You know how sometimes — just once in a great while — everything you’ve worked so hard for suddenly comes together in a beautiful, quiet epiphany?

I had one of the best boxing nights ever last night.

The boxing team had finished warm-ups and we were slugging our way through six rounds of independent shadowboxing. Round after round of shadowboxing is kind of like practicing scales on the piano for an hour; there are times when you (and everyone who has to listen to you) think it will never, never, never end. The sameness becomes oppressive and you feel like you aren’t learning anything, only going through the motions of the old stuff until you’re half batty.

But it pays off, all that practice.

Last night I was in round four, or five, or seventy million of shadowboxing when I suddenly realized that I was dancing.

I know, weird.

But I promise you, I don’t have a graceful bone in my body. I have trouble not snickering when my coach tells me (with a patient sigh) to be “light on my feet,” balanced; perfectly poised between my lead and back foot, able to slip easily in any direction in that peculiar fashion native to the ring and essential to boxing.

I lurch. I stumble, trudge, and and haul my body through space in the most ungainly fashion.

But I didn’t last night. My brain was far, far away when suddenly the Ghost of Fabulousness whispered in my ear. Lightly, so as not to scare the shit out of me. You’re dancing.

I considered this. There I was, balanced lightly between my lead and rear foot. On my toes. Sliding effortlessly, never overbalanced. That easy bobbing, swaying, dip and weave unfolding gracefully in every direction.

For the first time in memory, I loathed the bell that would end it.

It wasn’t a sparring night, so I didn’t get to test my work in the real boxing arena. But when the trainer put us on the heavy bags I was filled with power. I punched through. I moved with grace. I was unstoppable.

Unstoppable.

Thank God for these moments. They are the stuff of hope.

Image by zarajay

Related posts:

1. Lessons in the Ring: Footwork
2. Victorian Doll (with Kitten Friends) Boxing Workout
3. One Moment of Glory

The first week of December I re-injured my shoulder, and spent two solid months in physical therapy and out of boxing. I became the cardio mistress (wore my thigh-high leather boots, carried the whip) but the intense PT schedule meant I had to give up some of my regular workouts. I got sloppy with my diet and ate depressively and now I’m five to seven pounds past the weight I like most to be.

I have a plan: move less, eat more.

Wait! No, I remember, it’s move more, eat less. (The funniest part of that Mad TV vid: “Bullcrap, you don’t know me!”)

And to that end, I’m picking up my workout schedule and writing out my meal plans again. As you may already know, I typically follow The Zone (by Dr. Barry Sears), which controls weight by controlling insulin. It’s not a low-carb or a high-protein diet, but rather a protein-carb-fats balanced diet. I used to use the one-third / two-third rule: eating one part protein (lean meats) and two parts low-density carbs (fruits and veggies) with a sprinkling of good fats (mostly monosaturated, like you find in olives and almonds).

But I got sloppy about it.

Now I’ve decided to work with the “blocks” that Sears outlines in his books. In the back of each of the books I own there’s an index of sorts that lists lots of healthy foods and tells you how much of that food equals a block. Most women want to plan meals with 3 blocks of protein, 3 blocks of (low density, which equals fruits and veggies) carbs, and 3 blocks of good fats. Guys can do 4, 4, and 4.

I invested in a scale so that I can actually figure out how much 3 ounces of something is, and I’m measuring everything until I get a sense of the amounts again.

So, here’s my meal plan for my first day back in the Zone:

Breakfast

• 2/3 cup (cooked) steel-cut oats = 2 blocks carbs
• 1 cup raspberries = 1 block carbs
• 2 soy sausage links = 1 block protein (can’t bring myself to get 3 blocks)
• 3 tsp slivered almonds = 3 blocks fats

Snack

• 1 graham cracker = 1 carb
• 1/2 tsp peanut butter = 1 fat
• 1 mozzarella cheese stick = 1 protein

Lunch

• 3 oz chicken breast = 3 protein
• 3 cups broccoli = 1 carb
• 2 cups fresh sliced strawberries = 2 carbs
• 3 tsp almond slivers = 3 fats

