On Boxing

feel light & clean now. home. sweatpants. juice. and pizza.

this afternoon, three miles of running, quickly. my arms, down to my fingers, bathed in a sheen of sweat. felt a breeze & my attention turned to the gap in the wall – literal – sunlight glinting off the tin roofing of a building across the street. this place — this gym, half famous amateur junction — is a wreck. my face dripped. a trainer, not my trainer, came to check how far i’d run and see if he could get away with pushing the incline button before i swatted his hand away.

then–wrapping hands in long yellow gauze to protect fragile bones. crunches, dancing alone in the ring. saturdays are empty lately. later the bag, who becomes a person, dancing narrowly between the men who make their bags swing from one end of the gym to the other, and every time i duck my head, tiny beads of sweat stain the floor. throw the hip into a right cross. jab. jab. jab quicker, a trainer urges me. your technique is good. now throw the jab faster. my coach says, interrupt the rhythm. pow. pow. pa pa pa. prrappapa. ok.

the getting-ready – boots, gloves, hand wraps rolled (black or yellow), hairtie, socks, the tight spandex to hold my ass together while i’m running, loose pants to wear over, wifebeater, sports bra – relieves me. each morning, rushing, counting things out loud & sailing them haphazardly towards the little duffel bag. packing, carrying, and changing – strong as i imagine a man might feel strong. i check my still-baby muscles, i talk to my thighs. my body is finally learning a right to take up space without subjugating or containing my sexuality/sexiness.

women seem to like this idea, the idea of a woman becoming strong & boxing, in particular, straight women. i’m not sure what to make of this, beyond liking kind eyes on me, admiration unveiled. in a small hotel room, after a fundraising event last week, tipsy on wine and with three women who are becoming familiar to me, but who are still strangers – two supervisors and a coworker – we’d complained about a hedge fund manager who’d tried to bid on one of our coworkers during the auction & a lewd gesture he’d made – in play, i held up my fists, danced for a second, and threw a one-two – and the room stopped, the conversation didn’t move – one woman said, you really look like a boxer – another said, how does that feel? and the third said nothing, just absorbing me. the three were watching hard, clear. a clarity that women rarely see each other with, unless there’s desire. this wasn’t desiring, not of me, at least, but of the small dragon that held my form.

felt sad at that hunger, or relieved it exists (not alone!).

i haven’t exactly earned this – three weeks till i get in the ring & spar, and even then, it’ll be with my coach – but i get it’s not about me.

yesterday we learned a new drill – one girl holds her gloved fist up, and the other tries to tap it with a left jab before the girl moves her fist away. it’s a glorified version of the last round of miss mary mack, except these punches are a bit fiercer. can’t call hesitation! when it was my turn to tap, i did pretty well – my jab has a nice snap to it – but when it was time to hold my glove up to duck the incoming jab, i couldn’t get it away quick enough, not from the featherweight girl nearly a foot shorter or the girl a bit closer to my weight, fierce as she was, even when i could hear her pfffp exhale just as she threw her fist, well before she landed it.

on the train to the gym this morning i realized that it was fear that kept me rooted & accepting of my teammate’s blows. not about being quick. i’ve just been trained to sustain blows. when i was little – the one time i evaded my father’s heavy hand, perhaps at 7 or 8 years old, i felt, for the first time in my life, not fear, but contempt for him as i spun to the other side of the kitchen – and he, shame? either way, when he caught me by the arm a second later, it became the worst beating of my life. for future (inevitable, i was a back-talker) punishments i never resisted, partly to not bring worse punishment, but partly, it must’ve been, so that i would never have to feel contempt for my father. fear was preferable to loathing. fear made it my fault; loathing, his fault. and so i’ve trained myself to not duck blows. i wonder how else this operates, not so literal, in my aversions & desires. i wonder how this new knowing will serve me when i start sparring. i’ll learn quick or i’ll quit.

what’s beautiful: earthly motion, repetitive motion. figuring out that intellect, alone, and empathy, alone, paralyze. this process is unlearning & relearning & primary learning, all in one. hooray boxing.
my team: http://www.teamfreeform.com