When I was a kid, we used to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon. It cost a dollar, and we could see two films and a short! Time to grab the popcorn!
First up is Shadowboxers by filmmaker Katya Bankowsky. The 49-minute documentary from 1999 followed the early career of boxer Lucia Rijker. It received rave reviews at the time.
A short film from 1901 entitled Gordon Sisters Boxing from the Thomas A. Edison company.
Filmed in 2002, Thai Boxing: A Fighting Chance bySusanne Cornwall Calvin, follows three fighters: Gong-Prai Sorjintana, a 13-year-old from the town of Ayutthaya fighting to raise money for University, Sam Sheridan a 27-year-old Harvard Grad named and Boon-Term Kitmuti, a 29-year-old mother of two who wanted to box when she was younger, before Muay Thai was legal for women. The film is narrated by Jason Statham.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend Jill Morley’s film Fight Like A Girl lately.
It had its world premier at the American Documentary Film Festival in April 2012 and went on to showings at the Phoenix Film Festival, won the best documentary award at the Other Venice Film Festival, and most recently played at the Shadowbox Film Festival in New York this past December.
A highly personal film, it is not so much a documentary as a cinematic memoir that follows the lives of Jill, Susan Merlucci, Maureen Shea, and Kimberly Tomes as they train to box and compete in the ring.
The exploration, however, cuts deep into the heart of boxing where the physical act of extending one’s body with its full force to hit at something (or someone) can exact deep emotional turmoil, just as being on the receiving end of a barrage can trigger thoughts and feelings that may have been buried under the surface for years without having been truly dealt with.
Jill’s film delves at the heart of it all–and the opening scene with its stuccato pacing and highly stylized images sets the table, so to speak, for a cinematic exploration of exactly what it means for women to push themselves physically and mentally in the realm of the boxing’s squared circle.
For Jill in particular, boxing brought out a range of dark feelings that exacted a huge toll on her psyche. What she shows us, however, is a rare form of bravery as she uses the physical act of boxing and the witnessing of the camera as a way of uncovering and ultimately reconciling memory.
She is also able to use her camera to negotiate the emotional minefield that boxing uncovers for her other subjects–and in so doing not only reveals the courage that it takes for them to enter the ring, but the raw emotion necessary to work through hard truths in order to perform at the peak of their game.
This is a film worth seeing and represents the sport with all its complexity as it is …
When I first walked into Gleason’s Gym a million years ago–as in January 1997–my first trainer, Johnny Grinnage started me off on the wall bag throwing the jab and eventually a seven-punch combination that went jab-jab-straight right-left hook … dip right … straight right-jab-left hook … dip left … and repeat, repeat, repeat. From the wall bag, I graduated to the mirror where I practiced the same grouping of punches — and eventually went on to the slip rope and the heavy bag. Oh, and once I made it to the heavy bag, my first round was always left-left-left hook … dip left and repeat … dip right and repeat … and sometimes for two rounds.
What I didn’t get was any time in the ring–or the sense of *why* I was practicing those punches.
Eventually Johnny added in upper cuts, straight body shots and even some shoe-shines that had me throwing upwards of 18 punches in a row wearing 18-ounce gloves and crazy wraps underneath because he had me throwing those punches on the super-heavy bag for 12 rounds. Oh–all the while listening to Johnny admonish me *not* to throw any pitty-pat punches!
Suffice it to say, I sure did get strong! And after months of that I was in shape, but I knew nary a thing about boxing.
This went on for a while–and my relationship to boxing went in fits and starts, and was more about the emotion of actually hitting something than the fine points of the sport–and I ended up taking breaks that would last a year, two years or more.
Back in the gym after a particularly long break (2 years), I began training with Lennox Blackmoore.
I basically started all over again–and came a very long way, but ring time was still somewhat light, and it has literally taken me until the last couple of weeks to realize that so much of what he has been showing me and teaching me for years has passed right over my head. I mean I listened, and became proficient at things like the speed bag and the double-ended bag, but I still hadn’t grasped in any kind of visceral way what my body was actually supposed to be doing.
Call me dense (as in ridiculously so)–but the YEARS I spent being told to slip, bob and weave, were never about GETTING OUT OF THE WAY for me because maybe there’d be a punch rending its way down broadway squarely for my nose, because I JUST DIDN’T GET IT.
