A Female Prize Fight in Chicago in … 1856!
As many of your know, I am currently writing a book on the history of women’s boxing.
I came across the following about a women’s “prize fight” in 1856!
Enjoy!
UPDATE, 2/21/2013!!!
Keisher McLeod Wells defeated Jacqui Park in their 6-round super flyweight bout by unanimous decision. The judges scored the fight 59-55, 58-56 and 58-56. Fire is now 6-2! Jacqui Park is 1-1.
Exclusive Interview with Keisher “Fire” McLeod Wells ahead of her 2/21/13 fight!
Gleason’s own four-time New York Golden Gloves champion and professional boxer Keisher “Fire” McLeod Wells (5-2, 1-KO) will be boxing again on DiBella Entertainment’s Broadway Boxing card this coming Thursday, February 21st at the world-renowned Roseland Ballroom in the heart of New York City. Fire will be facing a former four-time Canadian National Amateur champion, 36-year-old, Jaqueline Park (1-0) in a six-round super flyweight showdown.
This will be Fire’s first fight since her controversal split-decision against Patricia Alcivar. She forcefully disputes the knockdown call at the end of the 6th round–and in viewing the tape, you’d have to say it did look like a slip.
As for fighter Jacqueline Park, her four-round debut professional fight resulted in a unanimous decision over Amanda Beaudin back in September.
Tickets are still available for the Ring of Fire event ranging from $45.00 – $125.00. Contract Gleason’s Gym (212) 787-2872 to purchase tickets.
Girlboxing had a chance to pose some Q & A to Fire ahead of upcoming bout, this is what she had to say.
1. You’ve got a fight coming up on February 21, 2013 on a DiBella Entertainment, Broadway Boxing Card at Roseland Ballroom in New York City. What can you tell Girlboxing readers about your 6-round fight against Canadian national amateur champion Jacqueline Park?
I don’t know much about her but I know she has a boxer style like my style. I’ve heard good things about her amateur career and that’s what I like to hear. I want to fight good fighters. That’s the only way I get better. It will be interesting to fight someone with a similar style to mine as opposed to the normal and obvious, my opponents usually comes straight forward non stop. I’m used to fighting brawlers and I’ve learned how to deal with them, so I’m excited to box a boxer. However, I won’t be surprised if she changes her style to brawler though because I’m taller. I’m prepared to take on both styles.
My sister was a very gentle and kindhearted individual. She was a great single mother of two young kids. She would come to my fights with support. She loved bragging about me to her friends about being a younger sister to a professional boxer. I am going to miss seeing her face in the audience cheering me on. This fight is being dedicated in her memory on my behalf. This will be my first fight since her death. I took some time off after her passing to cope with the lost of her with my family. This was the first loss my family has experienced, so it hit us really hard. What was more tragic is the way we lost her. Gun violence is so out of control. Using this fight in her memory with my popularity to the sport in NY, I’m hoping to bring more awareness in ending gun violence.
3. It’s been 11 months since your last outing. You fought against Patricia “Boom Boom” Alcivar, in a tough battle that saw you knock her down in the 3rd and take a shot that was ruled a knock down in the 6th. Still you were triumphant with the judges giving you a split decision win, 57-55 x 2 and 55-57. What have you learned from that fight and what sort of adjustments in your game plan are you making as you head into head into the ring on the 21st?First, I would like to say I never took a shot from her that landed me on the canvas. I slipped after dodging an unsuccessful punch that never landed by her. You can clearly see that after they replayed it in slow motion. Even the commentaries said it wasn’t a knock down. I was so confused when they started counting. That wasn’t the first time slipping in the ring for me in my boxing career. I can get a little wobbly and clumsy sometimes, but I never been counted out for that in the past. I was upset. I felt I won unanimously regardless of the 8 count. I fought tougher fights giving me unanimous decisions. So I couldn’t understand the split decision. The only adjustment I have for any fight after the one with Patricia Alcivar, is to try not to slip again. I’ve been working a lot on leg strength this time around. So hopefully I’m done with the wobbly legs.
