Grabbing opportunities …

Moore Sisters

I missed my opportunity to go to the gym yesterday.  Mostly because I’ve so little time it was hard to squeeze it in even though I was actually off from work.

On those sorts of days I’m reminded of how even a few minutes of bathroom mirror sparring or my personal favorite, hook the shower curtain keeps boxing as a focal point of the brain and becomes my opportunity.

This puts me in mind to something my daughter just said to me.  “I wish I could go to Steve Jobs funeral. At least I could say that I met him.  He really changed my life.”  Out of the mouth of babes …

Sometimes in the extraordinary we find opportunities for epiphanies that are life altering.  It means taking the risks mindless of the fact that we may not have a net to catch us.  That is certainly a truism of boxing.  We leap as part of a practiced effort of skill and heart.  Sometimes that leap places us in an impossible situation — much as Ishika Lay now lies in a coma in a Toledo, Ohio hospital, it should not, however, negate the choice.

For others of us, it means running a marathon and having a baby as happened yesterday in the Chicago marathon. So much for the idea that women are in a “delicate condition” when they’re “with child” — the kind of stuff women in my generation and older were raised on.

I’m not saying be extraordinary every day — but I guess I am saying follow your heart.  There’s nothing wrong with putting yourself out there.  It’ll add depth and momentum to your life and maybe even put a smile on an 11-year-old face at 6:45 in the morning.

Not exactly on point — but in the “grab the gusto” department, a twitter friend @mjon3105 sent me a link to a film from around 1910 showing two different scenes of a woman boxing. So … yes, the newsreel footage was billed as “Amazon” woman boxing … but, heck, she was boxing! The link is below:

(AMAZONS OF YESTERDAY) – British Pathe.