I didn’t get the dance. The absolute pas-de-deux. The improvisational hopped-up bang-pow-bang of it all.
I mean it’s crazy!
It’s the danciest dance ever.
Move, throw, move some more, drift in, drift out, squeeze impossibly low, fight tall, fight small, stay out of range, jam in and jam out, shoulder roll back, throw forward, sidestep … CRAZY STUFF.
Get it?
It’s crazy tap dancing–but you can’t dance if you don’t know the steps.
There’s something about the morning in the dark. It’s one thing when one has been out all night, but waking up and hitting the pavement with nary a hint of the old “rosy fingered dawn” is something else again.
This morning, all dressed up in sweats, a light shell jacket, and with my daughter similarly attired, she and I set out to run the track at Cadman Plaza Park in downtown Brooklyn–our first such excursion together.
As mother-daughter events go, it was pretty cool. While not particularly experienced, she has a long lopping gait that saw her fly out in front of me as I trudged along with my steady-as-she-goes tiny steps. Had I the stamina or the knees for that matter it would have been wonderful to run out like that, but having neither, I only looked on in wonder.
Waiting for me at the head of street, she took off again as we neared the park. Once inside, we got started on the rubberized track running along Cadman Plaza East before it looped down and around to near the Brooklyn Bridge exit onto Cadman Plaza West and then up again past the Korean War monument to the Tillary Street entrance.
True to her form, she ran ahead, but as I caught up she was definitely getting tired–and was stopping more to take a break than to wait for Mom! Still she did a wind sprint that made me breathless just to watch, never mind EVER attempt to do myself.
After our one loop around the park, we figured we’d done enough–it was our first day at it and there was no sense “killing” ourselves or tying our muscles up in knots to the point where we couldn’t try it again for a while.
Smiling, she said, “thanks, Mom,” and as we made our way home, still in the dark, there was something both sweet and triumphant about knowing we’d already accomplished a lot well before the sun came up.
We’ll see about tomorrow.
If you are thinking about taking up running … here are a few videos that be of interest.
Basics for beginning runners …
This one has good tips if you’re going to run for longer distances …
My friend Patti’s porch in Williamsville, Vermont, is one of those places in the world that forms still life images that are indelible.
I’ve sat on it, in winter and summer, spring and fall, but it never quite leaves me.
When I was there last, the remaining vestiges of winter were still apparent. And yet I gamely insisted on wearing my summer Keds, despite the mud.
As a writer’s retreat, it was a perfect place with just the right amount of mist to shroud me as I strung together the words I needed to propel me that much further into my book, A History Of Women’s Boxing.
Now that it’s actually sitting with the publisher, I carry the images from Patti’s porch as some sort of proof that writing is a labor of love, no matter what its purpose.
Breath heaving, arms aching, knees buckling after three rounds of sparring with my trainer Lennox Blackmoore, I looked at him standing quite nonchalantly a few feet away from me with admiration and a tint of envy and said, “you’re in some shape.”
Len just smiled as the bell intoned for our fourth round and said, “My mind is not tired.”
“What?” I thought.
“My mind is not tired,” he said, as a mantra, our eyes locked, our bodies circling each other in the ring.
And suddenly getting it I said, “my mind is not tired.”
A eureka moment, my punches flowed as crisp staccato accents on a drum kit.
“My mind is not tired,” I screamed to myself, remembering to slip Len’s right hand, and pulling back as he was went to my body, I let loose with my own overhand right that hit the mark.
Len nodded and said, “nice one,” but that didn’t last for long as we held each other’s gaze feinting, flicking punches, slipping, moving; his punches still tagging me from the right one, two, three times, but decidedly less that the week before.
Coming into the fifth round–we continued. The words “my mind is not tired” a true tonic for my body which really was feeling out of gas, but was moving with focus.
I practiced the shoulder roll, not quite getting it, but at least pulling away enough for the punch to graze me before letting loose with my straight right to the body. I remember to stand low too, something I had kept forgetting. I stayed low, feinted, slipped right, slipped left, feinted again, surprised Len with a lead right, pulled back, danced to the side, danced back again, took punches, pushed punches away.
We ended the round with Len on one side of the ring and me on the other. My breath really was hard, but I felt triumphant, I made my way over, slowly. Len took my helmet off and offered me water. He was smiling.
