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The wit and wisdom of the sweet science! Check out http://girlboxing.org

I want to live

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I want to live

A dear young friend of Girlboxing has been diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer.  Barely 30 she is facing the kinds of challenges and life or death decisions that no one should ever have to face, never mind a person as vital and full of life as she.

It reminds me that all of us face deeply troubling and difficult problems that can be as debilitating emotionally as they are physically or quite frankly, the other way around, wherein feeling crippled by loss or depression can lead to a physical manifestation of suffering.

Cure alls for these sorts of troubles are near-on impossible, but there are ways of coping that can help find a place for laughter and smiles along side the hugely daunting task of getting through a difficult time.

So of course you know where I’m going with this in the sense of “working it out on the bag,” but more so, finding the “daily something,” the space that’s yours and yours alone can be a source of inspiration and hope to keep you going.

My Aunt was just such a person.  She had every serious and debilitating disease one can have including four different cancers (one breast each and two lung cancers), two heart attacks, three strokes and kidneys that managed to function despite no registry on her blood tests, oh and the diabetes she managed to “cure” through changes to her diet.

Her philosophy for coping was simple.  She’d wake up everyday and tell herself “I want to live.”   This became her mantra:  “I want to live.”  She said this often and always, and most particularly to her doctors who got to thinking that she must have inherited the spirit of several cat colonies because she kept using up lives and coming back.

With each new diagnosis, she’d yell it louder:  “I want to live.”   And the same with each day after radiation treatments, chemo treatments, blood transfusions, midnight schleps to the hospital, or day-long waits in the ER.  “I want to live,” she’d call me and say as we worked through the choices she had to face – all the while never missing a hair appointment or her weekly manicure.  And taking care of those details, walking into her doctor’s as decked out as she could muster gave her something to twinkle about – and that made it infectious.  Her doctors took on her mantra saying, “She wants to live,” thus rallying around her and giving it their best to ensure that she’d have that chance.

When she did finally pass I felt a deep and abiding sadness, but knowing that she had pushed herself to the limit of what her body could take and then some gave me a peaceful sense that she was ready to be where she needed to be.  I also understood that her “daily something” was her effort to stay alive; to give herself the energy and pluck to fight each and every round to its fullest.

As well, I know that we all have that in us.  It’s just a matter of finding that one space that helps us work things through no matter if it’s a potter’s wheel a double-ended bag or a simple one line statement.  So whatever it is: writing a journal entry, walking a mile, learning something new or throwing nothing but lefts at a punching bag getting ready for the Golden Gloves; while your daily something won’t cure you, it sure will help to see you through.

 

Working it out on the bag

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Working it out on the bag


What with Thanksgiving last week, Hanukkah celebrations this week and Christmas looming it’s the time of year when many of us can get hugely over-anxious and stressed out!  Sure some of us manage to get through it all with great joy in our hearts and nary a hurt feeling to consider, but many of us experience other emotions and have moments when we’d like nothing better than to chuck it all for a week in some other part of the world, preferably one without phones or email!

I’ve found that making the commitment to work out is a particularly helpful way to cope.  Whether it’s boxing, dancing, aikido, kickboxing, swimming, running or spinning for that matter — pursuing an active, physically engaging activity can provide a terrific way of getting rid of all the toxins that inevitably build during the countdown to the “holidays” and not just from all that overeating.

I like to think of it as working it out on the bag.  I take the plethora of “stuff” that inevitably gets kicked-up and give it a place to go.

Working it out on the bag means that you have a chance to chuck those things out of your body as a means of ridding yourself of the emotions that may otherwise be difficult to cope with.   And while I’ve found that the physical sensation of extending my body and hitting things gives me the chance to release a lot of “stuff,” any active physical experience of pounding something gives the sensation of pushing your body to its limit, such as the feel of the pavement when you’re running or a gym floor when you’re jumping rope.

The point is, these next few weeks are fraught with the pitfalls of a lot of heightened expectations including your own.  Perhaps the best present you can give yourself is the chance to work it all out on the bag long before you get to the point where you want to scream, cancel Christmas or take to your bed for days and days in the hopes that it’ll all end soon.