Before boxing snack (one set of blocks from my dinner)

• half a Zone bar (gawd, I love these, esp the peanut butter ones) = 1 carb, 1 protein, 1 fat

After boxing dinner

• 1/2 Zone bar (in car, on way home) = 1 carb, 1 protein, 1 fat
• 1/4 cup black beans = 1 protein
• 1/2 cup hot salsa = 1 carb
• 1/3 tsp (a drizzle) olive oil = 1 fat

This outlines a pretty stringent Zone day, and as you saw, I didn’t quite get the breakfast balanced. But for me the really tough part about this plan is the period between lunch and boxing. The best way I know to do it is to eat lunch about 1 or 2 pm, so that I’m not perishing for food by 6, when I’ll tuck into my Zone bar.

But I’m resolved to get on the plan once again. I’ll keep you posted.

Related posts:

1. Five Forbidden Foods
2. In the Zone!
3. See You Later, Turkey.

My cool friend @renewabelle has had some interesting jobs. She did a (paid!) stint as a chainsaw-wielding maniac, has some bartending and comedy in her history, and she did a little bit of basement radio station DJ-ing at one point as well. I put together this playlist from one of her audio tracks from those days.

The list has a “Love and Lack” kind of theme, and many of these bands are big-hair metal rockers from back in the day. I probably have a few of them wrong; I was scribbling notes as I listened and worked. It’s a solid list, although it devolves a bit toward the end, partly because she was taking requests from listeners.

If you’re looking for some 80’s era power romance ballads, you’ll find some gems on this playlist. The one I’m playing over and over again right now is Fly to the Angels by Slaughter. Here’s the track of them working out the pain:

I’ve embedded a few more in the playlist below. Rock on, dudes.

Higher / Firehouse
Miles Away / Winger
Waiting for a Girl Like You / Foreigner
Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away / Warrant
Fly to the Angels / Slaughter
Still Loving You / Scorpions
Heaven & Hell / Black Sabbath

Only Time Will Tell / Poison
Every Rose Has It’s Thorn / Bon Jovi
Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone / Cinderella
Bringing On the Heartbreak / Def Leppard
Is This Love / Whitesnake
House of Pain / Faster Pussycat
Without You / Hinder
When I See You Smile / Bad English

I Won’t Forget You / Poison
Missing You / John Waite
Open Arms / Journey
Don’t Close Your Eyes / Kix

Love / Def Leppard
Love of a Lifetime / Firehouse
More Than Words / Extreme
Sometimes She Cries / Warrant
It’s an All Night Thing / Temple of the Dog

Image by sorizon on Flickr

Related posts:

1. New Playlist for Boxing Training
2. Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
3. Arse-Kicking Playlist

The only thing better than getting mail art is getting Fibonnacci mail art.

Well, I’ll allow that quantum mail art of some variety would be wicked cool too: imagine the possiblities for up, down, charm, and strange quark postcards. Or a Heisenberg card: you’d never know for certain both when it had been sent and when it arrived. But you could know one of those things.

Sorry, I’ll stop with the geek jokes now. I was talking about my birthday.

Because I had one last fall, and a month or so later my dear artist/author/sometime-zombie friend sent me this postcard with a Fibonacci series on it. She cuts this stuff out of extra copies of one of the books she’s published and then glues, sews, draws, and sends off dozens of these art-o-licious cards to people around the world, who also send her mail art back. She puts it all on her mail art blog and if you love getting mail art you should leave a comment over there and ask because she sends it to anyone, free! Amazing, in this day and age.

But my birthday. Mary Jo knows I love to extend the party as long as possible, so she helps me with that by reminding me to keep on celebrating. My birthday cards can NEVER be late. It just isn’t possible. I’d go the whole year if I could do it and not be disowned by my family.

And linking my birthday with art, extension of partytime, and Fibonnacci? Well, that’s quite a dramatic statement. A Fibonacci sequence falls into the following pattern:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…

Each number is the sum of the previous two. Sounds simple, right? It is simple, but it is also astonishing. This beautiful spiraling series is all over the place: in sunflower heads, pine cones, avacados, pineapples, honeybees, nautilus shells, and ferns. Many flowering, curling, swooping things are designed and unfold in a Fibonacci series.

