The Glowing Edge

3 Completely Counterintuitive Boxing Secrets

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:27:14 +0000

Boxing doesn’t always work like you might think.

Last night I was training at Second Round, my home gym. The afterschool crew was working through their paces with Sinclair, so I did my jump rope rounds, stretching, and shadowboxing alone. Mostly I thought hard about very specific moves I was working on, particularly my (nearly non-existant) left hook.

Over and over again I stopped, moved through the motions, and tried again at speed. Shadow rounds, then heavy bag rounds. It wasn’t coming together. I slipped left, hooked, feh. No power. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was.

Then it all changed in a way I never expected.

And I realized there are secrets to advancement in boxing that generally no one ever tells you about. Here’s what I learned…

1. Don’t Expect Training

Don’t expect your training to progress just because you managed to get your ass to the gym. In this game, you have to earn it.

I spent an hour last night in the gym, failing to secure a left hook. I must have stopped 30 times in the course of six 3-minute rounds of shadowboxing, plus multiple rounds on the heavy bag, trying to slowmo my way into that hook. Nothing.

But my trainer, Coach Willie “One Bad Jab” Massey, standing quietly by the ring at the outer edge of the gym, saw what I was doing.

He saw the sweat running in rivers down my neck and shoulders and dripping off my nose. He saw me stop repeatedly to work the one specific combo. He knew I couldn’t find the left hook.

Four rounds into my heavy bag work he came over.

“I see you working really hard to land that hook. Let me show you why you’re not getting it,” he said, in his low-key way.

Gratefully I stepped back from the bag and watched him slowly show me the move, first in his natural southpaw stance, then in the orthodox position. There are many subtleties.

I was keeping my guard glove too high during the slip (couldn’t see my opponent), and not getting my shoulder behind the shot. Not keeping a solid 90 degree angle.

In a regular boxing gym, you go and train on your own most of the time. Nobody is going to hold your hand and tell you every little thing to do. If you decide to slack through, you will be allowed. If you prefer to spend your time jacking around rather than sweating, you can. You’ll get little or no attention, and your form will suck. Practice doesn’t make perfect form. Good coaching plus practice is what solidifies your technique.

A good coach will gravitate to the boxers working hard.

Nobody will give you your training in boxing. You earn it.

2. Miss the Bag

This is what finally clinched the hook in my workout. I watched Coach Massey, then slipped and fired a few. Still no go. I pulled my guard hand down, put my shoulder behind the hook, but it didn’t feel consistent.

Massey stopped me, and held up his hand opposite me, near the heavy bag.

“Stop working the slip as the lead-in,” he told me. “Go ahead and fire your two past the bag to my hand, then throw the left hook.”

“Past the bag?”

“Yeah. That’s gonna put you in just the right position for the hook. You’ll see.”

And I did. The leading right popped smartly into his palm, and I was in perfect hook-loaded position, so I was able to turn that nicely into the bag. Pop-bam, two-hook, sweet as you please.

Working on a heavy bag is nothing like working with a sparring partner, but it’s great for practicing technique. And it’s very counterintuitive, but you can use the spaces around the bag to work as well as the spaces on the bag.

After Massey left, I continued to work that hook by shooting my two past the bag, then throwing the left. And it worked very nicely.

And that brings me to my third boxing secret, which isn’t as counterintuitive as the first two, but follows nicely from those points.

3. Finish the Equation

Like I said before, working the heavy bag is nothing like working in the ring. The bag does’t slip and dodge, duck and pivot, or otherwise respond smartly to your offense. It’s always in range, and it always takes your shots — so you don’t have to maintain your balance, keep your feet moving, or avoid an opponent.

In order to really advance in your boxing training, you need to take what you learn on the mats and at the heavy bag and translate it into working in the ring with a sparring partner.

Even if you just box for fitness, finding a trustworthy partner who will let you work lightly through some rounds in the ring will completely revolutionize your training sessions. You’ll be forced to move more, work harder, and you’ll get an incredible calorie-eating workout.

So finish your boxing equation and get in the ring to try your freshly-minted (or solid bread-and-butter) skills, because everything is different in the ring.

Got counterintuitive training tips and secrets of your own? Share ‘em in the comments, and gimme goods to post about next!

Stay strong!

The Geography of Boxing Guts

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:57:16 +0000

There is a visually simple way to understand where you are — and change your position — on the fear scale in boxing.

Sparring can be scary, of that there’s no doubt. And there’s always dread to overcome when making the decision to roll under those ropes. But there’s actually a very physical way to shift yourself forward and make it into the ring.

The first thing you need to understand is the difference between a regular sparring night and a hard sparring night, because if you are going to see the absolute truth about where you stand and make real progress in shifting yourself forward in boxing, you need a hard sparring night.

On a hard sparring night, things get very clear, very quickly.

A single look at the gym will tell you everything, and you can make your decision about whether you decide to fold and watch or play and win.

And you absolutely will win if you play.

Because just being willing to get in the ring during a session like that will move you forward, no matter how you actually perform during your sparring.

But there’s more to it than that. Let me see if I can explain…

The typical sparring order and match-ups

In most of the gyms where I’ve trained the littlest boxers typically go first in sparring. Maybe it’s because they’re small or young, and their parents will be waiting to get them home, fed, and off to sleep.

After the younger ones have their ring time, the rest of the team begins to work, not necessarily by rank, but simply based on what the coach wants to achieve with each boxer. I might get paired with someone who is a fast puncher because the coach wants me to practice my defense, for example. Or a heavyweight will get put in with a visiting heavyweight because the home boxer rarely gets a chance to really unleash as well as experience the power and pain that another person of the same weight brings to the ring.

