Tag Archives: boxing training

Getting the jump on those pesky resolutions

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Getting the jump on those pesky resolutions

Yep.  It’s that time of year again — when you need to confront all the coulda’, shoulda’ woulda’s from 2010 to write-up the “list” for 2011.

I will box every day!

In years past, I’ve run the gamut from writing them hung over on New Year’s Day, to thoughtfully considering them for days and weeks before the turn of the year.

To be honest, the New Year’s resolution list is often an afterthought somewhere around the 3rd of January.  By then of course, I’m in a decided catch-up mode which in turn can spiral into a state of New Year’s resolution anxiety if I’m not careful.

This year I’m trying something a little different.  I’ve started my New Year’s resolution two days early — with the goal of doing at least *one* physical thing every day.  Okay, sure, that can be tough, but with a hat tip to Conjuring My Muse, doing one activity — whether it’s one three-minute shadow boxing round in the living room or a full-on two-hour work out at the gym is achievable!  And like doing anything else every day — it’s gets to be a terrific habit.

So to keep true to that New Year’s vow, I threw on my sweats, grabbed my gear (some of it with that new leather smell — thanks, Santa!) and walked down to Gleason’s Gym.  The sweet part was being accompanied by my daughter — and while I must say that the work-out was tough as my latest lay-off has been way too long, I worked out just enough to feel terrific about making the effort. It also helped that she was there to cheer me on, especially when it came to the sit-ups.

I’m heading down to Gleason’s again tomorrow to work out with Lennox Blackmore with the hope that I’ll be able to throw in one or two extra rounds and a whole lot more ab-work.  And though the gym will be closed on New Year’s Day, there’s yoga, fast-walking or dancing to James Brown to keeping me going strong — least ways that’s the plan!

Making it count

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Making it count

 

Brown Belt

 

Having achieved her brown belt, my daughter’s Aikido Sensei gave her about half a minute to rest on her laurels before starting the push towards her next goal.

She is ranked at 2.5 and must reach a 0.5 level before she will be invited to test for her Shidon or first rank Black Belt under the rules of the the Aikido World Alliance, the parent organization for her Dojo.  That will take three to four years, and given her age she will then wait at her 0.5 rank for some time before the AWA confers their invitation.

Her Sensei figures that as she is on her road towards a Black Belt — she is now not only an apprentice trainee with respect to all of the techniques that she must master, but more importantly she must also begin to learn the responsibilities of achieving the rank.  That is all pretty heady stuff for an 11-year-old, and yet, having been thrown to the front of her class to lead the warm-up, she has become cognizant of how difficult it is to command the attention and respect of a group of people long enough to actually get something done.

What she’s also learning is that small things matter.

In Aikido, stance is everything — much as in boxing — and finding the balance means a lot not only to her practice, but in her role as a novice teacher, to those of her students.  Thus she now sees when something is wrong and has begun to correct the tiniest of movements.  This process of breaking it down is helping her to ascertain the faults in her own practice — at least that’s her Sensei’s ingenious plan, though this last is perhaps the hardest to achieve.

Sometimes it is not really possible to articulate what happens beyond the realm of the pure mechanics of a particular set of movements.  In Aikido, that might mean the execution of a series of moves with a partner — pretty difficult stuff in that both partners must also act in a kind of harmony with each other even as the one may be attempting to toss the other to the ground.

Boxing offers something similar — a remarkable improvised dance executed by two well-skilled fighters balanced for ability and for that little something extra that comes from the heart.

Words to live by

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Words to live by

I came across this wonderful and inspiring talk with George Foreman.  It reflects the true spirit of the day.

 

Wrapping, baking, boxing

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Wrapping, baking, boxing

Aside from the fact that the cat decided that 5:09 was a great time to play hockey, I was figuring on getting an early start to the day.  Okay, not quite that early, but the usual 6:00 AM even though I’m off for the weekend.

Squirts to the kitty aside (and a timeout in the bathroom), I’ve managed to wrap everything — except for the stuff that hasn’t come yet (with an offering of my daughter’s brownies to the delivery Gods in the hopes that they arrive on time).

Next up has been three minutes of chase the kitty (the loud meows got to me) and the first round of baking — a nice banana bread with walnuts.  After slurping down some cold coffee from yesterday morning, it’ll be a shadow boxing sprint to the store for flour, eggs, sugar and milk (and the weird looks be damned as I punch the air).

I tell you my list of things to do today is giving new meaning to multi-tasking — all while my family sleeps, as not to put to fine a point on it (gosh, that’s a well-worn metaphor), when they’re awake it’s kind of hard to get a lot done.

