FIGHTERS: THE BEAUTY OF BOXING

Some of the clichés are true; boxing is

like dancing. Except that you are dancing tango and your partner is moshing.

NORAH BOWMAN

I don’t want to hit anyone in the head. I have no aggressive physical instinct. When threatened, I run.

These thoughts are what kept me out of the ring my first year of boxing. I worked the bags, the skipping ropes, the medicine ball, the stairs. Then last Sunday, Harry, the toughest trainer at Pan Am (and rumoured to be the fittest man in Winnipeg), turned to me and said, “You! In the ring at the next bell.” I could have said no. I could have gone back to the heavy bag and, like I do three times a week now, practiced left jab, right hook, left jab, right hook, until my shoulder rippled with strain and sweat roped my shirt.

That Sunday, I did what Harry said and I got hit. I didn’t hit my opponent; he was fast and professional and played me like I was a dying autumn dragonfly. I fluttered in the hot wet air. Even when he stood still I couldn’t hit him. He leaned, he blocked, he swayed, and he hit me hard enough to remind me to move faster but light enough to keep me in the ring.

So, along with getting hit, I got a taste of the beauty and pleasure of boxing. Some of the clichés are true; boxing is like dancing. Except that you are dancing tango and your partner is moshing. Boxing is a way to channel aggression. Except that the only time I boxed with anger I hurt myself within minutes.

I don’t know why I like it so much; philosophically I fail myself. I am a vegan and a feminist. I am one of those people who carry spiders outside on scraps of paper and would probably drive a car into a ditch rather than run over a raccoon.

It’s the lightness of it I love. The way that, if you are good, you can toss a medicine ball like a dandelion head, run up flights of stairs with your hands held up like new wings, or touch your sparring partner’s shoulder just enough to sense the millimetre of difference between pain and friendship. I hop, on toes, from corner to ropes to corner. Who can tell the boxer from the ring?

The trainer says things like, “When I say switch, you switch fast. Now switch! Faster! Switch!” And then he’ll look right at us and say, “Power, power!” When we are done, and we hang our gloves on the pegs, if we’ve been working hard, he smiles and says, “I’ll make fighters out of you all yet.”

I have never seen a real fight. In four days I am watching my first one. There could be blood; the trainers who I have come to trust and respect will be trying to hit someone in the face, hard.

This week the talk around Pan Am is about the fight. “He’s ready. He trains hard, he spars through five partners a day.” “She’s going to get creamed. She closed her eyes when I hit her yesterday — she can’t fight without a head guard.” “My mind is ready to fight, I’ve been training for months, but I can’t seem to get it together.” There are a lot of slow nods, a lot of bouncing amateurs watching the gym’s best fighters spar. Even I am training harder this week, as if my intent can buoy our fighters through that last, burning round. Wait, did I say our fighters?

The fight

The punching bags are unchained and hidden away, the trainers are wearing glasses, long pants and ties, and our fighters are ready. I see Nick, the baby-faced blond kid in the welterweight division, working on the speed bag. Aaron, the biggest fighter from the gym, is stretching and pacing.

I check out the crowd, which grows to over 200, most crammed into foldout chairs, some standing in tight, worried, groups. The boxers who aren’t fighting tonight are talking. I hear, “She’s our franchise, her right hook . . . his weight is down by four pounds . . . Nick, he’s ready . . . only his second fight.”

The first few fights are young kids, and I don’t like watching them much at first. A skinny boy who can’t be over 15 years old finishes his fight with blood gushing from his nose, leaking into his mouth, onto the white of his gloves. Then I see his family stand up and cheer. They cheer loud. Through sweat and blood the boy sees them. Everyone, it seems, cheers on the good-spirited loser.

Like Hans, 12 years old, at least five inches under five feet, and all guts. His gloves are bigger than his shoulders, and his opponent is a tall, mean-looking kid from Minneapolis. Hans fights hard and fast, he tears around the ring and keeps his bright eyes on his opponent. By the end of the second round, when it is clear Hans is losing, the entire crowd is shouting “HANS! HANS! HANS!” During the intermission, I see him walking through the crowds, a messy-haired, happy-looking kid, relaxed and proud. Best loser I’ve ever seen.

And I guess that is the best thing I got out of the fights. It really is about attitude: however fast, strong, tough and mean you are, if you don’t give your opponent a hug at the end of the match you are no star. If your coach can’t congratulate the boxer who hit you 48 times to win the match, then your coach isn’t helping you at all.

I also learned that I like boxing. I like seeing the skinny underdog, or the slow big guy, or the short new girl bounce up into the second round and pull out a magic set of jabs and hooks.

And maybe I want to be the skinny underdog with a magic punch. Who wouldn’t?