If a boxer is behaving poorly, refusing to take instruction, and allowing their emotions and issues to cause them to brawl rather than box, the coach might put them in with someone who is technically better and who can pound a physical lesson into them. Incidentally, that lesson is called “get yourself under control, boy” and it’s still hard for me to understand, but my husband says it’s a guy thing. It looks like a street fight, and it’s often bloody, but it seems to be a part of the way boxing works.

And as I mentioned earlier, there are also different kinds of sparring nights. Some are more easygoing and filled with stops and starts, and some are all-out war.

War nights are good to have on occasion, because a real boxing fight is not about patty cake. It isn’t you and your buddies, messing around. It’s serious hard work, and it can be brutal.

Every gym has war nights. My gym had one recently, too.

What happens on a war night

There were maybe 15 to 18 boxers training in the gym when the coach sent everyone to gear up and went and took his place ringside on a painted wooden stool.

The young kids did not go first.

Instead, Coach put in two of the top boxers in the gym, instructed everyone to ignore the bell, and calmly uttered the one word that causes every fighter’s engine to roar to life, “Box.”

Those are the first two clues to a hard sparring night. Different order of business, no bell boundaries. Your gym might keep to the bell, but no bell means you’re about to work quickly all the way to failure (and then you’ll work some more).

The top boxer stayed in the ring as multiple fighters rotated in and out. I’ve been in that “stay in” position in other gyms (with less skilled people than Second Round) and it’s something everyone should experience once in while.

When the coach puts you in and makes you box to the end of your ability with a string of fresh fighters, you not only feel great to be in that position, you learn a lot about your strengths and your limits. You find out what areas of training you’ve been neglecting. You discover how long you can last. You learn how to defend once you’re played out.

The top boxers at my gym went in, one after another. The shots were not training level. No one pulled punches. No one messed around. Everyone threw full power, all out.

About 5 minutes in, someone went over to the boom box and turned the volume way down until all we could hear was the relentless slam of leather against flesh, the bright pop of a glove against headgear, and the dull thud of a perfectly executed body shot.

The church of boxing had been called to order, and the supplicants focused all their attention on the ferocious litany in the ring.

This is the time when you can see, visually, exactly where you are on the fear scale.

Where boxers stand

On a hard sparring night like this, the unspoken code is: watch or leave.

Every heavy bag hung undisturbed. The constant chatter of speed bag was silenced. There was no intermittent clang of weights being racked. No one skipped rope, or shadowboxed, or chatted aimiably on the ragged, garage-sale couches at the back of the gym.

And if you find yourself in a holy moment like this, look around to see where everyone stands. Physically.

Most of the fighters were ringside, leaning up against the ring apron, watching the action through the lower two ropes.

One man stood, jump rope in hand, about 6 feet back. Periodically he would wander over to the heavy bags. I was fairly certain he would not get in. (He didn’t.)

A thin young teenager stood nervously next to the freestanding pull up machine. I thought he might not get in, either. (He didn’t.)

Anyone further back than that is most likely doing their best to avoid the battleground and stay out of the fight.

Which is perfectly acceptable.

But the phrase “know where you stand” is particularly useful here. If you want to shift your fear, you need to walk forward. If you want to tell your body that regardless of what your brain says, you intend to spar, you need to stand where you are actually touching — connected to — the ring.

And here’s another piece of that same puzzle…

Are you ready?

Last night I suddenly realized, during this moment, that although I was leaning against the ring apron, peering intently through the bottom two ropes at the action, I had not geared up.

In fact, neither had the guy with the jump rope in hand, by the heavy bags.

It’s true, I was late coming in, and was only warming up as everyone else was getting ready to spar, but now that the game was on, what did my relative unpreparedness say about my willingness to get in the ring?

It was clearly a war night. I’ve been here before; in fact, the first time I experienced it I bailed. I needed to take stock and make a decision about how much I would allow my fear to rule me.

I turned and walked to the back of the gym, quietly gathered my gear, and returned to the side of the ring and began to gear up.

The unspoken request

If you expect to be put in the ring on a night like this, you have to mentally request it. Your posture, your attitude, your engagement level all have to tell your coach that you are willing to get in if he calls your name. He’s not going to call everyone, because the stakes are higher, and there needs to be room for people to keep themselves out of the fight even if they stay in the gym.

This is about eye contact. About listening intently to whatever comments and instruction the coach is giving the fighters. It’s about leaning in, both mentally and physically, no matter how much the edge of the ring feels like the edge of a blade.

The test of fire

The coach at Second Round is phenomenal.

A former pro boxer himself, Coach Massey completely understands the dynamics of fear, and the geography of boxing guts. He works with, rather than against his boxers. He rarely raises his voice, but instead trains us to hear his voice anywhere in the gym (no matter the din) and respond to his instruction. He will take me farther than I would go on my own, and I can count on him to judge accurately when to push and when to leave be.

Last night there were many other issues to be worked out among our top fighters before I could get a chance to box, but I was ringside, I was geared, and I was mentally asking to fight, despite my fear. I knew he would call my name, and finally I heard him say, without even looking in my direction, “Lisa. On deck.”

I swallowed hard, levered myself up onto the ring, and waited outside the ropes for his signal.

As it happened, I was in pretty good shape for my challenge. I’m keeping up with my workouts and doing my sprints. Earlier in the week I had gone 6 rounds or so with no bell, working on inside fighting only. Trey, a beautiful, powerful light heavyweight had given me plenty of hard work, forcing me to stay knee to knee, leaning into me and making me bump him off with my shoulder and dig in with right and left uppercuts before finishing with a left hook to his head. Over and over. Slowly I shed my fear of his powerful shots to my body, and quit hopping backwards to my more comfortable outside fighting position.

On war night my gas was good, I wasn’t already tired out, and I felt mentally as solid as you can in these situations.

