Every single workout session is different from the last,” she notes. “Watching from afar, boxing training looks like just a bunch of shadowboxing and hard hitting. But close-up, I’m starting to see how every element of a workout has a specific purpose and goal for growth. As I grow, my training grows with me, bringing new challenges every day.”

    Kelsey never hesitated when Terri Moss invited her to consider fighting at ACFN. “I want to take every chance to box that I can get! When I first heard of ACFN, it sounded like fun but I had never thought of competing before. Soon, however, I realized that I wanted the chance to test what I’ve been doing in the gym. What good is learning all kinds of defensive and offensive moves, if you never get the chance to put them together in a fight against someone else?”

    During the midst of her training, however, she found herself caught in a anguishing dilemma, and was forced to decide whether to stick with teaching, or resign. “I was so anxious with indecision that I couldn’t focus on boxing, and I barely even thought about my upcoming fight. I still went to the gym, but I spent the majority of my time feeling disheartened.”

    Kelsey’s family and the boxing community worked together to support her. “I was touched by how the cool women at the gym reached out to me to lend an ear, give advice or just tell me that they believed in me,” she said. “That meant a lot…”

    So much, in fact, that she’s beginning to see boxing as a long-term commitment. I asked her if she thought she would continue to box after ACFN, or if this was just a one-off, something to do once before moving on to something different. “I definitely plan to continue boxing after ACFN,” she replied. “I know I’ll keep coming to the gym no matter what, but I also imagine that I will want to compete again.”

    Lisa Belcher has a different story.

    She’s a 43-year-old behavioral scientist in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year she became an empty nester. “Without the challenges of day-to-day parenting, I found that I wanted to try something new – something I could get really excited about,” she related. “One afternoon in January, I drove down New Street at East Decatur Station and noticed a faded, wooden sign that I had seen a hundred times before as I was taking my daughter to school across the street –  BOXING.  For some reason, this time, it inspired a real curiosity in me.”

    She walked in and instantly loved the old-school feel, the upbeat jazz playing continuously in the gym, and the infectious energy of Terri “The Boss” Moss, and she signed up for Decatur Boxing Club membership that same day, even though her prior experience with boxing was having watched the movie Rocky back in 1976.

    “I hate to admit it, but my very limited experience with boxing had led me to think of it as a sport that seemed heavy on strength and power, but less so on technical skill or talent. Coming into the gym, I thought I might have some potential because I am big and pretty strong, and I have an athletic background.” You can almost hear the wryness in her voice. “I was humbled quickly, and have remained so. I see very clearly the many skills that are needed to be a good boxer, and I have so much respect for these athletes, as well as the women that come for the boxing fitness classes who will never have a bout but who I know very well have to muster up a lot of courage just to walk into that gym, much less into the ring.”

    Lisa has met with more resistance than Kelsey, with regard to her boxing. “Some seem to judge it rather negatively, which has been a first for me as an athlete,” she comments. “Others are incredibly intrigued and impressed. But almost everyone I have told, with the exception of other boxers, has communicated some concern or fear of injury.  It has made me wonder if male boxers are met with this same concern.”

    This hasn’t stopped her, however. So far in her 5 month journey she’s lost 20 pounds, and she says she feels incredibly strong. Her training process has been smooth, but the mental challenges loom the largest. “I’m still not sure I want to box ACFN! I was pretty hesitant when Terri first told me about it, and it took a little while to make the decision to do it.  The reasons I wanted to do it were all about trying something new, having a challenge to motivate me to get a little (or a lot) uncomfortable both physically and mentally, the great community of boxers at DBC…”

    In addition, both boxers are raising sponsorship money for their fights to support a charity of their choice.

    Kelsey is fighting for the Atlanta Children’s Shelter, which offers free quality education for homeless children. Lisa will fight for Friends of Dekalb Animals, a non-profit group whose goal is to save the lives of at least 50 animals per month from DeKalb County Animal Services, a high kill facility.

    You can hear more about Kelsey, Lisa, and the other ACFN fighters on ACFN’s Facebook page, and you can get tickets to the event at Corporate Fight Night [dot] com.

    A tremendous “thank you” goes out to Terri Moss and Decatur Boxing Club, who offered me my first (and second) fights at ACFN, as well as these two strong, fabulous women — Kelsey and Lisa — who are getting ready for their first matches there as well!

