Mid-summer and remembering what hot means!

As with most parts of the United States, Brooklyn is baking under the sun and about to get a lot hotter today. At Gleason’s Gym after work yesterday, I found myself dragging and remembered what that hot, funky mid-summer gym smell was!  Pretty ripe — but as I worked out and my muscles loosened to a gelatinous mass I also remembered why I love a summer workout.

Keisher "Fire" Mcleod-Wells

Still, it was hard to get the rhythm and I never did get my usual overheated combinations on my combinations going, rather I found myself throwing punches at a slow and steady pace … meanwhile, as one of my fellow gym denizens remarked, women actually out-numbered men at the gym, including Keisher “Fire” Mcleod-Wells sparring and working out in preparation for her upcoming NY State Championship bout on July 30th.  That alone was inspiring enough to keep me going for a couple of more rounds — that and a look at just how hard everyone was working.

And that’s the thing isn’t it.  So much of what we do is in relation to the folks we share the mirror with.  Checking out moves, stances, combinations, cute tricks, and level of effort. To me that’s what the real hot means.

Whether it’s catching a glimpse of Fire in the ring as she works her magic or on any Saturday morning when all three rings are filled with sparring, some of it skilled, some of it less so, and some of it showing all the beauty of an improvisational pad de deux; catching the pulse of the boxing all around us is a boost like no other.

I wished I had more energy yesterday to match some of the effort, but even at my plodding pace, I felt the heat of the place as so much boxing energy winding its way through the gym as a giant wave capturing us all in its wake.