My first opponent was a fierce young man named Shaq. He’s fast, but he’s smaller than I am, so I knew I could take his power. I intended to give him a taste of my hard right, and I was primed to stick with the inside game if he forced the issue. I planned to employ every illegal tactic I could (our coach is pretty lenient on this issue) to tip the scales in my favor. I’d already seen some damn messy (and bloody) brawling, and I’d heard the coach tell us that just because a shot was ugly didn’t mean it wasn’t effective. I was ready.

No bell, just the word from the coach. I rolled in with guns blazing, and Shaq let me dominate the first minute or so.

He’d already been fighting and I was fresh, but I started to suspect he was “going easy” on me, so I pinned him to the ropes and growled at him. “You better bring me something to work with, dammit,” I told him, and before I could finish up with a suitable threat, he had spun out and rocked my head back with the most beautiful, crispest jab ever thrown.

“Nice.” I commented, “Thank you.” And we were on.

We worked a couple of rounds I think (no bell, hard to figure it), before the coach switched up fighters again, and I ducked out feeling wonderful. I knew he would put me in again (he did, with a very tired Trey), and I might not look as fresh or fight as well, but I’d already won the real victory.

I’d gone forward. I’d shown I was ready. And I got in.

And that’s the most beautiful part of boxing.

Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery, creative commons license

When Sparring is Magic

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:13:01 +0000

I can’t remember when I last had one of these days, but this week it all came back to me in one of those clear, beautiful, pristine experiences of pure sparring magic.

Sparring is always hard boxing work. It’s actually much more pleasurable than having a fight in many ways — less stress, less endless waiting, more actual time in the ring, and you often learn more as well.

But in the sporadic sparring experiences I’ve had in the past 6 months or so, I haven’t had one of these surreal days in the ring where everything came together like magic. This week they clicked.

Coach Massey was training a team of people in a different gym, and I wanted to get up there to see Eric, a friend of mine, who recently started competing. I also hoped to get some new and different work — working in a new gym with new people is a great way to shake up your training routine and test yourself. I hate it, and love it at the same time.

The dread that comes before

I woke up with the dread churning in my stomach. What if I suck? What if I humiliate myself? Have I been training hard enough? I have to stop slacking on my intervals. Etcetera. I forced down some bran flakes for breakfast and had a banana an hour or so later. I hydrated constantly. I stopped periodically during my morning to get mentally centered, rolling the tension out of my neck and reminding myself to relax.

And of course I took a wrong turn on the freeway and was abysmally late. Ugh.

But the moment I walked in, Coach Massey hailed me from ringside, and I immediately saw my friend Eric shadowboxing in the back. The place was filled with sunshine (unlike every other gym I’ve trained in recently) and the doors were propped open for the breeze. A former trainer of mine was working hard in the ring with a man holding pads and wearing a heavy punching vest; both of them glistened with sweat.

A pleasant surprise

And get this: two women were geared up and waiting to roll under the ropes next.

Two women! Both about my size. About to spar! In case you’re missing the import of this, let me assure you that this is unprecedented where I live. I rarely have the chance to train with one woman, and two is somewhat mind-boggling. I watched them for a moment and realized I was going to get a chance to get good work in — both of these awesome women were paying attention, working hard, and neither seemed out for war or bloodshed. This wasn’t going to be an ego session; it was going to be honest boxing labor.

I was so excited I could barely stand to warm up. I gave Eric a hug and put in a halfhearted round or two of stretching and shadowboxing before I eagerly geared up and stood ringside, waiting for my chance.

Do women box differently than men?

Just this week I had been having an email conversation with Adam Welsh (you’ve heard from him before here on TGE) about a comment pro boxer Anne-Sophie Mathis made recently about preferring to spar with men, because in her experience, “men are much more technical, their body language is more beautiful. The girls are certainly more vicious and aggressive, but they lack a little consistency…”

I’d been turning this thought over and over again in my head. ARE women more aggressive in the ring? If we are, it’s because we know that we have to fight twice as hard to be taken half as seriously. Or at least, that’s my feeling. But I hesitate to paint with so broad a brush, and say that all women are like this…

But I was ready to say that I preferred male sparring partners, too. Not for the reasons Mathis states, but because I’m more used to them, and they don’t seem to need to prove anything with me (most of the time). There’s not much respect to be gained by a male boxer from beating the crap out of a woman — but if she brings game, there can be a good sparring session for both partners.

But yesterday I changed my mind.

Both these women were so good to work with. Christy was — amazingly — a new Master’s fighter. I’m not sure I can name even ONE other female Masters boxer in North Carolina. My opponents are always out of state. Christy and I were exactly the same weight and height. This NEVER happens!

The second boxer, Erica, was perhaps in her early 20s, and had just won the Golden Gloves. A bit lighter than me, but same height.

I would work with both of these women any day of the week, any time. They gave good game, and I know I drew great pleasure out of our work and got some good stuff in.

Burning off the edge

First Coach Massey put me in with Nassir, a former trainer of mine, and he effectively warmed me up and burned off my nervous edge, although it’s hard to box with him because he’s so fast. He can stand in the middle of the ring and never move his feet and you still can’t seem to nail him with a solid punch. If you give him his feet, just hang up your gloves and go home; you don’t stand a chance of landing anything.

If I had to name his weakness it would be that he depends so much on his hyper-speed that he punches less than he probably should. But I wouldn’t be idiot enough to tell him that while I was in the ring with him.

Next I had rounds with each of the women, and suddenly the pace was slower and I could see everything that was happening (which I can’t do with Nassir).

The step-off

You know how boxers have a little switch-foot stutter step thing they often do in the ring? They’re in their stance, right foot and shoulder forward and left foot back. Then suddenly, they switch stance (left foot and shoulder forward) and step off? Easy, right? Yeah, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. My sparring partner Sinclair was working with me on this move a few weeks ago. And it was just not happening unless I expended superhuman effort.