“Good work,” he said.
I felt proud of that and made my over to the uppercut bag to work on slipping punches again. Flagging for a moment, I said, “my mind is not tired,” and kept going having learned something.
Boxing really is all about the mind. The mind and the will to persevere, to take old damned bones and make them slip when everything in the body screams “pull back and get the heck out of the way.”
With a plethora of stories on individual boxers, exclusive interviews, news on upcoming fights, editorials on the state of the sport, and a site loaded with goodies it takes days and days to go through; the site is a MUST GO for anyone interested in the sport.
Starting this month, Sue has opened up her considerable archive of boxing records to the public. It is treasure trove of women’s boxing photos, original documents, video streaming footage, as well as a repository of historical documents.
Set up as a separate (but linked) website, WomensBoxingRecords.com is the most comprehensive website on the Internet for historical information of female boxing.
Named as one of the ten-most significant women’s boxers of all time in last year’s February 2012 edition of Ring Magazine, Sue Fox is more than that — she is a women’s boxing treasure for her years of devotion to setting the record straight in the sport.
As a former boxer with an illustrious career during the great spurt of women’s boxing in the 1970s, Sue also brings all of the passion for the sport that only someone who has actually fought in the squared circle can bring.
She has also been, and remains, an important point of contact for women in the sport. While not exactly a “mothership,” WBAN is a lifeline for denizens of female boxing from amateurs to professionals and everything in between.
If you can … go check it out, just click on the links:
I haven’t made it to the gym over the past few days, much to my chagrin. Between deadlines, work and a concert at my daughter’s school today, my plans to spend round upon round boxing on the the upper cut bag and slipping underneath have not come to fruition, but that hasn’t meant it’s left my mind.
Instead, in the moments of free time I’ve had, I’ve been watching heavy bag work-out videos and thought I’d share a few I’ve found that seem to have some good pointers.
1. Good instructional workout routines on the heavy bag: warmups, working lefts, head movement, outside work and finishing on the inside …
2. Advanced heavy bag techniques: working one hand, working in spot, “compound” attacks …
3. Freddie Roach Heavy Bag Training: footwork, balance and transferring feet, rolling and slipping, creating opportunities …
4. Uppercut bag workout with slipping under the bag
Yep. One of those days. Lots of entanglements. A load of unexpected work from my publisher. Cold. And no internet.
True to my mantra of “it’s just that,” I am at Starbucks along with a lot of other folks stepping in for a bit of warmth, computer time and even a few “old school” readers with actual books.
Unfortunately it’s meant I’ve had to “kill” the gym for the night–but I’m determined to make do and turn frozen lemons into a nice hot toddy!
Having actually lived in Siberia, I can attest to just how cold -25 F degrees feels! It was in the winter of 1992, when newly posted by the Peace Corps to the city of Khabarovsk, Russia in the Russian Far East, things were positively balmly when they hit zero degrees.
At the time, the buses were unheated, so there was usually a good six inches of ice caked on the windows–and really in that no-joke sort of cold, fur gloves, hat, boots and scarf were absolutes even for this vegetarian!
Still human civilizations have managed to survive the cold for millennia and I’m certain, we shall come through tonight’s “polar vortex” mostly in tact. What it should put in mind is that we are a part of a natural process that includes weather systems great and small that can wreck havoc or assuage us at any given time.
In case you’re up for delving into some real cold weather fun as you huddle close under the covers here are a few of my “Cold War” favorites:
Ice Station Zebra (1968). Starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown and Ernest Borgnine, directed by John Sturges!
“Your orders, Get there before the Russians!”
The Bedford Incident(1965). Starring Richard Widmark, Sydney Poitier, Eric Portman, Wally Cox, Martin Balsam and James McArthur, directed by James B. Harris.
“The Bedford can cause more damage in ten minutes than the whole US Navy in World War Two.”
The Hunt for Red October (1990). Starring Sean Connelly, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn and Sam Neill, directed by John McTeirnan.
“The hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch.”
Having gone back to the gym for a fairly serious heart-pounding workout three-days-a-week, I can attest to the benefits of the experience–not the least of which is the sensation of being fit.
Carving out the time for it–and then sticking to it is something else. Aside from negotiating when to go (before or after work) there’s the bit about squaring things with loved ones for the two plus hours, times whatever number of days a week you intend to go.