  • From 5 to 50: Celebrating Boxing Women

    From 5 to 50: Celebrating Boxing Women

    It’s International Women’s Day, and two very interesting things are on my mind.

    The first is this awesome video of a 5 year old girl working the pads with style and power.

    I wish I had more information about her, but I know this: someone, somewhere, has exposed her to boxing and has allowed and encouraged her to build up formidable skill for one so young. You don’t get this good at pads by showing up at the gym a time or two; this is passion and practice, and no 5 year old gets here unless there are some adults supporting it.

    It makes me feel incredible to think that very young women, and not just young men, are being shown the possibilities for their sport — and that those possibilities include boxing.

    In the same way, I salute all the remarkable young women who will compete in the first-ever female division of boxing in the Olympics this year. Here are links to the first two sets of women in line for that honor: Olympic Trials Winners and National Championship Winners.

    Congratulations on being such an incredible part of boxing history! Sorry it took so long.

    The second thing on my mind is the upcoming match between two world-champion boxing icons, Christy Martin (49-6, 31 KOs) and Mia St. John (46-11, 18 KOs).

    For Christy, age 43, this is a chance to secure not only the 50th win of her incredible career and the World Boxing Council (WBC) World Super Welterweight Belt, but also a chance to show the world that the violent stabbing and shooting attack of her ex-husband Jim in 2010 was not the final word the world would hear from Christy.

    For Mia, age 44, this fight is a chance to claim the win that eluded her 10 years ago when she was 26-1-1, and battled Christy through a 10-round war for the WBC world championship. That fight finally secured the world’s attention for Mia, and definitively proved her power and worth in the boxing world. She expects to redeem that loss against Christy and secure the final win of her career.

    On June 19th, 2012, in the highly-acclaimed and long-awaited Final Victory fight, Martin and St. John will box for the last time, and the winner will take home the World Boxing Council (WBC) World Super Welterweight Belt.

    Here’s a video of rounds 2-5 of their last fight for you to enjoy…

    Here’s to boxing girls and women, from 5 to 50 (and forgive me, Mia and Christy, for stretching the ages for the sake of a blog post title!).

    Stay strong and keep swinging.

  • Atlanta Corporate Fight Night 2, Merz vs Bledsoe

    Atlanta Corporate Fight Night 2, Merz vs Bledsoe

    ACFN2 Merz vs Bledsoe from Lisa Creech Bledsoe on Vimeo.

    I promised to post video from my fight so here it is. Try to ignore the blinking — I should have messed with my codec settings, but I wasn’t willing to spend the time on it. Also, I compressed the crap out of it with my new Handbrake software, heh.

    Sorry, I’m rambling.

    If this is the first you’ve heard of it (the fight, not the tech stuff), you can read my account of Atlanta Corporate Fight Night 2 here.

    When I watch myself in this match now I think, HOW COULD YOU BE SO SLOW??

    Us Type A’s. We’re obnoxious. But that seems to be the particular fuel that powers us forward, makes us ache to do better. Of course it also annoys all the normal people around us, which is a minor drawback.

    The truth is that the anxiety of being in a different city and the long hours of anticipation (not to mention cutting weight, etc.) are still pretty draining for me, even though I’m doing better with that every time. And even though I feel hypercritical about it, I’m also incredibly happy that I fought. There was plenty of craziness to overcome for this fight, including job shifts, traveling to Atlanta to train, getting comfortable with a new trainer (and sparring in a gravel lot), and of course, the chickens. I did well, and I’m pleased with that.

    And of course now I’m feeling all “onward, upward.” I’m still working with Jay, and I’m also training at Second Round. I’m eager to see where that takes me.

  • It Will Be Enough

    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.

    Donate to support Lisa's fight in Atlanta

  • The Fight Within

    The Fight Within

    This guest post comes from TGE commentor and fellow boxer Tom McEvilly (what a great ring name that is, huh?) who has recently opened a blog called One.More.Notch. where he talks about boxing training, his three kids, and his approach to life (definitely read the Hedgehog post). We share not only our love for boxing, but also a curious obsession with office supplies and Lyle Lovett. Yeah, what a world.

    Anyway, I really liked this particular post of his and he graciously agreed to let me re-publish it here. After you read it I hope you’ll head on over to his site and show him some love by RSS-ing him and clicking his Google Follow board.  — Lisa

    *     *     *

    On a warm summer night in 1999 I woke up groggy in the back of the ambulance.