In the ring with these women, it suddenly was there for me. I didn’t have to think about it, it was just magic. My brain worked on other things and my feet did the step off at the right moments entirely without my input. It was beautiful.

Coach Massey saw the first one and whooped. I had no idea what he was excited about. I could feel the glide, the move, the pure lack of effort, but I didn’t know he was watching my feet. Both of us paused in our round and looked at him.

“Lisa pullin’ the step-off!” he hollered, and I grinned, taking full credit even though I’d had no part in it.

Boxing is so like this. You work your ass off on something and NEVER get it right for AGES, then suddenly, it’s burned into your muscle memory and it comes together. Magic.

If you do it once, it’s a fluke. But I was doing it regularly, every round, with just the right timing.

What the hell? But I wasn’t complaining.

It made me feel great that Coach called over another boxer and instructed her to watch my feet to see how I was doing it. It’s just a good thing I didn’t have to explain it, because I have no idea how it got there, hah. I probably couldn’t have done it on command.

The slip

This was another muscle memory move that came together nicely, but this one happened because I wasn’t in with Nassir or Sinclair, or any of the regular guys I fight with who are blazing-fast. I was in with women closer to my own experience level, and I could Flat. See. And evade. Damn near everything.

Thank you, Baby Jesus and all those hours spent eating punches while struggling to overcome the hop back, flinch, blink, and turn away reflexes. It was worth every sweaty hour of that work. I was ducking under (!) slipping side to side, and keeping just inches out of range.

I did notice that I tend to slip right more commonly than left, but NEVER have I slipped so many punches that I noticed such a thing before!

Ahh, I love the magic.

The fuel

The last good piece about this awesomely awesome sparring experience was that I didn’t gas out. I had the fuel I needed to do what I was asked to do. Gotta tell you, I CURSE those intervals when I’m running steps, but I am SO glad I suffered through them when I perform well in the ring.

Your heart just needs that kind of hard training in intense, 3-minute bursts with 30 second recoveries in order to be able to show any kind of chops in the ring.

I hate intervals, but I’ll tell you now, I’m a believer.

And I’ll keep doing them.

Meanwhile, I’ll be curious to see if my next sparring experience goes as well as this one did. Can’t wait to work with Christy and Erica again! Ladies, I salute you; you were gutsy, beautiful, and I enjoyed every second of our work together…

Stay strong everyone, and if you’re struggling and wondering if it will EVER come together — it will! Promise.

From 5 to 50: Celebrating Boxing Women

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:02:20 +0000

It’s International Women’s Day, and two very interesting things are on my mind.

The first is this awesome video of a 5 year old girl working the pads with style and power.

I wish I had more information about her, but I know this: someone, somewhere, has exposed her to boxing and has allowed and encouraged her to build up formidable skill for one so young. You don’t get this good at pads by showing up at the gym a time or two; this is passion and practice, and no 5 year old gets here unless there are some adults supporting it.

It makes me feel incredible to think that very young women, and not just young men, are being shown the possibilities for their sport — and that those possibilities include boxing.

In the same way, I salute all the remarkable young women who will compete in the first-ever female division of boxing in the Olympics this year. Here are links to the first two sets of women in line for that honor: Olympic Trials Winners and National Championship Winners.

Congratulations on being such an incredible part of boxing history! Sorry it took so long.

The second thing on my mind is the upcoming match between two world-champion boxing icons, Christy Martin (49-6, 31 KOs) and Mia St. John (46-11, 18 KOs).

For Christy, age 43, this is a chance to secure not only the 50th win of her incredible career and the World Boxing Council (WBC) World Super Welterweight Belt, but also a chance to show the world that the violent stabbing and shooting attack of her ex-husband Jim in 2010 was not the final word the world would hear from Christy.

For Mia, age 44, this fight is a chance to claim the win that eluded her 10 years ago when she was 26-1-1, and battled Christy through a 10-round war for the WBC world championship. That fight finally secured the world’s attention for Mia, and definitively proved her power and worth in the boxing world. She expects to redeem that loss against Christy and secure the final win of her career.

On June 19th, 2012, in the highly-acclaimed and long-awaited Final Victory fight, Martin and St. John will box for the last time, and the winner will take home the World Boxing Council (WBC) World Super Welterweight Belt.

Here’s a video of rounds 2-5 of their last fight for you to enjoy…

Here’s to boxing girls and women, from 5 to 50 (and forgive me, Mia and Christy, for stretching the ages for the sake of a blog post title!).

Stay strong and keep swinging.

Boxing Training After 40

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:52:42 +0000

If you’re over 40 and in the amateur ring, boxing most likely isn’t (and isn’t going to be) your career. But you can pretty much guarantee that it will change your life.

I’m not trying to convince you of something, I’m mostly reminding myself. It helps to remind myself, because boxing will gobble up your life and body and leave you with little, if you let it. Being an amateur boxer after 40 is sort of like owning an exotic, voracious racing beast. Only weirdos like you love these things, can’t get enough of them, and are willing to put the incredible amount of time and energy into training and upkeep.

And I’m not even really joking. Here’s what I mean…

1. Boxing Draws the Intensely Passionate

In my experience, there are mostly two reactions to boxing: people find it to be sheer brutality they can barely stand to think about, much less watch… Or it gives them a massive jolt of juice, and they can barely tear their eyes away.

I fell into the first category for most of my life, but when I stumbled into boxing for fitness, then began to watch my trainer, Bonnie Mann, bring amateurs into the ring — I got my first jolt of the juice. It was bizarre, exotic, empowering. It was as if some channel in me that had been blocked up for 40 years was suddenly opened, and I was flooded with energy.