You might also like: it’s good to hit things

 

Boxing women

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Boxing Women

I get annoyed at the notion that women’s boxing is some sort of  “novelty.”  Boxing is tough both mentally and physically and anyone with the temerity to get in the ring deserves our support.  My “beef” is in trying to find boxing results for women’s bouts the morning after! They are hard to find, WFAN excepted, though they may not have them on an “up-to-the-minute” basis.  What really steams me is when the results from the card are posted “absent” the women’s bouts.

Okay, I’ll get off the soapbox and show you a short from one of the thousands shot by the Thomas Edison Company in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s).  This “novelty” film of the boxing Gordon Sisters was shot on May 6, 1901.  The women were advertised as “Champion Lady Boxer’s” and had a boxing vaudeville act for several years.  If you are interested in more information you can find it here.

PS.  Girlboxing offers a shout out to heavyweight pro Sonya “The Scholar” Lamonakis for her win last night as part of Broadway Boxing’s fight night card at B. B. King’s.   With this win Sonya improves her record to 3-0.

Update:  Nice piece about Sonya from Boxing 24 News.com here.

Champions

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Champions

“You know what a champion is? A champion is someone who’s ready when the gong rings – not just before, not just after – but when it rings.”  – Jack Dempsey

The Times of India is covering a story on the 11th Women’s Boxing Championship that will be held in Thrissur, India.  Participants have started at their training camp in preparation for the first round of bouts on December 4th.  This championship shall set the stage for selecting the Indian national team that will go on to fight in the 2012 Olympics.

Many young Indian women are finding their way into boxing as a means of elevating their status — and getting themselves and their families out of poverty.  This is not so different from the reasons many young men and women have found their way into sport in the United States.  And let’s face it, while we think of it as a sport, in my opinion boxing is much more than that.  It is about heart and facing the kind of fear that can otherwise cripple a person.

A champion in the ring is a person who understands that and overcomes it.  Win or lose the mere fact of getting in the ring counts for something.  So, if you are fighting today, think about what Jack Dempsey said and be ready when the bell rings.

The New York Times wrote about the phenomenon of women’s boxing in India here.  It is worth the read.

Recent press about women’s boxing

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Recent press about women’s boxing

Here’s five recent press pieces related to women’s boxing that might be worth taking a look:

1.  Winning Starts Before the Fight:

Seattle based 2012 Olympic hopeful Queen Underwood who recently won two title fights at the first Women’s International Dual Series held in Oxnard, California is profiled in this piece.  The article was written by Alan Abrahamson and is published on Team USA’s boxing site here.

2. At 63, It’s Time for a Career Move:

A terrific article about personal trainer Lada St. Edmund, who started boxing in her 50’s and is now getting ready to take her exams to become a boxing referee. The piece was written by Brian Heyman for the New York Times and can be viewed here.

3.  My life in Sport: Daniella Smith:

The New Zealand Herald has an article by Dana Johannsen about New Zealand’s boxing champion Daniella Smith who recently won a ten-round fight in Berlin, Germany over Jennifer Retzke to gain the vacant IBF women’s welterweight title.  The mother of two began boxing 12 years ago and turned pro in 2005.  The article can be found here.

4.  Charity uses boxing to help girls build self confidence:

This piece in the LA Times written by Nate Jackson is about the organization KnockOuts for Girls (KO4G), a not for profit “boxing charity that specializes in training, fundraising and providing scholarships for underprivileged girls.”   The group recruits amateur and professional boxers as well as active models with an interest in the sweet science to help support the organization’s many programs.  The group’s website is here. The article can be found here.

5.  Big Cards Missing a Women’s Touch:

Over at Maxboxing.com, Ryan Maquinana has a written an article on the dearth of women fighters on big-name fight cards.  Referring to WBO super bantamweight champion, Ana Julatan, Maquinana makes note of the fact that her half-time visit on the court of a recent Golden State Warriors-New York Knicks game caused pandemonium in the stands.  His point is if she is such a crowd pleaser, how come Julatan and other terrific women fighters are nowhere to be found?  This piece is well worth reading and talking about. The link to the article is here.

Unfolding the bones

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Unfolding the bones

I’m at the age where missing a day at the gym, never mind a week or two really hurts.  This weekend was a case in point.  I had a paper due (today) and aside from a couple of walks in the cold and some crunches, I was pretty much attached to my laptop.  And yeah, it feels good to have completed the work, by my body is an aching, creaky mess from spending hours at a time curled up on the couch with bad posture.  For breaks, I cooked meals, helped by daughter with homework and talked over the points of my paper with my husband, but I was pretty much engaged with writing for two days.

