Monthly Archives: March 2011

Women’s Boxing Everywhere!

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Women’s boxing everywhere!

Lately, when you type in “women’s boxing” on a google news search you’ll find tons of stories from all over the place: Upcoming title fights, Olympic hopefuls in Chicago, Manila and Northern India, and terrific stories about women boxers going on to new heights in the field.

Here’s a smattering from today beginning with my favorite from the Independent in Dublin, Ireland!

– The Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, Ireland this coming March 17th will be none other than Katie Taylor, Ireland’s first female boxing champion. Taylor, 24, is a boxer and soccer player who began fighting at the age of 15. Her latest prize was winning gold at the 2010 World Amateur championships in Barbados last year.  The full article is here.

– This weekend, young women from around Australia with Olympic dreams in their hearts will begin the first rung of fulfilling those ambitions by competing this weekend Melbourne in the Australian championships. For a sweet article on two young hopefuls from Manning River, Australia, courtesy of the Manning River Times click here.  A second article about women from Laurieton can be found here courtesy of the Camden Haven Courier.

– Not to be out done, the Chicago Tribune has a feature piece about boxer Kristin Gearhart who will be defending her Chicago Golden Gloves title in the junior welterweight division.  The three-time golden gloves champion is hoping to go on to the Nationals and beyond that has an Olympic dream of her own. The story by Chicago Tribune reporter By Jim Jaworski can be found here.

There is tons more to report, including a Girlboxing shout out to New York’s own Million Dollar Baby, Maureen Shea on landing a fabulous new gig as the host of Mexico’s women’s boxing reality TV show, “Todos Contra Mexico.”  Check out this piece in Eastside Boxing.

It’s raining dogs and cats

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It’s raining dogs and cats

Sometimes when you are working really hard at something, say writing a conference paper, training for your next fight or hitting your 47th non-stop morning at twisting your body in a pose, the goal still seems a million miles away from getting you anywhere.  More to the point, and not exactly a marathoner’s wall, your world will feel upside down and a bit backwards, because no matter the effort that sense of achievement feels illusive.

I think of it having run into a friend at Gleason’s on Saturday who is in the midst of training for a fight.  She looked strong, fit, and truly ready — and yet she also had that look that said, “wow, this is hard.” And is if her verbal constructions had hit into reverse, her far away gaze revealed the doubts that all of us feel when we are on the cusp of something.  I’d have given her a hug if I could, but it wasn’t one of those moments. Rather what she needed was a pause to acknowledge her efforts and struggle; something akin to a moment of breath, where she could intake slowly allowing for the catch in the throat before forcing it all out to begin anew.

And that is how it is sometimes. We work with tremendous effort on our goals, but feel caught in a backwards swirl of mind movies that have us see our world upside down before we can shake the tree enough to right ourselves again.

Call it a raining dogs and cats moment and then move on — because when you are working that hard, you really, really know it, and should trust that you’re doing what you need to do to achieve your that goal.