I might just spiral through my celebrations in an endless swoon of mathematical artistry.

You never thought about it quite that way, did you?

By the way, I just got her Christmas (New Year’s, Martin Luther King Jr., Valentine’s Day) card in the mail. I have the coolest friends imaginable.

Related posts:

1. How eBay solves sibling rivalry, eliminates need for parenting!
2. My Birthday Month Wish List
3. Toast to the Weekend

I found this photo on my camera recently, and I know what the boys thought when they took it. They thought, “Awww, isn’t that sweet, Henry is sharing his perch with Olive, and he’s patting her on the shoulder! He’s giving her a widdle hug! Awww.” You know how boys are.

And they are totally wrong.

Henry is saying, “Kid, it’s bad enough that you came here and robbed me of all peace and quiet. You eat all the white bread (see picture), get in my personal space, and generally piss me off. Now be still or I’m gonna smack you.” And he has his claws poised to sink into her neck.

But the thing is, Henry is a pushover. Well, at 17 pounds “pushover” may not be exactly the right term. Shove over? Anyway, he’ll never sink his claws into her scrawny little neck or rip out a satisfyingly healthy hank of her fur, or bite her perky little ear off, or even raise his voice to her. He’s the grouchiest old bastard but he’s essentially soft inside. Henry is like an igloo filled with Eskimos. Crusty on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. (I think I saw that in a Far Side cartoon once.)

Olive can be annoying. You cannot neglect to shut the pantry door, ever: she can drag herself up four shelves high where she stalks, kills, and devours white bread in all it’s forms and leaves the guts everywhere. She is forever pouncing on Henry just as he settles into a nap, and she demands to be picked up in order to watch what’s happening on the stove when you’re cooking. Sweeping is a favorite activity; she pounces on your pile of filth and scatters it in every direction. She waits until two am to locate and bat along the hardwoods the ping pong ball you forgot to put away, and she is particularly fond of launching herself without warning to attack sock feet. Sometimes we humans don’t know whether we want to hug her or smack her, either.

But we adore her the same way we adore crusty old Henry. Because sometimes love just feels that way.

Related posts:

1. Olive & Henry
2. Introducing Olive
3. Olive and the Baby Jesus

We were training hard and had each had several rounds of sparring already. I had just finished a round in the ring and was tired, slow, and at the end of my strength when the coach called someone else’s name and I rolled under the ropes and out of the ring with a sigh of relief.

“Wait,” the trainer called in my direction, as he ducked into the ring. I turned and peered up at him. “Where you going?” he asked, grinning broadly.

“Toward the shower quickly?” I asked hopefully, sweat dripping off my headgear onto the canvas.

“I didn’t send you out,” he continued, “Get in here.” The two guys in the ring with him looked at each other and stared at me.

One of them began to smile; he was the freshest of all of us. “Three-way death match!” he hollered, and I laughed.

“The three of us against you, Coach?” I inquired politely, like a lady at tea. One lump or three?

“You better hope not,” he said, shaking his head, “You people would get hurt. Just get in here and stick close.” He held down the ropes and I rolled back in, riding on fumes and now, a spurt of interest.

Our trainer Nas promptly turned toward the other two guys and set them to work sparring each other. But this time he was in the ring, right in their space, calling combinations, barking commands, and critiquing form as they went. We both worked to stay out of the way, but I found my excitement rising. You don’t often stand right in the ring with a trainer and two men boxing; it’s rather like watching a basketball game from the center of the paint during a furious scramble for the shot.

He pushed them on while I watched and paced them, trying to match footwork and throwing a few shadow combinations as Nas called them. The bell rang to mark the end of the round but no one received permission to stop. The boys circled, blocked, and threw punches on command. Nas kept a constant stream of instruction running, adding a periodic shove to tilt someone back into form, or a nudge to remind someone to keep their elbow in tight to the ribcage.