Okay, so once I’m back with the days supply of baking goodies I’ll be trading rounds of making cookies with prancing around the room — before the real fun begins, my attempt at fashioning home made chocolate candies.  Mind, I got some fabulous Belgian semi-sweet chocolate from our absolute favorite Middle-Eastern grocery shop on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn called Oriental Pastry & Grocery not to mention the lovely array of nuts and dried fruits. The trick will be in melting the chocolate all at once so that the temperature stays even … hmm.  Best that I work in some shadow boxing rounds before I attempt that so that my arms are nice and warmed-up before I start whisking the chocolate.

Here’s hoping that your day is as fun!

Women who box

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Women who box

Nechama Brodie ready for a 'white collar' bout at the Armoury Boxing Club in Cape Town taking it like a woman on Fight Night. (David Harrison, M&G)

Women’s boxing has taken on a global character.  What’s interesting is many of the drivers for women’s participation in the sport seem universal:  empowerment, fitness and a way to get themselves where they want to go.

An article in a South African paper caught my eye this morning.  The article is written by Nechama Brodie.  She has entered the ring as a “white collar” boxer in two fights out of Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa.

As she writes, even sparring is not for the faint of heart. “‘Get used to it. It’s a man’s sport,’  [trainer] Shayvonne Pattison said to me, when I asked her to stop hitting me quite so hard in the head.”

The allusion to it’s being a “man’s sport,” however, has more to do with the seriousness of the intent during training, something many women who train will attest — so much so, that in my opinion boxing is certainly a “woman’s sport” with all the heart and fortitude that it implies.  As well, with the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, women’s boxing is beginning to engender the respect it’s deserved all along.

Her article is a well-written piece published in this South Africa’s Mail & Guardian Online edition and can be found here.

Getting them to the gym early

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Getting them to the gym early

I live in a two-boxer family and if I count the young-one, we’re coming on three boxers.  As the trainers down at Gleason’s are happy to remind us, my daughter was practically born in the gym.  There are many stories told of how she was passed from one lap to another while my husband or I trained.  Her comfort today is telling every time she walks into the gym.  She’s got folks to say hello to,  her trainer, John “Superman” Douglas to fist-bump, and a general feeling of ease as she watches us workout or works out herself.

When it comes to kids in the gym, I always advise parents that there is no place finer to introduce a child not only to the intricacies of the sweet science, but to the rarified world of camaraderie, focus and importantly, people’s dreams.  A boxing gym provides children with a place where they can experience people working very, very hard to achieve complex goals that range from personal fitness to readying for professional bouts.

The boxing gym is also a place where children can learn great physical skills, confidence and a work ethic that will carry them across a lifetime — and this without ever really needing to fight in a bout.  The boxing work out alone with a skilled trainer or in a group class will provide kids with the chance to develop prowess in the boxing repertoire and for those parents who might object to their kids sparring, pad work and shadow boxing can simulate some of the movements of the ring.  Girls especially get a lot out of boxing training — not the least of which is learning how to physically defend themselves.

There’s also something else that happens in a boxing gym: a chance for people from all walks of life to interact and communicate.  In the over-scheduled world of contemporary child rearing, that sort of experience is invaluable as is the “drift” time that happens as you wait your turn.

For more information on children’s boxing programs, parents can contact their local PAL organizations. Many boxing gyms also provide opportunities for training children individually or in groups.  You can also contact Girlboxing and we’ll be happy to pass on what information we have.

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

 

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.

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).

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!

Gym bound!

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Gym bound!

I am determined to get to the boxing gym this afternoon.  I mean really, it’s been weeks, and here I am attempting to keep a blog going on boxing!  Well, okay. So I’ve been busy at work, true.  Busy writing papers for grad school, true.  Busy being a wife and a mom, true.  But, but, but … I say to myself, that is no excuse, sister, get your butt to the gym!   So today, after dropping the prodigal off at her dance class, it’s off to Gleason’s for some serious huffing and puffing as I attempt something resembling a work out.

The plan?  Hmmm. A short run, maybe 15 minutes worth at a slow pace to be followed by three rounds of shadow boxing.  By then I’ll be warmed up and ready for the most embarrassing part, facing my trainer, Lennox Blackmore.  He will be as he always is, the consummate professional with a mushy heart of molten gold — while I shall be mortified by how slow I am, not to mention out of breath by about 30 seconds into the first round!