    I had no idea what happened. A friend sitting next to me said that I had been “knocked out”. Hmmm… that’s interesting because the last thing I remembered was standing on the sidewalk in front of Durty Nellies pub minding my own business. Okay, well, not exactly. I vaguely remembered trying to break up an argument between a girl I didn’t know and some nameless faceless guy. Judging by the goose egg on my dome and my new black eye I don’t think my act of chivalry was very successful.

    Thus my short-lived career as a street fighter ended at 0-1.

    Despite my winless streak, I’ve been thinking more about fighting. Maybe it’s because of the time I’m spending in the Decatur Boxing Gym. Or maybe it’s that I’m increasingly seeing fighting as a metaphor for life. Training, dedication, passion, endurance, hope, energy, confidence, skill, strength, and strategy are necessary for the fight. Oh yeah, let’s not forget “fire-in-the-belly”. At least if you’re interested in winning.

    Many of us are also fighting in other ways.

    Fighting demons and addictions.
    Fighting a life threatening disease.
    Fighting real enemies in an overseas war.
    Fighting for our jobs.
    Fighting for our marriages.
    Fighting to keep our kids safe.
    Fighting to stay relevant in a world of noise.

    But, the fact is that we are fighting. Winning and losing. And hopefully learning from our mistakes.

    The English writer G.K. Chesterton once wrote…

    “The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything we have missed something — war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.”

    … “a very miserable truce”… I thought this was an interesting choice of words.

    Do we choose to be passive and compromise instead of fighting for what we want? Sometimes.

    Do we coast when we’ve achieved a comfortable place in our jobs or relationships? Sometimes.

    Do we stay at the plateau in our training? Sometimes.

    That’s the “truce” to which Chesterton is referring. It’s easy to ignore and sweep under the rug. Dreams and achievements are sometimes put on lay-a-way (does that even still exist?) because we aren’t willing to pay the price for attainment. Where price = the heat, friction, aggression, action, and fight required to make it happen.

    So, tomorrow for at least one hour, I’ll be a fighter.

    I’ll go to the boxing gym.
    I’ll wrap my hands and warm up with some shadow boxing.
    I’ll be in the moment when I do my footwork and rope skipping.
    I’ll punch the bag with anger and fury until I hear the bell marking the end of the round.
    And, then I’ll punch some more.
    I’ll try my best to execute crisp combinations with the pad man.
    I’ll try not to be discouraged because I’m still learning.
    I’ll be tired and spent and try to do the 100 sit ups to close the session.
    I’ll take some pride by knowing that few of my friends are doing this.
    I’ll go home feeling alive because I was fighting.

    But, it’s not about the gym. Now it’s time to take the fight to the rest of life.

    *     *     *

    Image by boltron

  • Sparring with the Pros

    Sparring with the Pros

    When I walked into the gym for sparring on Sunday I saw not one, but two pro boxing women. In a sport with a sparse population of women, two female pros in one small gym is nothing short of amazing. Of course, my trainer Bonnie is one of the pros, and I see her all the time. But Sandy is one I only see working there periodically. She’s been boxing for more than 15 years, and is a fury in the ring. She’s actually pretty small, tipping the scales at 110, but she’s a force to reckon with.

    I’d seen Sandy spar with some of our other boxers, and she’s so incredibly fast and relentless that one time my trainer and I counted her punches just because it seemed impossible for anyone to throw so many in a single three minute period, round after round. We waited several rounds thinking she would tire out and we’d get a more accurate count. We started in round 4. And in two separate counts Sandy threw more than 250 punches, most (at least two thirds) of which landed.

    Just for a little comparison, when Evander Holyfield beat Dwight Muhammad Qawi for the World Boxing Association junior heavyweight title in July 1986, both boxers threw an average of 154 punches a round and landed half or more. Granted, these are heavyweights, but they are definitely no slouches in the ring, as their records attest.

    In our gym, the amateur boxers frequently aim for 100 punches in a given round. That’s pretty high, and most of us throw more like 60-70 per round on a good day.

    And if you think Sandy’s 250 punches are cotton balls dropped by butterflies, you need to experience them up close and personal. I did not think I ever would, but my trainer had other plans for me. When I realized I would be sparring Sandy, my anxiety level went through the roof. It may have been the first time I ever actually thought I might puke before getting in the ring.