And the reckoning?  Aside from an extra pound on the scale, I’m faced with that “starting-over” feeling!

Solution?  Sun salutations, lots of stretching, really gentle shadow boxing and a brisk walk!  Abs can come later.  This sort of unfold-the-bones workout can be really helpful whenever you’ve been through a period of shall we say intense cerebral activity, aka, lying in bed watching TV, after a brief illness, or as in my case, when you’ve been on a deadline in a work or other context and have needed to type on a computer for long periods of time.

The point is not to despair — but to work it out.  I always find that a couple of days of modest meals also helps.  Not to the point of hunger, but just enough to feel as if I’ve given my body a real shot at dropping that extra pound before it gets to happy hanging around with all those other extra pounds.

Feeling the cold

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Feeling the cold
Maybe it’s the sudden onset of cold temperatures in Brooklyn (albeit still above freezing), but I don’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything, even though I’ve got a huge list of chores to take care of.  On those sorts of days, the only thing to do is to give myself permission to spend some extra minutes under the covers before putting the steel rod in my spine and lots of layers on my body as I head outside for a brisk walk.

I have to admit those first chilly intakes of breath make me want to run back inside, but after the first few minutes, I really do feel a whole lot better.

There’s a great new park only the Brooklyn waterfront just south of the Brooklyn Bridge.  The wind can be a bit bone-chilling, but there is nothing prettier especially as the city begins to wake-up on a Sunday morning.
By the time I get home from these sorts of brief walks, I’m ready to face the day, knowing that whatever else happens, I’ve already accomplished at least one thing, and believe me, that can really help oneself get through the rest of the day.

Finding inspiration

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Finding inspiration

Shadow Boxers

The great woman’s boxer, Lucia Rijker is quite the warrior.  The following clips are from the film “Shadow Boxers” by Katya Bankowski.  I watched them this morning doing crunches.

 

 

Google video has a streaming version of the film here.

Boxer Uprising: China sweeps gold for women’s boxing at 2010 Asian Games

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Boxer Uprising: China sweeps gold for women’s boxing at 2010 Asian Games


Chinese boxer Ren Cancan gained one for the history books when she captured Gold for China at the Asian Games — a fabulous first as Women’s boxing begins its rounds in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

Winning in the 52 kilogram (lightweight) division, Ren easily handled Annie Albania of the Philippines.  As quoted in the Taiwan News, Ren said, “Female boxing wasn’t in the Asian Games or the Olympics before, so it wasn’t so popular. Now people will pay more attention.”

Annie Albania received the silver while India’s storied Mary Kom and Japan’s Aya Shinmoto shared the Bronze.

The games will continue today with the final bouts to determine the bronze, silver and gold for the Flyweight and Middleweight divisions.

UPDATE:  Other medalists:

Li Jinzi, China, Women’s Middleweight, Gold Medal

Dong Cheng, China, Women’s Flyweight, Gold Medal

Undram Erdenesoyol, Mongolia, Middleweight, Silver Medal

Tassamalee Thongjan, Thailand, Flyweight, Silver Medal

Saida Khassenova, Kazakhstan, Middleweight, Bronze Medal

Suyeon Seong, Korea, Middleweight, Bronze Medal

Kum Ju Yun, DPR Korea, Lightweight, Bronze Medal

Chungneija, Hmangte, Flyweight, Bronze Medal

Full stats are here.

The gym is closed?!?

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The gym is closed?!?

What?!? I’m off from work and the gym is closed?!?

How often have you asked yourself *that* question on a holiday when you’re itching to get out of the house and you’re overcome by the sudden onset of your exercise “mojo”?

Funny how that always seems to happen at 8:00 AM on Thanksgiving morning or better yet, at sometime around 2:00 PM on Christmas day.  And oh the shock and surprise when you remember that the gym is closed!  You’d think that there had been a murder with all the carrying-on that happens.  The “oh man, it’s closed? But I *really* want to work out *now*!”