The intense rush swept me right into competitive boxing, and suddenly the stakes changed. Not only was I a wife, mom of three boys, and full-time corporate marketing person — boxing began to take it’s first fat weekly paycheck of heart, time, and pain out of my life.

This meant I had to do a lot of re-scripting of the way my personal universe ran.

The life I thought I had wanted now chafed. I was no longer willing — after decades of doing it — to be at home for my family’s needs every single night of the week. I was no longer willing to give up most of who I was for other people. There was something big, something powerful, something only for me that I wanted, and to get it I had to quit giving everyone else all my time and energy.

If I hadn’t done it, I don’t know if my marriage would have lasted, and I definitely wouldn’t be the same parent I am now.

Some days I think I owe boxing my life.

This is not a small change to go through at age 42. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

2. Boxing Demands a High Standard of Training at the Lowest Levels

Part of the reason boxing has such incredible power to change your life is because it requires an intense commitment at even the very lowest levels of the sport.

You can’t stroll into a boxing gym one day, hop in the ring and spar with someone (any gym worth their leather would never let this happen anyway), and expect to come out well.

There’s a fairly sizeable learning curve.

The moves only come after months of practice. It takes time to overcome your basic “flinch” and “turn away” impluses. The tiniest moves (advancing on the jab, basic pivots, footwork) may come easily in practice, but are magically, mysteriously, painfully absent when you’re under fire.

And basic fitness shape is nowhere near boxing shape.

Even basic boxing shape is nowhere near boxing sparring shape. And sparring shape is related to, but not the same as, competitive fighting shape.

If you’re over 40, you definitely want to be in good shape, and hitting the local boxing gym for some regular classes every week will be all kinds of awesome for you. But to get up to sparring level, you’ll need all that, plus serious interval training.

To spar, you need to be training 3-4 days a week, with intervals, minimum.

To compete, you’ll need a 6-7 week “training camp.” That means you eat right and train hard and very specifically for the opponent you expect to meet (or to increase your strengths and minimize your weaknesses) for about 2 months.

You’ll probably be in the gym 4 or 5 days each week, although not all those days are boxing-specific; you’ll work on cardio, speed, accuracy, explosion, power, etc. in addition to hitting the bags and sparring. You have to stay mentally focused, and be extremely careful not to get injured toward the end of that period of intense training. And I don’t mean blood or bruises, I mean the kind of injury that would nix your fight.

If you’re over 40, you’re not likely to want to maintain that level of fitness for more than just a training camp. Because, you know, you have a life outside boxing. (Sort of.)

3. Boxing Takes a Physical Toll

The main reason I’m not in the boxing gym more than about twice a week during regular times is that it takes a fairly large toll on your body.

No, it isn’t about getting beat up, but yes, Virginia, boxing hurts.

Even just hitting the speed bags and heavy bags for 10 rounds is going to cause some aches and pains and build up a cumulative pain in my joints. After several years, and plenty of minor injuries (sprained wrist, broken rib, torn rotator cuff x 2) to teach me my boundaries, I’ve learned how to create a boxing training regimen that works for me.

Actually mixing it up in the ring during training has a lot of potential for damage, and it’s good to learn to minimize sparring damage early on.

Interestingly, the chances for getting injured during your actual boxing match (if you are competing in the amateurs, not the pros) are far lower than your chance for getting injured during training.

Mostly that’s because you are only there for a very short period of time. Amateur rounds are typically 2 minutes each, and you only get three of those. Even though you’re both fighting all out, looking for the knockout or at least for blood and damage, it’s over before you know it, and there isn’t really enough opportunity for someone to get seriously hurt.

Several things to know if you’re over 40 and interested in competing in boxing…

First, everyone you fight will be within 10 years of your age, so you’re likely to get harder ring work at your gym, where everyone is 20 years old!

However, everyone you fight will have given up just as much as you have, and may have trained harder.

Maybe they don’t have kids still at home. Maybe they have not avoided interval sprints like you did. Maybe they’ve been training longer than you have.

You can get beat easily.

But you can also win.

And that’s pretty damn good.

Photo Credit: OfficerGreg cc

Boxing Ring Card Girls

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:51:49 +0000

Ring-Card Girls. Three small words. But stand by for big arguments when they’re mentioned in conversation between men and women.

Adam Welsh is a British-based Human Resources Manager with a keen interest in many sports, including boxing. You may have seen him commenting here on The Glowing Edge.

He recently asked me what I thought about ring card girls (he’s asked lots of thoughtful and interesting questions), and as a result he not only sparked a number of offline conversations about the subject, but he also quickly responded when I invited him to write up his unique observations for posting here.

I’ve also posted my own thoughts down below…

You first, Adam. What do you think about ring card girls?

Most guys (including me) have the hots for those high-heeled, scantily-clad ladies who strut their stuff between rounds at pro boxing shows, holding aloft a card showing the number of the next stanza.

When it comes to keeping their customers satisfied, of course, promoters are influenced by a basic gender consideration: boxing crowds are predominantly male.

Male hormones and boring fights

Your average Joe Six-Pack expects three Bs when he attends a fight night: Boxing, Beer and Babes. And there’s no shortage of models, dancers and wannabes prepared to dress skimpily and duck through the ropes every three minutes.

People who watch boxing on television may not realize that a full bill of bouts contains many instantly forgettable fights. To counter boredom, promoters use the card-girls to add spectacle and maintain interest. Yep, that’s how shallow many guys are.

The card-girls are such an established feature now that it would be hard to imagine a show without them.

Women, sexuality, and violence

But some women get annoyed and offended by a spectacle they consider sexist, degrading and juvenile.

“Typical male fantasy-gratification” was the reaction of a woman I know who stopped going to fight nights because the atmosphere created every three minutes made her feel uncomfortable.

Other women think it’s not appropriate for the brutality of the boxing ring to be glamourised in this way. They feel uneasy about the link between violence and sex appeal.