Mid-round he pulled one of the guys back and pressed me forward and I was suddenly at the center of our tight, quickly moving knot. “One, one, left hook,” he called, “Two, three, two.” And I threw them, doing my best to fire my shots as soon as the words left his mouth.

My opponent was tired, but still moving lightly on his feet. I quit registering the sound of the ring bells; I only heard our trainer’s voice as he put us through our paces. Everything became a blur of shots thrown and feet shuffling across the canvas. I circled out to let someone else work, then circled back in. Exhaustion became the baseline; we boxed anyway.

I began to sense Nas’s irritation with my performance; only about half my punches were landing. Then less than half. My young partner of the moment was doing incredibly well at blocking everything I threw.

“Snap ‘em off,” Nas called to me. “You’re gonna have to throw them faster.”

No, I thought irritably, You’re gonna have to send your requests in by telegraph, Joker; my partner here can translate your offensive calls into his defensive movements. Dammit, I added mentally, grinding my teeth against my mouthguard and throwing the hook to the head, hook to the body, both blocked.

For some boxers it takes years to be able to translate an opponent’s offense into your own defense faster than the speed of a punch. With deep fatigue and — I hate to admit it — age, it grows even more difficult. My two death-match partners were 21 and 26 years old. Once in a while I envy them their youth, speed, and power.

But most times I don’t care. I don’t care than my punches that night were blocked, slipped, evaded. I don’t care that the next day I had a bruise or three over my ribs because I failed to keep my elbows in tight. When you’re past the end of your strength and you’re still in the ring swinging, punching, and sweating, there’s a deep satisfaction that can’t be found any other way.

Oh, and regarding the next three-way death match at the end of a long boxing training session? Count me in.

Image by Stefan on Flickr

Related posts:

1. First (Unofficial) Match!
2. 3 New Lessons in the Boxing Ring
3. Back in the Ring

There’s already been plenty of smack talk about ass kicking, cage matches, zombies (and Thriller dances), metal bikinis, and reverse voting, and that’s sprinkled in with conversations about saving the world, saving money, making PowerPoint suck less, and how to avoid SEO snake oil salesmen. Oh, and sex and Jesus, of course.

The Ignite Raleigh deal is that you submit a 5-minute speech topic, the universe — nay, the galaxy — votes, and the top ten vote-getters speak. Voters get 10 votes, and can give as many as three votes for any one topic. For the speakers, there isn’t a gong (don’t get any ideas, O Runners Of This Event) but if you go over the 5-minute time limit, there’s a Big Horrible Penalty. Dunno what it will be this year, last year it was threat of Rickroll. /shudders/

The only reason I have a topic in this year’s candidates — which is, of course, “13 Reasons Women Should Take Up Boxing” — is that I was working to convince my friend Charlotte that she should speak. She had dropped by to pitch her supercool new idea to me. “You need to pitch this at Ignite Raleigh,” I told her. “It’s totally easy; you just talk about something you’re passionate about. It would be the perfect place to launch your idea into the universe.” She was reluctant. So, in true Tootsie fashion, I took 2 minutes to submit a topic on the site and was shocked and thrilled to see it rise to the top. “See? See?” I crowed, “You should do it!”

And a week later, she did. And lo, her topic skyrocketed to the top of the list. How awesome is that? (She tweeted that update over there before the skyrocketing part. Now she loves me forever, and even somehow got some of her friends and her mom — her mom! — to give me a vote. What a rockstar! There’s a rumor, btw, that she will be presenting in a corset; I can’t substantiate that, however, and this should in no way be construed as a plug for women’s undergarments, Madonna notwithstanding.)

Some of the topics that are quietly lurking at the bottom of the vote list are pretty interesting, too. There’s one about the winter Olympic sport of curling and even one comparing Poken and Bump (a recent social sharing craze). If that latter speech gets in, when you hear shouts of “Group Poke!!” you’ll grok. That’s not an argument for or against, I’m just sayin’. Btw, if you come to IR, be sure to ask to see Greg Ng’s [Ch]Elvis Poken. Worth the price of admission right there.