    Sandy and my trainer did the first couple of rounds. The gym was utterly silent except for the constant pop of leather meeting flesh, a sound that rose and fell in an eerie rhythm with the explosive hisses of the two women’s breath, and the creak of the canvas-covered ring beneath them. My blood pressure soared as I watched the unbelievable display of power and speed in front of me. I vainly hoped they would do another five or ten rounds before remembering I was there, but when the bell ended the second period, my trainer sent Sandy out of the ring and told me to get in. For two rounds she warmed me up, got me focused, and made me work. And when the third round bell sounded, she ducked out and Sandy rolled in.

    My gut churned. I leaned against my corner pad and tried to breathe slowly in through my nose for a two count, out through my mouth for a four count. It wasn’t working. The bell rang, I bit down on my mouthguard, and stepped out to the center of the ring to fight.

    It was my main goal to eat what punches I had to (and I knew it would be a lot), but to not let Sandy completely shut down my offense. In order to do this, I knew I would have to work as hard as possible to keep my eyes on her; it takes tremendous concentration and will to continue to look at your opponent when you’re being hit so frequently, but I knew I had to watch for a break in the onslaught and try to capitalize on it.

    Sandy is a grabber — she tends to want to fight in close and she frequently traps her opponent’s right/power hand and hangs on while whaling away with her own right. In the amateurs, a ref would break this up immediately, but in the pros they let a lot more go. I was expecting her to close with me right away, and sure enough she did, trapping both my gloves and releasing them one at a time with lightning speed to land a punch, then return to the pin. Damn, this woman was fast. She thrashed and struck, thrashed and struck with her whole body; it was like wrestling an alligator. I tried to use my 30 pound weight advantage to pull her down, to make her want to disengage. And eventually she did spin out to dance around me, grinning even as she released flurry after flurry all over my head and shoulders.

    I threw a shot when I could, a combination here and there, and every time she clinched I tried for the hooks to the head, landing them periodically and wishing for a solid uppercut to magically break through the whipping blur that was her head to connect with her jaw. I’d seen my trainer land a couple in those two initial rounds, but I couldn’t get one on Sandy. The hooks seemed to work, though, and after I landed one or two she would turn me loose, expanding the distance with a volley of parting shots.

    As it turned out, I prefered the clinch. Every time after Sandy released and spun out, she measured the distance and sent her bullet of a right straight for my face. This is not a woman who cares particularly to kill you with body shots, but she’ll take your head any day, all day long, including plenty of patently illegal rabbit punches, which land behind the ear and at the back of the head. She was sparring with 8 ounce gloves (mine are 14 oz, damn near pillows in comparison), and the first time she rocked me hard I felt like I’d just been hit with a kitchen appliance. “I need a second, I need a second,” I panted, trying to clear my vision and reorient. I heard my trainer’s voice talking me through it, urging me to fight off the dizziness, focus, and stay in the fight. Sandy bounced lightly on her toes, banging her gloves together.

    It may have been the thing I was proudest of, making it through that first ungodly hit. My trainer supported me with a calm, steady stream of instruction and I eventually felt steady enough to give Sandy a glove tap, indicating that I was ready to resume. We circled and engaged, and it was on again. It was a little like dropping from a helicopter into a river in the middle of a hurricane. I held my ground and beat my way upstream, never gaining ground, but also never letting the current take me under.

    The bell rang, the round ended, and I sagged against the ropes. I looked at my trainer, but I already knew what she was going to say. I had made it, and I had another round in me. She was going to send me in again.

    Midway through the next round with Sandy I could feel myself crumbling under the onslaught, and after taking a second staggering hit to the face, I switched gears, and began to stay exclusively on defense. I worked to stay out of range, tried to slip punches, kept my elbows in and protecting my ribs, and held my guard up, a small defense against her explosive 8 and 9-punch combinations. I could hear my trainer supporting me in this tactic, calling out reassurance and telling me that I was doing well. And so long as I didn’t have to take any more of those devastating face crushers, I really was doing okay.

    I got trapped in the corner for the last 20 seconds, and found that although I couldn’t escape, I could hold up under heavy fire by keeping myself well covered. I even lashed out with a hook to Sandy’s head once or twice before ducking back into my shell. “You’re making it,” Bonnie called. “You’re taking care of yourself and making it through the round. Keep covered and finish the round!”