5. You’re a Golden Gloves Champion four times over as an amateur and bring a 5-2 record coming into your next professional fight. What can you tell up-and-coming fighters about the difference between fighting in the amateurs and fighting as a professional boxer?The obvious difference is that professional fighters get paid, the headgear comes off and the gloves are smaller. The rounds become longer as well. Fights are more far in between too. However, I feel the reward is greater at the end because you are training for a war that is more brutal than amateur boxing. The training is more intense and so is the fight itself. There is a lot harder punches to be felt and give without the protection amateur boxing gives.
6. Your other love besides boxing is fashion. You’ve also started a jewelry line with wonderful creations that are beginning to adorn half the women in Brooklyn–or so it seems. How are you managing to fit your two love together: boxing and jewelry making?
Being a jewelry designer is what soothes my mind in between fights and training. Each piece I make is from my mind and heart. They’re unique one of kind pieces. It’s wearable art. I get in a zone when I paint (my jewelry). So when my mind and body is tired from training, I relax it by making jewelry. Also, I get a lot of down time when I’m working at Gleason’s on Sundays. So I create here sometimes while I’m here. Some are my items are boxing related, so I find inspiration from Gleason’s.
7. Where do you see yourself going from here, Fire?I would love to be some kind of TV personality or something in that nature relating to boxing after I decide I don’t want to compete any longer. I never look ahead in the future. I live my life pretty much from week to week. If I had children then I probably would have more sight of my future. Probably a bit irresponsible, but that is the way I’ve always lived my life. I am aiming for a World Title in the near future though, however it comes.
A Boxing ‘Ohana – an update …
In Hawaii, an ‘Ohana is a family. A family that may be related through blood or the kind of family the evolves around a passion or a shared set of experiences. Regardless, an ‘Ohana connotes a sacred trust of people who have each other’s back.
When it comes to The Kona Boxing Club, the idea lives in the ‘Ohana that owner and trainer Sonny Westbrook has created around boxing.
Word of the club and of Sonny’s work in the community inspired Sasha Parulis to produce a documentary she has titled, A Boxing ‘Ohana, her way of acknowledging the impact that The Kona Boxing Club has had on the lives of the young men and women who have passed through its doors–lives that have overcome shattered families, drugs, and run-ins with the law.
Now, after four years of developing her short documentary, Parulis and her crew, wrapped production earlier this year in Kailua-Kona Hawaii, on The Big Island. Sasha along with NY-based Director Cynthia Younker and Hawaii-based Director of Photography, Sam Kapoi shot the film on the island for 5 days.
The documentary focuses on how Sonny Westbrook, boxing coach of The Kona Boxing Club has helped and changed many of his boxer’s lives and others in the community. He is a man who is paying it forward in awe-inspiring ways, and the crew captured this on film through anecdotes from Sonny and perspectives of the pivotal people in his life. Sasha is currently working on prepping the next stage of the filmmaking process with editing scheduled for 2013. She is also working on marketing efforts through the film’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
For more information check out A Boxing ‘Ohana’s website here.
One of those days…
It’s been one of those days.
Sure the laundry is done, a bit of shopping for the week, and even a trip to Staples for new winter term school supplies for my daughter, but the real stuff, the substantive stuff, the chapter that should have been completed 10 days ago remains … well, definitely undone.
So if I was going to blow off the things that needed doing, I would have hoped to have at least spent my time say … at the gym going another bunch of rounds at hyperspeed or swimming at the Y or reading something other than books about 18th Century gender politics, but I didn’t even waste it doing that.
It was time spent in a drift to nowhere: bland, blah, nothing much and before I knew it the big clock outside tolled 4:00 PM.
At that point–well, I did manage half a page on the pesky chapter–but otherwise gave up on it all and figured the best thing to do was make a nice dinner for everyone (linguine with garlic, oil & calamata olives finished with fresh parmesan, plus a romaine lettuce salad).
The family fed. Daughter back to homework and husband happily digging into a bowl of ice cream, I’ve given myself permission to drift.
And really, that was all I needed. A bit of acknowledgement. A moment to say–hey, you’re a grown-up, you work your butt off, you can take the time to do nothing if that’s what you really need.