Boxing show or strip club?

One innovation that probably alienated many women in the 1990s was the regular “Miss Ringsider” contest at Budweiser-sponsored promotions in the Great Western Forum, CA. Wearing high-cut one-piece swimsuits, the girls lined up in the ring and paraded one by one to compete for cash prizes, decided by the fans’ votes.

Mind you, that was nothing compared to a promotion I attended in London about ten years ago, which had me asking “Is this a boxing show or a strip club?”

Two card girls wore the tiniest bikinis I’ve ever seen – three postage stamps held together with spaghetti-thin string – and the noise between rounds was deafening. Some of the comments directed at the girls were unrepeatable, and the atmosphere was unpleasant and embarrassing, especially for the small number of female fans present.

The promoter rightly received a warning from the British Boxing Board of Control.

Ring card girls at women‘s fights

In particular, the sight of card-girls during women’s bouts has been called “disrespectful” to the female fighters. An article in The Ring magazine a few years ago called for promoters to drop card-girls from women’s contests.

But do female boxers, locked in intense physical combat, take the slightest notice of the inter-round entertainment?

I’m not aware of any objections raised by women boxers (tell me if I’m wrong). You could argue, in fact, that the fleeting, superficial appearance of the glamour girls serves to highlight the integrity and authenticity of the female fighters.

Here to stay?

As long as the audiences at fight nights are predominantly male, ring-card girls are likely to remain a fixture.

No doubt the growing number of women spectators will continue to roll their eyes at the immaturity of their men-folk. And discuss among themselves – if they can hear anything over the din – how the latest vision of loveliness to pose and pout around the ring could possibly be comfortable in that one-piece mini-dress which looks like it was painted on.

Ok, Lisa’s turn.

Adam, you nailed it in one: mostly the women boxers’ conversations revolve around how teeny the outfits are and how wobbly they must feel trying to navigate on a padded surface in their 13-inch lucite heels.

And in a rather odd turn-about, at one of my fights the promoter put in “ring card guys” — which sounded pretty damn good to me at first, but then I realized it was intended as a joke. They were goofy-dressed dudes who hammed up their caricatures of female ring card girls. I rolled my eyes and had absolutely no interest, although it’s possible the crowd got into it.

And no, I don’t (personally) mind too much that the whole Miss Stripper America thing goes on between rounds. I believe it’s there for the same reasons you already mentioned.

Catching the most fish

And I finally decided that all male-dominated sports (and other entertainments like movies, etc.) that include female eye candy in one form or another do so for one big fat reason above all.

And that is to widen the net.

In other words, promoters and publishers and directors and so on are working hard to capture as many ticket-purchasers as they possibly can.

For men who aren’t rabid boxing fans, they offer a walking centerfold fantasy girl between every round in order to “sweeten the deal” and secure the purchase.

Here’s an alternative to Ring Card Girls…

I love women’s roller derby. We have an incredible team here called the Carolina Rollergirls.

If I weren’t boxing, I would definitely go out for this team. These women are incredibly tough, very skilled at their sport (which is fairly complex), and they know how to have a great time and put on a phenomenal show.

Just like in boxing, you can sit right up next to the track, but in derby, if there’s a spectacular wipeout — and there are plenty — you can revel in the thrill of possibly getting injured yourself as a tangle of helmeted women come flying at extremely high speed in your direction. Believe me, derby gets pretty involved.

They serve beer at the roller derby. A game lasts about an hour and a half. And between jams (about the equivalent of a boxing round) there’s plenty of action. The jammers are the superstars of the derby, and crowds love a great blocker, but absolutely everyone on the track (up to 5 per team) has a major role to play.

Commentators keep the crowd involved, especially by explaining some of the complexities of roller derby play and scoring. They also lighten the mood with funny comments about each of the players, their habits (bad and good), naming (roller derby names are way more fun than ring names), and tactics (dirty and fair).

The Carolina Rollergirls mascot, Evil Ed, is a (fully dressed) blood-splattered skating skeleton who also keeps things lively.

There are giveaways, raffles, charity events, music, antics, and any number of entertaining things that happen between bouts (halves) of the game, and after the game the players are frequently available to chat, sign autographs, and get to know the fans.

The audience is about equally split between male and female, and despite the sometimes serious and potentially damaging nature of the sport, it’s also incredibly family-friendly. That’s two of my boys at a Carolina Rollergirls game. (I didn’t let them get any closer to the track than that!)

I love boxing. Love it. But derby has figured out so many things that boxing has missed.

We may never see roller derby selling high-dollar tickets and winning a mass audience. But if that’s the case, maybe it’s better to be on the fringe.

Okay, everybody. Your turn to chime in!

No related posts.

I Love to Fight

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:39:26 +0000

You knew this. I knew this. But periodically I’m reminded.

Last night I went 4 rounds (at the end of my workout, I must add, because I’m vain. Also a masochist.) with a good friend and freaking awesome sparring partner at my boxing gym.

Sinclair is a phenomenal peer coach; he’s forever smiling and goofing around with the kids, and yet he moves so fast on the bags and in the ring you’ll wonder if he’s real, and not just a ghost. You punch, he’s not there. Except for that blinding mouthguard-enhanced grin.

He also spontaneously breaks out and dances. In the ring, in the gym. He just a dancin’ kinda guy. I love Sinclair.

And yesterday he offered to give me some rounds in the ring and I took them before he could change his mind.

All my joy comes out when I fight well, but with someone like Sinclair, it comes out even if I’m tired and draggin’ ass, which I was.

Somewhere in the middle of the second round, Sinclair did a little stutter step, looked off to the left, and before I could pivot he nailed me with a gorgeous stiff right. I stopped in shock — not because the right stung (it did), but because the whole combination was so unexpected and… so pretty! So danceable! And damned effective.