    I did finish. When the final bell rang and Sandy tapped my glove in acknowledgement of my good work, I shook my head and saluted her. She’s a demon in the ring and I’m proud to have stayed on my feet for two no-holds-barred rounds with her. She didn’t treat me like a novice, she gave me a hard fight. I wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis, but I took the hits, stayed upright, and finished the rounds with honor.

    A few minutes later, Sandy cornered for me as I boxed my last two rounds with my trainer, and again I was struck at how skilled Sandy was. Effective cornering calls for a deft touch; Sandy knew what I’d been through already, and she kept a steady stream of solid advice that I could act on coming from the sidelines. She called simple combinations that she knew I could throw, timed her calls for clear openings, and encouraged me with praise when I landed my throws or successfully evaded an attack. My trainer grunted in surprise as I repeatedly snapped off and landed a jab-hook combination that Sandy called. Even I got a little chuffed; there was something left in me! I was still in the ring! I threw high-low’s (one to the head followed by one to the body, or vice versa), keeping mostly to double-punch combinations followed by a pivot out and a jab.

    Nothing kept me from having to take a motherlode of punches from these two pro boxers; Sandy’s punch count was simply overwhelming, and my trainer matched me step for step and never let me rest. She also landed at least two solid blows to the ribs (where Sandy didn’t get any). But almost every single one of Bonnie’s deadly left hooks met my glove instead of my ear, and I even evaded a few of her overhand rights.

    After we all geared down, Bonnie talked to me about that first bad hit I took from Sandy. “When you think back on this,” she said, in that calm, intense way she has, “you remember that you stayed on your feet. You remember that you took the count but got back in the fight, and that’s more than most people can do. You boxed with pros today.” She nodded solemnly in approval. “You look back on all this and be proud. You should be proud.”

  • How to Cheat on Your Diet (and do it well)

    How to Cheat on Your Diet (and do it well)

    1. Don’t try to be Polly Pure.

    It won’t work. Try for “sustainable” instead. Unless you are in training for a very specific period of time for a major goal (a marathon or a big fight), your diet should look and feel like something you can continue to do for the rest of your life.

    2. Don’t go hungry, but if you do, snack better.

    The number one secret (and it isn’t a secret, really) to eating right is to not starve yourself. This means you have to eat the kinds of foods in portion sizes that help you maintain better insulin levels all day long. This takes some planning.

    One of the best ways to manage when you don’t have time to prepare a meal or can’t get to a place where you can, is to have good snacks on hand. I keep Zone bars and a bag of almonds in my desk, gym bag, and glove compartment. This curbs the impulse to swing through McDonald’s for a quick fix.

    3. Change “cheat” to “treat”

    I don’t actually think of my forays into the universe of junk food as cheating, as if I were trying to hide something. Instead, I know ahead of time that I’m not going to be Polly Pure, and I work it into the way I eat in as healthy a way as I possibly can. See below.

    4. Treat yourself regularly.

    I have a treat pretty much every day, and I exercise control with portions and frequency more than specific food items. Rather than eating a whole bag of M&M’s, I limit myself to 10. And I only do that maybe once a day, and that’s my treat for the day. I also love Cheetos, omg I LOVE Cheetos! So I limit the number I eat, and I only buy them about twice a month. Lucky for me I live in a house with four other Cheeto hounds, so the bag will be gone pretty soon anyway.

    5. Your diet should include room for real splurges.

    REAL splurges. A splurge isn’t something you do every single day. Think of it like a vacation. You don’t have a vacation every day, do you? But you do have them, and they’re part of what makes life lovely.

    A splurge for me is a giant basket of onion rings, and you can bet your boots I’ll be having some at the State Fair this year. (Note: when you have a pretty clean diet, some splurges will make you feel a bit ill afterwards, which will cause you to limit it next time. Or not! I’ll have an o-ring hangover, but won’t care.)

    6. Achieve balance with exercise.

    Nobody’s diet is going to be in balance without exercise. When you splurge, add an extra two miles of sprints to your regular workout, or do 500 stairs. Just don’t try to make up a huge junk food orgy in a single workout, it isn’t sustainable. See above.