Now that I’ve given myself that gift, I feel myself easing up a bit; not quite so steamed for not hitting my word output, nor feeling guilty for taking a peek at my Facebook page.
Given that my permission stamp was only made at around 7:00, I don’t really have much time left … but at least I have Downton Abbey to look forward to.
The Few, The Proud, The Women!!!
Today marked an historic day in the history of Women Warriors!
Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta announced that women will no longer be excluded from combat roles in the Armed Forces of the United States. Women will be allowed to serve in combat units as well as assume command roles. Effectively this means that we can indeed look forward to the opportunity of seeing a woman Chair of the Joint Chiefs in the not so distant future.
Practically, each of the four branches of the service, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, has been charged with assessing how best to integrate women into combat specialities. They will also develop time tables for phasing in women to these roles including such elite units as the Navy SEALS and Special Forces. In order to ensure that women have the same opportunities as their male counterparts, the assessment will include reviews of the physical requirements to assess how best to make those standards gender neutral.
Women have routinely served in front lines roles in Afghanistan and Iraq, albeit in “support” roles. Those positions have, however, not stopped these women from participating in fierce fire fights. As of this writing 152 women have died in those wars and nearly 1,000 have been wounded.
Don’t be fooled though, women have been fighting wars for millenia!
Here are a smattering of those heroines:
Artemesia of Halicarnassus (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) was an ally of the Persian King Xeres in 480 BCE. She commanded five ships and fought bravely in battle. Her exploits were recounted by Herodotus.
Joan of Arc fought along King Charles of France in his war against the British. She was eventually burned at the stake for heresy, including the crime of dressing as man. Exonerated some years later by the Roman Catholic Church, she was canonized in 1909.
Hannah Snell was a British woman who fought as a British Marine named James Gray from 1747-1750. She participated in battles in India and was wounded a total of 11 times without ever revealing her gender.
Loreta Janeta Velasquez disguised herself and acted as a Confederate Scout named Lt. Harry T. Buford during the American Civil War. Hundreds of women in both the Union and Confederate Armies had distinguished careers as “male” soldiers.
Monster licks …
One of the things about boxing is sound.
We hit a bag, a trainer’s pads, a body and it is associated with sound. There is the solid “thwack” of a body shot, the rapid fire of the speedbag and bounding double and triple pounds of the double-ended bag.
We all know when a shot is true too. It carries a special kind of “on the button” sound as it sinks in. There’s an effortless quality as well when all of the mechanics of the body align for the perfect moment of when the hand encased in it’s padded glove hits the target.
Watching effortless boxing, effortless sound is to watch its practitioners at the top of their game.
So too with tap dancers and musicians who float through space with sonorous movement in their feet or with incomparable musical licks that delight us with their fanciful runs through the scales.
I’ve thought a lot about sound lately here are a few monsters …
Coach Rick Technical Mitt Work with female boxers.
Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing to Begin the Beguine from Broadway Melody of 1940.
The amazing Tony Williams (RIP) started his career with Miles Davis as a 17-year-old. The video has two stop your heart drum solos.
Tenor saxophone madness! Saxophone summit webcast from Birdland in 1999 with Michael Brecker (RIP), David Liebman and Joe Lovano with a cover of John Coltrane’s Impressions. Plus, check out Billy Hart’s drumming. Incomperable.
Setbacks in a minor key …
When will “they” come up with a cure for the “common cold”!
I mean really, PAA-LEEEZZZZZZZ.
First with the throat tickle, then the sneezing, sneezing, sneezing before the big guns hit, you know the ones, aches on your ache, fever, chills and the weirdest dreams ever!
It puts in mind that we head off full in our stride only to get a minor twist in the ankle or other such upset along the way.
And yes, it does mean putting a stop to the momentum of that walk or in my case, shadow boxing around the living room, work on my latest chapter and a trip to the office today … but its being minor is the main point.
The minor hiccups will pass and then it’s full throttle again through life’s wide open vista of possibilities!
Meanwhile, have a happy January 2nd, 2013! (Cough, cough, cough)
New Year’s Day …
As a young woman, New Year’s seemed loaded with the hazards of the dating life, expectations met and lost, and the specter of a fresh start, though not unburdened with the seeds of doubt regarding those pesky New Year’s resolutions.