It reminds me of speaking with Rabbi Richard Chapin formerly of New York’s Temple Emanuel about the meaning of faith.  He talked about the religious experience as more than what one often feels are mandated appearances on High Holy days.  Rather, it is the sum total of all of those Friday night services and the attendant repetition of ritual that can give one the chance to glean meaning.  And so with boxing or running or yoga or aikido or any of the host of activities one does at a gym or dojo or on a running track.  It is not the ritual “appearance” on a holiday that give meaning to work and sweat, it’s the every day.  The daily something.  The things we repeat over and over as a mantra to the places we want to go and the person we want to become.

As an advocate for boxing, I’ll always talk about the ring as a place to take care of those sorts of longings, but really it doesn’t matter.  The point is to find those things have meaning to you and to give it a whirl in a way that makes sense and is achievable.  And no, you don’t have to go 15 rounds your first day or promise to run 12 miles or do 200 sit-ups or 10 sets each on every apparatus in the gym.  Nor do you have to suddenly remember that you haven’t been to the gym in a while (shall we say weeks or months?) and figure the best day to start is at 7:30 AM on New Year’s Day.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving Day — and if you really feed the need to move around, I’d suggest dancing the Superbad Slide (and because it’s James Brown it’ll link you back to You Tube).

Sad story

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Sad story

Championship boxer Christy Martin was allegedly stabbed and shot by her husband, Jim Martin on Tuesday evening and taken to a local hospital near her Florida home.  Known as the “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Christy is an important pioneer in women’s professional boxing.

The LA Times is reporting that she was shot in left leg and stabbed in her torso and is also reporting that the police had been called to their home earlier in the day on Tuesday.  The LA Times has the story here. Fox News has it here.

Our prayers should go out to Christy for her quick recovery.

Update:  More stories here and here.

For information on domestic violence click here.  And if you or any of your friends and family are victims of domestic violence, you are not alone — you can seek help from the many wonderful organizations that support women in their efforts to free themselves from abusive relationships. 


Happy Birthday

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Happy Birthday

Today would have been my mother’s 75th birthday.  As one of those landmark birthdays we figured on having some sort of party to mark the event.  That was not meant to be, but in reflecting on the woulda, shoulda, coulda’s of life, the mother of my imagination would surely have been a spry warrior with an undiminished twinkle leading everyone in song at her birthday bash.  She’d also have been happier, healthier and more certain of herself at the pivotal decision points in her life when making choices that made sense counted for something.

All of us have those moments where the fork in the road leads left or right.  Sometimes we don’t choose per se, but rather stay stationary in the hopes that the wind (“fate”)  will nudge us along in one direction or another.  Generally we make the choice that feels best at the moment and it turns out to be the “right” choice.  Sometimes we don’t.   Whether those decisions impact us positively or negatively they ultimately lead us on to more choices, more decisions and so on.

Our lives are thus a series of these points on the line.  And the decisions are ones we live with for good or for ill.   Strength of character, faith and moxy carry us through the tough ones plus a lot of humor — something my mother had an abundance of.  It did not, however, stop her from smoking, a decision point that lead to lung cancer and from our point of view her death, way too soon.

Having smoked myself, I feel as if I’ve played roulette with a wheel of awful outcomes.  My hope of course is that I quit soon enough, and having had a family later in life, that the decision to quit (albeit late in “pack years”) will not mean that I’ve robbed my daughter of her mother too soon.  In my case — I had my mother for a long time; in my daughter’s case she’d still be awfully young.

As decisions go, quitting smoking was a great one; as is exercising, keeping your weight trim enough not to cause health problems and as my favorite internist espouses, playing the numbers game meaning getting annual physicals, taking the big tests at the scheduled times and doing *everything* in moderation, including in his mind exercise.

My own health scare 14 years ago is what brought me to boxing in the first place — a decision I cherish even as I struggle to keep it as a part of my daily life.  The point is to be mindful of how things go and not to be afraid of the decisions that will ultimately have deep and perhaps painful effects.

As a women in her fifties I’m mindful of mortality and time in ways I never, ever imagined.  Coupled with losing my mother this year, I’m cognizant of how one can go along and forget that life really is short.  In that vein, I shall toast my mother with my daily something, a good cry and the biggest smile I can muster to greet the day.

Happy birthday Mom, you were one in a million.