There are plenty of Ignite videos from around the world for you to check out, in case you’re new to this game. But be warned: over 140 people registered to come to this event in the first two hours alone; one wonders if the fabulous little Lincoln Theater — which is pretty packed with 500 — will pop by the time all is said and done. Uh, maybe you better get your (free!) ticket now, rather than wait. And if there’s just no room left at the Lincoln, you might could sneak in by volunteering to help coordinate the whole shebang.

And if your speech doesn’t make it to the top of the list (or even if it does) at Ignite Raleigh, you’re invited to submit your topic to Fizzled Durham, the anti-Ignite, aka Dan London’s franken-brainchild. How brilliant is that? Fizzled Durham may turn out to be the more powerful of the two events, as the best ideas often come from the fringe.

There are so many interesting and creative people in the Triangle area; I’m proud to be connected with you all. Group fist bump!

Now go vote for me.

Related posts:

1. Arse-Kicking Playlist
2. Afghan Women to Train for Olympic Boxing
3. I Don’t Give A Damn ‘Bout My Bad Reputation: Joan Jett Rocks Raleigh

On March 26th Chevelle “Fists of Steel” Hallback (27-5-2), one of the world’s most powerful and athletic boxers, will meet Holly Holm (26-1-3) on Holm’s own turf in Albequerque, NM on the “Warrior Vengeance” card. Holm will be defending her WIBA Light Welterweight title in this rematch, promoted by Fresquez Productions.

“My first fight with Holly was one of my worst performances for date,” Chevelle admitted. “This time,” she noted, “ I have enough time to prepare for the altitude. I believe when I am in superb shape there is not one female fighter out there in my weight class or above my weight class that can beat me.”

Of Holly Holm’s three rematches, she has won two and battled a third to a draw, but these stats don’t intimidate Hallback. “I enjoy the role of the underdog. It makes me work harder and the victory that much sweeter.”

Holm is an incredibly disciplined, thinking, and tactical fighter where Hallback is about angles and pure punch power (which you can really see coming out in the training video above); Hallback has an astonishing knockout rate of more than 30%.

I’m also embedding a video of Hallback in an MMA cage fight with Melissa Vasquez — the fight lasts less than one minute and ends by TKO in a stunning display of hit power. THIS is the kind of intensity I’m expecting to see in Holm vs Hallback, and I believe it will go on for round after round.

I’m hopeful that Fresquez will once again offer this fight on PPV webcast; if so, it’s a fight you will not want to miss.

Related posts:

1. Watch Holm vs Hernandez Live on Dec 4th!
2. Melissa Hernandez vs. Holly Holm: Women Boxers Talk Smack!
3. Melissa Hernandez: Her Best to the Last Bell

The first week in December I got a little overzealous about increasing my number of unassisted chin-ups and wrecked my shoulder. It’s an old injury and I’ve been through the re-healing process before, but this time one of the pro boxers in my gym suggested I come see her to help get it taken care of. I looked at her, baffled.

“I’m a physical therapist, you know,” she laughed.

Sometimes I forget that the boxers at the gym have jobs, families, lives. But the thought of a trained medical person who wouldn’t berate me for boxing and who might actually speed the healing process had tremendous appeal, and I found myself booking the appointment.

So for two months I stayed out of the ring and off the heavy bag and worked through an intense physical therapy program to heal my shoulder up as much as I could. I missed boxing horribly, and consoled myself with running the shame line at the “normal” gym and becoming fiercely competitve in everything cardio. Slightly depressed, I ate garbage and became nostalgic about push-ups, but by God, I ran. And threw sprints on the jump rope, and cranked up the elliptical machine.