I immediately demanded that he do it again.

Well of course he loved that. He laughed and took me to the whupin’ shed again. And this time I tried to watch for it, but he still caught me. Fast boy.

I made him stop, of course, and insisted he show me the move. He did, patiently demonstrating several times and encouraging me to try it.

I got it in my mind, we bumped gloves and circled, I launched my offensive and waited for my opening.

Whoop, I slipped it in, and found myself reeling from his counterpunch. I say counter punch, but he actually anticipated my tricky new move and prevented it! That wily rat. Taking advantage of a mere uneducated girl. (See what cards I pull when I want my way?)

I shouted my outrage, and dug in for a battle.

He told me to bring it, and I did. What I had left, anyway. I caught him once or twice with a power right (my fave) and a couple of inside shots in the clinch, but I held off on the tricky new move, instead opting for what I knew worked.

That and any other slop I had left.

He shouted for our coach to come over and watch just as the bell for the fourth round sounded.

Crap. Tired as I was, I scraped the bottom of the barrel and dove back in. I had one goal: pull the new trick in front of Coach Massey and give Sinclair a little party favor to remember me by.

And I did it!

I was so overjoyed at catching him clean that I turned around in the ring (don’t ever do that, boys and girls) and demanded acknowledgement from Coach Massey. Sinclair was laughing his head off behind me.

Massey tried not to grin. “You need to sell that move better,” he commented dryly. “You got to look off in the direction you’re stepping off in. Make him believe it. Then the right.”

I sighed happily, and plowed back into my round.

Massey had 6 succinct words for me, as I staggered out of the ring.

“You gotta get in ring shape.”

He’s right. I’ve been out, maintaining “normal athlete” fitness levels, but ring fitness is a totally different level, and after my last fight, I took a break from it for a season.

But damn, people, it just feels so good to fight.

It’s it’s own motivation, truly.

If you’re thinking about boxing with any kind of seriousness, I hope you find a great gym, a great trainer, and an incredible sparring partner like Sinclair.

There’s plenty of joy in there for you, too.

Image: That’s me in the gold and black, fighting in Atlanta (my second fight).

Sustaining Damage During Sparring

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:39:39 +0000

A boxing sparring session is radically different than an actual match. If I had to choose between the two, sparring wins every time. It can be unbelievably beautiful to watch, particularly when the two boxers agree — implicitly or explicitly — to maintain a certain flow, to match and challenge each other but not overwhelm.

You see this kind of beauty in many professional fights, although not as much in amateurs since both fighters are jazzed on nerves and gunning for the knockout. It’s rarely as controlled.

Dave G. sent me the link to this incredible sparring session between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Vanes Martirosyan, and I’ve watched it several times now, just soaking up how fabulous it is.

But it’s clearly between pros who are at the top of their game and ungodly strong. Did you see all those uppercuts Martirosyan landed? Holy sh*t. Of course he got his nose bloodied by Chavez, but I’d rather have the bloody nose than have to take those punishing uppercuts.

And these guys are working for the cameras… This is not your average-Joe sparring session. (I’m fighting the urge to add “Do not try this at home, kids.”)

Dave asked a question about sparring, as well:

What is the damage you sustain after an average sparring session?

I sustained a bloody nose and again a bruised lip this week. Since a lot of the fighters matching my skill don’t show up anymore, it’s slim pickings. People tend to drop out a lot in martial arts I noticed. Anyway, if I want to spar I have no choice but to fight against the competitive fighter who is always around. I outweigh him about 30 pounds, but he sure is fast.

I am aware that you seldom get out unscathed from a session, maybe I should switch to headgear with a nose guard but those seem way too bulky.

I’d love to hear your take on this!

The main injuries are fairly simple.

I often have a headache the next day after a hard sparring match, but it’s usually treatable with an ibuprofen or three. I don’t really count that as an injury, but it’s part of the package.

My single most common issue is bruised lips, which isn’t surprising, since your lips and nose are the least protected parts of your face when you’re wearing headgear.

I have a friend (Hi, Eric!) who seems to get nosebleeds a lot, and that’s not too unusual for the same reason. We both hate the headgear with the bar across the face because they are so bulky and they obstruct your vision more, but it’s an option.

The black eyes are less common, but I’ve had a few. I would guess that heavyweights get them more than lightweights like me; our punches just don’t pack the same kind of power. I got every single one of my black eyes when sparring with a heavyweight partner.

I also got my broken rib during sparring, but that was more unusual. I’ve only seen that happen two other times in the years I’ve been boxing.

There are several things that go into determining how much injury you commonly get during a sparring session.

The weight match of the sparring partners. I typically expect bigger partners to control their shots so that I don’t get hurt, but it doesn’t always happen that way.
How hard you both agree to work. It’s best if you can be explicit, but sometimes you think you have an agreement, but one person starts to increase their power. You have to continue to communicate — either with words or with force — or you can get in trouble here…
Experience level (whether or not you have good control of your punches). Newbies are notorious for causing damage, but more experienced boxers should be able to move faster and avoid the damage. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.
What kind of gear you’re wearing. Like I mentioned, I hate the face-savers, but I love a no-foul. You can see that both boxers in the video above are wearing groin protectors and both of them got shots that landed on them. These take the edge off rib shots, too, not to mention the dreaded liver shot.
The number and length of rounds you spar. I like being a part of a team session where we’re trading off rounds; you can endure for longer and get a lot of learning in. But there’s great value in sparring the same number and length of rounds you do in a fight, too. I almost never get to do this since I’m usually the only woman in the gym, and men’s rounds are 3 minutes rather than 2. But when I’m getting ready for a match I insist on 2 minute rounds so I can get used to the rhythm.
What kind of trainer you have. Sometimes one or another coach who is overseeing the sparring is out for blood, and is urging their fighter to rip you to shreds. I hate being in that situation, but I’ve definitely been there. I try to avoid this kind of session and this kind of trainer; I don’t respond well to being screamed at. But you do see it in boxing gyms, that’s for sure.