 

Dark at 6:00 AM

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Dark at 6:00 AM

Not that I want to complain or anything, but if you live in Brooklyn, NY and wake-up at 6:00 AM, you’re waking up in the dark.  Okay, true, most northern cities around the planet experience this as a regular feature of the winter months, but it doesn’t make it any more palatable.

So why am I up?  Well work for one, but more so to find the time for sit-ups and crunches, shadowing boxing, sun salutations, and in general gaining some moments before the rush of the day.  That it’s all in the dark gives this time a bit of mystery.  As if I were an acolyte of Nyx, the Greek Goddess of Night, reveling in the time before Helios makes his way across the sky in his golden chariot.

Waking up in the dark also seems to push one’s sense of purpose; as if in wrenching oneself from what otherwise feels so natural, one has made a bold statement of the importance of the time before morning.  Sure, it is morning by the clock, but the body remains in revolt, at least mine does.  And even as I make my moves around the living room, I keep looking out the window in the hopes of connecting myself with the first rays of morning light — recognizing that I will only find myself tune with the a natural order of things at that moment when I spy Homer’s “rosy fingered dawn.”

Boxing roundup

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Boxing round-up

There was some exciting boxing this weekend what with the Sergio Martinez-Paul Williams fight on HBO and the replay of last week’s Pacquiao-Margarito fight for those who didn’t watch on pay-for-view.

Martinez’s bullet in the second round was incredible to watch, not the least of which to see Williams out cold doing a face plant on the mat — a vivid reminder of the old adage to “protect yourself at all times.”

As for the Pacquiao-Margarito fight, the image of Margarito’s face and knowing of his subsequent facial surgery to correct his fractured orbital bone leaves one to question why the fight wasn’t stopped if not by the ref, then by his own corner. There would have been no dishonor in that and perhaps he’d have been left in better shape to fight another day.  As it is, one wonders if he will have lasting damage beyond his healed fractures after the 12 rounds of head-pounding he received.  Time will tell.

Women’s boxing was pretty exciting too this weekend.

Saturday, November 20th was the final night of bouts in the Women’s International Dual Series held in Oxnard, California.  The fights were terrific with an upset win by flyweight Alex Love over the 2008 Polish champion, Karolina Michaelczuk.  Boxing News 24 has good coverage and stats of the event here.  This puts Alex Love in a great position for medaling in the upcoming Pan American games this summer in Mexico.

Over at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, pro-welterweight Jill Emery had a first round knockout win over her opponent Addy Irizarry that reportedly sent Irizarry to the hospital with a possible broken ankle. Fight News has a paragraph about it here and WBAN (Women’s Boxing Archive Network) has it here.  The fight was on the undercard of the junior welterweight Paul Spadafora-Alain Hernandez fight — and nice to see more women’s boxing on the roster of these sorts of bouts.

Sit-ups

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Sit-ups.

So I went back to Gleason’s Gym yesterday and had a fabulous if slow, training session with Lennox Blackmore.  I managed to get through it all without needing to call for an ambulance and acquitted myself reasonably well, except for the sit-ups.

Talk about embarrassing…

Back in the day (all of three years ago), sit-ups became my favorite province.  I’d do my 100 with Lennox, and then start crunches, reverse bench sit-ups, or sitting on the sit-up bench doing 15-minute sit-up sets. Not that I ever developed a six-pack or any thing resembling even the slightest ripple, I did know that somewhere under my ample padding I was solid as a rock!  Plus, I knew that the core strength was there and even if I didn’t see the actual evidence of my work in the form of the aforementioned six-pack, my improved back strength, tighter stance, crisper jabs, hooks and upper-cuts proved it.

Well I’m here to tell the cautionary tale of use it or lose it!

I mean doing those sit-ups yesterday was painful, pitiful and beyond awful. Suffice to say it’s one of the parts to a work-out that can come back quickly, and doesn’t need any sort of fancy gym apparatus to do.

So … this morning, I hauled myself up nice and early, pulled out the pad and started doing crunches.  I took it nice and slow and while watching my favorite British police procedural on Netflix, did about 15 minutes worth.   I still ache – but, something did click, ‘cause while I may not be able to find the time I need to get to the gym, I can carve the time to do some sit-ups.  Well, at any rate, I’m going to try – so that next time I see Lennox I can at least get through the third set without stopping in the middle!