By the time I could move my shoulder again without spikes of pain I felt like I had forgotten the ways of moving in the ring. I started standing in front of the mirror and sending out slow-motion jabs: is this how it works? Is this still right? Jabs seem like such a simple punch, but they are stunningly complex and there is a galaxy of difference between a good jab and a crap one. A good jab can save your ass in the ring, warding off your opponent’s punches or breaking up her combinations. They can measure distance, letting you know whether you’re in range or not. They deliver most of your messages, front your bombs, secure territory, and with power they can beat a tattoo of pain into someone’s face. You can’t think about your jab in the ring, it just has to be there, ready to fire. Boxing without a good jab is like swimming without arms and legs.

You gotta have a good jab, and I feared my body was forgetting mine.

My feet were forgetting, too. I stood balanced in my stance in the middle of the bedroom floor, and tried to recall how it felt to train on the tractor tire that sat on the loading dock behind the gym: rocking my weight quickly, lightly, back and forth between my feet to allow me to move with balance and speed.

I stood in the bedroom and looked down at my forgetful feet and sighed.

When I finally began to shadowbox again I knew my form — which is still a novice’s, even after nearly two years — had grown blurry, but there’s really no simple cure. There’s only the long, repetitive road of work ahead.

Last week I finally got back in the ring again. It was after team training — my first in more than two months. I had substituted legwork for all the training that directly hits the shoulders (mountain climbers, push-ups, burpees, etc.) and with that and the fact that I’d maintained my cardio, I realized I still had some energy left. Our trainer closed down the session and I looked around at my drenched and winded teammates. My shoulder felt okay: no spikes of pain. It wasn’t strong, but it didn’t feel injured any more.

“Anybody want to give me a couple of light, easy rounds in the ring?” I asked. “I’d really like to test out my shoulder. Nothing serious, though,” I added, knowing everyone else had worked much harder in training than I had.

A couple of them groaned and declined, heading for the showers. But one of the newer guys offered to stay. Because he’s new and doesn’t have much experience in the ring, I got permission from our trainer to spar, and we both geared up.

The gym had cleared out and it was late; the headlights on the cars headed out of the parking lot flashed through the windows. Someone had turned down the volume on the ever-present thump of hip-hop, making the bell that starts the rounds sound incredibly loud. I moved out to the center of the ring, shivering with anticipation and nerves. I was more flat-footed than light and balanced, but I was in the ring.

We had a satisfying five rounds. No one cornered, no one watched. He was too inexperienced to know how sloppy my form was, and my jab wasn’t so out of practice that he didn’t feel it. Like most newbies, he apologized once he began to land some power punches. They felt great. I was remembering. He kept his gloves in front of his face against my jab so I repeatedly hooked to his head: around the guard, straight to the ear. Connection. My shoulder held up. I began to feel exultant.

The next day I had a slight headache and my neck and shoulders were sore from the tension I’d carried in the ring. It sounds counter-intuitive, but you absolutely must relax when you box, just like you relax on the landing of a long fall, in order to transfer the shock through more of your body and allow the impact to flow on through without breaking anything. My body was reminding me of the patterns and necessities of boxing.

I pressed my fingers to the slightly bruised and tender bridge of my nose; I ate a healthy serving of punches from the newbie. Dude was quite promising, much better than I was when I began boxing. He had some power, too, as my nose was telling me. There was a tender spot on the underside of my jaw as well. I laughed; he’d fired quite a few uppercuts and at least one of them connected. Uppercuts! From a newbie.

I smiled, remembering.

Image by isabel bloedwater

Related posts:

1. Victorian Doll (with Kitten Friends) Boxing Workout
2. Blood and Uppercuts
3. Three-Way Death Match in the Ring

I knew you would enjoy this, violent people that you are.

If only the purple one showed up better: it looks like if you enter without caution you could get a bloody lip. Like, a serious bloody lip, with enough blood to satisfy a whole pack of vampires. Of course, they say head wounds bleed a lot.

I also like “Dager,” which the husband says means dagger, but I think indicates danger. As in, Danger, you might slip on all the blood.

I’m also thinking of sneaking away with the “Leave now or els” which is so much like Leave now or eels that I giggle every time I see it.

Which really takes away from the aura of Dager.

Related posts:

1. The Maker’s “To Do” List
2. Waking the Maker
3. The Maker’s Favorite Gift