“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.”
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!
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.
My prodigal has been feeling ill over the past few days with a headache she can’t shake and a runny nose that could have won the NYC Marathon. True champion that she is at the offer of a day home in bed, she’s in the shower clearing her mind and her nostrils to do battle with the day. In her case, her usual array of 6th grade classes and a make-up science test in an attempt to better her grade.
This is par for the course for her though. And I’m reminded that as a second grader she stayed up till the then unseemly hour of 10:15 PM to finish a project for class. She was studying bridges that year and she could barely remain awake as she completed the last final touches to make her bridge that much better.
I was in awe then at her resolve to work through the problem — and though my husband and I had to fight our instincts to demand that she go to bed, her tired but triumphant self-satisfaction the next morning was inspiring and brought much more than a tear to the eye.
She is no less triumphant this morning, exiting from the shower with a smile and saying, “I feel happy and I’m awake!”
Would that all of us could take a cue from that simple construct.
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!
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.
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.
I’m getting days ahead of myself. It comes of too much on my mind and not enough focus. Maybe that’s why the pads a trainer uses in boxing are called “focus” pads.
I clearly need some focus or my family might actually follow through on their threats to set me adrift at sea. ‘Not that I’ve become a Captain Bligh around here, but it’s pretty clear that the problem is me and not with the rest of my world ’cause they’ve been pretty perfect.
Girlboxing 