Oh well.  I’ve been here before and no doubt will be here again.  The point is that I shall haul myself over there to begin anew and after a while feel the absolute thrill of working hard.  Once I get over the initial shock of working out, I really do have to give it my all and find there is nothing so satisfying as feeling my muscles dissolve into the delicious agony of having been worked to death.  Of course there will be tomorrow when I’ve got to work through the obstacle course that is my life lately to get myself back to the gym for a second day, but that is in truth a problem for another day.

PS – Don’t forget to catch the last night of the Women’s International Duel Series bouts tonight live from 9:00 PM to 12:00 AM Eastern Time.  I watched last night and they were terrific.  The link is here.

PPS – Read this GREAT story about women boxers in India who have made extraordinary strides in the recently held Commonwealth Games.  The NY Times has it here.

Also, learn about Mary Kom’s Boxing Academy in the northeastern state of Manipur, India here.


Guilting you into it

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Guilting you into it

Ever have one of those mornings when even the cat has her hooks into you?  I mean it’s not even 6:00 in the morning and the day is already all about getting stuff done, and done fast.

“Raining outside?  Oh, that’s okay, use an umbrella to go out and get me my latte!,” say’s he who wants desperately to be obeyed.

Yep, one of *those* mornings where only the premium flaked cat food will do.

My answer other than to take care of the “damn” nonsense of life including lattes in the rain and the last round of studying for my daughter’s make-up science test, always goes back to freezing time for my morning something.  Today that means the daily write and sun salutations and the occasional foray into a tap dance, say in the elevator of where I work where the acoustics make my taps sound perfect.

And later, say at lunch time, I’ll tune out for a few on my iPad and have a think about something other than coming home to sort the laundry.


P.S. – Nothing like the vision of a Starbucks barista in a Santa hat to make the day seems sunny after all!

New beginnings

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New beginnings.

Mondays afford the possibility of new beginnings.  A bit like a new year, Mondays begin the week and hence offer the chance to take a stab at starting over.   This mini-New Year also offers the start of new resolutions such as getting back to the gym, beginning a diet, or waking up an hour earlier to start that novel that keeps beckoning from the keyboard.

The point is that we have that opportunity to take a stab at new things all the time; whether an adventure in cuisine, creative endeavors, physical prowess, or something as simple as drinking one less cup of coffee.

And sure, Thursday can come when cake is the overriding motivation of the day, but you do have Monday or any other day you choose as your start day to look forward to.    That’s the day when you have the opportunity to move yourself along to where ever it is you want to go as a fresh beginning, whether its shadow boxing in the dark as your morning sun salutation or greeting your gym mates at the end of the day having missed their company for a while.

Missing a day

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Missing a day.

When one commits to a daily something as a specific task, missing a day can be a big emotional ouch.

Back when I boxed everyday, whether at the gym or at home, missing a day felt like a betrayal.  I had gone ahead and signed some sort of blood pact with myself to train everyday and then blown it!

The next day always felt awkward.   I found myself discounting the days and weeks of effort and sweat as if I had to start all over again.

Of course, I didn’t have to.  Sure I lost the day, but it didn’t mean having to give up training or all the good that working out in the ring had done for me.  It just meant that I had to work a bit harder to get my groove back; a few extra sit-ups to make up for the ones I’d lost.  Perhaps throwing in an extra bit on the treadmill during the warm-up, or the three rounds on the slip rope I’d been meaning to work into my routine.

The point is not to beat yourself up.

Things happen.  Work, family, a rotten cold, or maybe a jammed feeling that leaves a blue cast over the day that you just can’t shake.  The next day will be there for you to do your daily something again — and really, it’ll be okay.

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The daily something

Safe space

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Safe space.

I came home from work last night to see my husband and my daughter sprawled on the living room floor doing math together.   My day had been exhausting and I was no less so after seeing them.   The lovely part of it was knowing how safe my daughter was as I excused myself and went into the bedroom to take a short nap.

Having missed out on a lot of that sort of intimacy in my own childhood, it got me to thinking that the boxing gym can offer that same sort of comfort.  My meaning is not necessarily tied into the idea of “Father” / “Daughter,” but “Trainer” and “Trainee.”

As a “student” of boxing one is seeking out guidance and learning from others. That learning encompasses all the usual pathways of acquiring knowledge; however, it occurs as a close physical experience and it is that closeness that can garner trust and comfort.   To sit in a boxing gym is to observe a myriad of small moments of loving intimacy. A sort of safe space for working through the actual problems of how to box; but more so the intangibles of relationship that dog many of us as we go about the everyday work of life.