A world away from that earlier version of myself – the one in the 1970s garb (OMG!!!), dancing the hustle to Donna Summer at the Salty Dog in the East 80’s on one New Year’s eve or another with my bestie, Jamie, and an assortment of leisure-suited guys – I can say with some assurance that there are some helpful do’s in the resolution game!
Do # 1: Let the KISS theory suffice (as in keep it simple …)
That means instead of promising yourself an elaborate hours long daily workout that involves multiple machines, ab-routines PLUS a LOT of rounds of boxing/running/fill in you’re your own workout poison, how about just promising yourself that you will commit to a regular exercise program with reasonable goals that you can attain as in … January: I will run (fill in the number) miles per week … et al…
Do # 2: Think grand, but not TOO grand.
Okay, you have a book you always wanted to write or a new part of the garden to plant or a terrific new glazing technique to try that involves multiple steps and using weird chemicals, or figure this is the year to run that marathon you always promised yourself.
That all sounds great, but first off remember Do # 1.
Is it attainable?
Do you have the time?
And most importantly, do you feel ready to take on the challenge? (As in, if you have a tricky knee, a marathon may not be in the cards.)
If you do feel as if you have the “stuff” to do it, then in the words of my favorite Captain (as in Picard) … “make it so.”
If not – perhaps a weekly blog will help you “rev” up your writing or consider adding tomatoes this year, or try walking first with your knee brace before taking on light jogging.
Remember that you get a lot of self-“brownie” points for trying, but face your own “Wrath of Khan” if you underestimate the obstacles after having put all that self-capital into believing you would complete the task.
Do #3: When in doubt, do it with a friend.
This one is a good one, especially for exercise goals, weight-loss and other “we can do it” attainables that lend themselves to a little friendly competition, not to mention the buddy-system to drag your butt out of bed for those early morning routines – or fun stuff like learning to tap dance, salsa or fox trot, or even putting together your own group to learn Italian, or better yet a fight-club of your own for weekly sparring!
The point is, doing it with a friend (or two or three, or more) gives you camaraderie plus a lot of inspiration for those outer months past the first blush or two when rising for yet another early morning run is about the last thing you want to do.
Do #4: Do what feels right for YOU.
This one’s a tricky.
Say you really could lose a few pounds, but the truth is it’s not in the cards right now. Well have the guts to say, nope, not now. The same thing with adding days to your workout schedule at the gym or even giving your mother a call every Sunday morning.
The point is to be aware of what is and is not attainable or desirable for yourself before you launch into things that you just can’t handle.
Better to take on fun things like catching up on your British police procedurals (Prime Suspect – all seven seasons – is on Netflix), than to burden yourself with daily yoga or insight meditation when you’re just not ready for it.
The same goes to being nicer to people you don’t like and all the other things we add to our lists.
The point is to make it work for you. After all, you don’t have to be a New Year’s resolution overachiever!
So think through the sorts of things that have meaning to you not to what has meaning to others and if this is your year to run a marathon, then have at it. Otherwise, content yourself with cutting back on caffeine after 4:00 PM or doing Sun Salutations on Saturday mornings instead of burdening yourself with the whole enchilada, so to speak.
Do #5: Sometimes grand is good!
Okay, yes, this does fly in the face of Do #2, but there’s nothing wrong with going for it either!
So if you are up for it — take the challenge!
That could mean boxing in the Golden Gloves or fighting for a WBA female title!
Whatever it is give it your best and if it means going full-throttle than by all means do!
You deserve whatever goal you think you can achieve no matter how large or how small.
I’m not saying that risk is everything – but without it, we lose our creative edge, which I figure is what we’re all about anyway.
Put it this way, whether it’s finishing the book on time (hint to self), working through the ills of your body to come back into the game or readying yourself to go for the gold at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games … there is no better time than today to overcome whatever obstacles stand in your way.
Whatever you resolutions, I’d like to wish my Girlboxing pals all the best in 2013 with the sincere hope that whatever it is you do – this is your year!!!
Girlboxing 