With that taken care of, it’s just a matter of actually showing up!
Having offered every excuse there is to give–it’s raining, too hot, too cold, I’m tired/hungry/had a bad day/had a good day–the starting premise for success is to go even if my arm is in a sling!
I guess the point of it is having made the commitment to the gym, why cheat at solitaire so to speak. This time is for me and even when I’m tired and grumpy and not feeling 100%, by the time I’m half way through my workout, all of the excuses I was formulating in my mind *not* to go have long since disappeared from my consciousness.
By that point my muscles are warmed up, my body limber, sweat dripping in sheets of water, my face flushed from exertion; whatever resistance I may have had replaced by the minutia of slipping a straight right.
Gym time is also about making the experience a good one. After all–it is you who are making the commitment to come and workout.
In my case it has meant making certain that the trainer I work with shares my objectives and listens to what my needs are. That wasn’t always the case for me–and it took a while to understand how to assert myself in the gym. It’s also fundamental to the old boxing adage “protect yourself at all times”!
If I can make a suggestion to anyone coming back to regular workouts, ensuring that you are comfortable with your trainer or instructor is a very important part of the experience. Furthermore, just because you haven’t been in the gym for awhile or you are a novice at particular skills or breathless after a couple of rounds doesn’t mean that you are at the mercy of a trainer who doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
In boxing this can mean being pushed to spar before you’re ready with a risk of serious injury–a totally unacceptable outcome. It can even come down to the choice of a gym or the type of activity you chose to do during your gym time. The main point is to be honest with yourself about what you hope to achieve, how much time you have to devote to it, your willingness to commit to it and you willingness to “try on” a few trainers to find the right one for you. With all of those pieces in place, the experience should be nothing less than fabulous–making each and every time you hit the gym a special treat: one that you deserve for putting so much of yourself out there in the first place!
The little things have a way of disrupting the big things even in the best of moments.
Take internet connectivity for one.
This has been my latest cause of uncontrollable, snarling, derangement. It is truly an “are you kidding me,” kind of thing, ridiculous and laughable all at the same time—and that’s me I’m talking about.
In the I-want-it and I-want-it-now category of things, having ON DEMAND superfast, Internet is the world I like to live in. (And no, I don’t step out of my rage to reflect on the days when 56KB modem connectivity was fast—I live in a megabyte and preferably gigabyte world!)
So, when over the past couple of weeks our Time Warner Cable connectivity s-l-o-w-e-d to a crawl, (as now—and yes I’m naming names), capriciously it seems and for no discernible reason that I can glean (and in spite of the full connectivity fan mocking me from its perch at the top of my computer screen), I am ready to scream.
“Why?” I lament.
“I need it NOW!” I rant.
And in my full hysterical, the world-is-out-to-get-me paranoia-infused sputtering, foaming-at-the-mouth “best,” I give an award-winning homage to everyone’s favorite Captain, James Tiberius Kirk, by yelling out “Khan…… Khan…… Khan….”
This because, I cannot see the weather, Google a Star Trek factoid, send a tweet, add a blog post, or watch this or that episode of Eureka on Netflix—my latest series addiction.
Okay—so OBVIOUSLY it’s time to hit the pause button here.
I mean I should know better.
Hey, I even went to Buddhist “school”—ten days in silent meditation at Wat Suan Mokkh in Chaiya, Thailand.
Where is all of my “it’s just that” training?
Where is non-self?
Why am I so attached to the mosquito-bite moments in life?
As in the ring when my trainer Lennox Blackmoore’s fist connects yet again, (lightly thrown, though I should give him the right to slam me after the third time in a row when I still haven’t slipped), I cannot attach to the fact of getting hit because it only exacerbates the lack of fluidity and sight I have of what is in front of me.
I guess what I’m saying is its the essence of living in the moment.
A fist on its way to one’s left temple is about as in the moment as it gets and there are two stratagems: get hit or get out of the way. All else has no meaning.
And so it is with everything else.
It truly is “just that” and each time I get caught up in the spiral of no internet connectivity or any of the hundreds, heck, thousands of little things that can be annoying to the point of snarling, it really is getting to the silly stage.
So, is there no Internet this morning? Nope, but it’s okay. I live in Brooklyn, there’s always Starbucks.
Girlboxing 