    7. Prepare yourself for friendly (and not so friendly) commentary

    Balancing your diet and including regular exercise in your life is such a difficult task that most people will never try it at all. Or they will, and they’ll abandon their efforts because they’ve tried something that isn’t working for them or it is just too hard. There is SO much bad advice out there, it’s no wonder people get discouraged. Plus it’s work, and we all have a ton of work in our lives already. So when people see you having treats, they’ll sometimes say, “Hey, wait a minute, aren’t you supposed to be Ms Healthy?” This gives you the opportunity to

    a) Enjoy it, play the “food porn” game, and brag a little: “Mm-hm, and tomorrow I’m going to eat baaaaacon! Cause my marathon is next week.”
    b) Challenge them to match you in your extra exercise. “I hereby swear to an extra 15 minutes of jump rope sprints. Wanna join me?”
    c) Ignore it and let your body speak for itself. If you’re looking great and feeling energetic and fit, it will show!

    8. Recovering from a major screw-up or holiday season.

    For this, you have to take the long view. You’re probably going to see a weight change and you may feel crappy, both mentally and physically. But honestly, big screw-ups happen, and the best thing to do is start with one good meal, one good workout, and one good day. Then add another and another. Set up your goals again and tape them to your computer. And know that in a couple of weeks (depending on the size and duration of your lapse), you’ll be back where you want to be.

    Image credit: atomicjeep on Flickr
  • One Moment of Glory

    One Moment of Glory

    I got home at 10:30 pm and my bottom lip was swollen and dark, my shoulders aching just a little. The tide of fear ran high in me again Friday night and I had to put my thoughts on lockdown in order to make it to ringtime. Just one more small step up this ice-covered mountain, just one more step; I’ll be damned if I let it defeat me. I love being in the ring but I hate the waiting.

    I got in with Mark, who is known for his fast jabs and the high explosive sound he makes with his breath with each punch he snaps out there. The way he turns his left over as it accelerates out from his chin is a thing of beauty. He has several years of experience and is a sparring partner whose time you definitely appreciate.

    I didn’t feel as heavy and slow as I did last Friday night, but nothing I had matched the lightness of his feet over the canvas. I kept finding myself squared up rather than in position, and my breathing was off. He threw jab after jab after jab in my face; I faded back from a few, ate a few, let a few slip left or right. They didn’t stop, those relentless left jabs. My shots were constantly interrupted, not by tidy parrying, but simply because they encountered a continuous spray of jabs. A few of my own left jabs popped home but his poured out like stormwater from a flooded culvert. One caught me clean and heavy on my still-healing nose and I startled like a deer. “You arright?” Mark slurred through his double mouthguard. I did a mental check.

    “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” I mumbled, feeling some small amount of surprise. I was okay. I was taking heavy fire to the head but I hadn’t allowed a single serious body blow, I had a little reach on him, and I could do this. In fact, I had some shots of my own to deliver. I started leading with my power right, even throwing in a couple of right hooks, a shot I try not to rely on — it’s just too dangerous and leaves you exposed if you’re in with a better boxer.

    “Bite down on that mouthguard,” I heard Bonnie shout to Mark from the side. Hah! That meant I was landing a few clean. I bit down on my own mouthpiece and barreled in. The anxiety started sloughing off like sheets of ice sheering off an iceberg. We worked.

    My trainer must have caught the feel of my heart rising up because there was only one moment in that hard field of labor when I really shone. Just one, and she was the genesis: “Parry that jab,” she called from the side of the ring, “and return a straight right.”

    This is a good combination for me, one that I love, and if I’m quick and thinking and I see or anticipate the jab just right, I can get juice off this move. Serious boxing joy. My whole body wants this one simple gift.

    The din and chaos of the gym — the frantic thump of hip-hop in the speakers, the televisions, and the calls and talking of my team ringside all slowed in my ears as Mark’s left white boxing glove floated out like a dove. I tapped it lightly to the inside with my right to slew it off course, and quick as a snake, struck home with power, my hip turning in, my right heel rising up, and my whole body behind the punch. This is what boxing is supposed to be, this is what I’ve been working for. This is right and good and holy.

    And the rest was like breaking rocks in a field with a sledgehammer. Just damned hard physical labor with no beauty to redeem it. But I had the moment, I had it in my hands and heart and it sang to me. And it was enough. Enough for one night where I showed up, bit down, and slugged my way through my rounds.

    But it isn’t enough for another night: I want more than one moment. I want two, ten, dozens.

    I want to get back in the ring.

    Image by slopjop on Flickr