The truth is that I try to avoid bad sparring matches, although I’ve had a few, and I will go out of my way to set up sessions with partners I know I can trust and get the best work with. I’ll travel to another gym if I can’t get good sparring where I am, and I really try to maintain good relationships with several area gyms so that I can do this.

I also don’t spar all that frequently, since it’s pretty hard on the body. At my last gym we sparred every Friday, and you better believe there were plenty of people who showed up once or twice for a Friday, then dropped out completely or only came on other team nights.

There’s a huge (huge!) difference between training for boxing and actually boxing, and it’s definitely a big hurdle for people. I completely understand why lots of people would not want to spar; I really do. It’s not for everyone.

But I think it could be for more people if gyms would set the right tone, and help make the matches better.

I’d love to hear what everyone else has to say; leave a comment below and let’s mix it up!

Boxing After 40 With a Bad Shoulder

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:25:56 +0000

I took 6 weeks off of boxing lately, mostly just to rest, focus on work, and give myself a break after my last fight.

I’m not crazy, though — I kept up my runs and weights at home. I just didn’t do any boxing-specific work. No heavy bag, no sparring, no punching drills. I didn’t even show my nose at the gym.

When I went back for the first time this week I carefully stayed out of the classes that were training in the gym and did my own slow and careful workout: warm-up, shadowboxing, 10 rounds on the heavy bag.

The next two days showed me the muscles I had not been training while out of boxing: forearms, lats (although I swear I did lats!!), and some obliques. Also my neck was sore from carrying all the tension of the first workout back.

But amazingly, my shoulders were good.

I’ve had chronic bursitis in my hips and shoulders for as long as I can remember.

You gotta have shoulders to box.

You gotta have everything, I guess, but I never would have guessed that I could actually find work-arounds for the issues I have to deal with in my body’s performance, and still box well.

I was over 40 when I started this sport, and I was astonished that I could box well even though my hip joint issues meant I couldn’t run distance (for me, that means more than 4 miles).

Now I’m learning that I don’t have to punish my shoulder joints, either, in order to compete in the ring.

At first I sweated hard to learn to do dozens of standard push-ups, along with burpees, pull-ups, and the other shoulder-intense exercises. For several years I dealt with a level of everyday pain that I thought I would have to live with, if I was going to box.

Then I tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder (doing unassisted pull-ups), requiring 3 months of physical therapy and a lot of time out of the ring. That shoulder became — and still is — the single body part I most have to favor.

My physical therapist — a pro fighter a few years older than me — told me to cut back on the heavy shoulder work. “You’ll still box just fine,” she assured me. And I decided to test it out.

So I stopped obsessing about building the number of push ups I could do, and I started re-working my personal training workouts.

And my pain levels started to recede…

But the real challenge is in what to do when the whole team is working out together.

I began by thinking up a few alternate exercises.

For example, when the team is doing entire rounds of toe-taps on the medicine ball, I do steps instead, which hurt my hips less. When the team is doing burpees, I do deep lunges instead. If the command is for 50 standard push ups, I’ll do knee push ups.

It’s extremely difficult to be doing something different from everyone else on the team, but I try to tell myself that I’m 46 and they are 20, and I’m allowed. I can still meet them with a nasty-ass right when the bell rings.

This one single thing — not doing what everyone else is doing — is the absolute hardest part of my sport. I must have a big pride thing going on, because I absolutely *hate* having to do my own thing. But I’ve finally decided to do it anyway.

And I’ve found that my results in the ring are just as good, which is why I am sticking with it.

The second thing I’ve changed is to lower the weights, reps, and impact.

If the call is for 50 arm lifts with weights, I’ll do 30, or lighten the weight. I don’t shadow box with 5-pound weights, I use 1-pounders instead. Believe me, I could do all this stuff full-bore before, but I paid a heavy price in pain levels and injuries.

And there was simply no need to do that.

The third thing I’ve done is test the time limits.

By testing, I’ve found that I can do as many 1 minute (not 3 minute) sets of toe-taps as everyone else and still be relatively pain-free.

I’ve been working actively on that particular exercise, so I haven’t yet tested 2 minute rounds, but the 1 minute rounds are solid.

I can’t change all my time limits, but I change the ones that hit my hips and shoulders the worst. Amazingly, sparring is not affected at all. Which is probably further proof — if I needed it — that just because I’m not starting every workout with 100 push-ups doesn’t mean I am going to suck in the ring.

When I was back in the gym this week for the first time in 6 weeks, I was struck by how many shoulder-intense exercises both training groups were doing.

One coach had the team doing literally hundreds of dips, followed by alternating-hand push-ups on a medicine ball. (If you start with your left hand on the ball and your right hand on the floor, you do a push-up, then shift quickly so that your right hand is now on the ball and your left is on the floor. Repeat. It takes balance, speed, and lots of shoulder strength.) Anyone who fell behind was assigned 50 more push-ups.

That session would have been a total loss for me.

As it was, I did my own workout, which involved exactly zero dips or push-ups. I’ll put some of those in there as I get going again, but it will be far less than those guys are doing.

In the end, my lesson has been — once again — that I have to know my own body and look out for myself. Even in the face of pressure from a coach or the team.

So I’m passing it along to you. Boxing is an incredible, joy-giving, empowering sport and with a basic level of fitness, you can do it. Even if you’re over 40. Even if you have cranky hips and shoulders. You can do it!

And so can I.

Image by walleydog

Holly Holm’s KO Fight Has Dangerous Ref (and Bad Corner)

Lisa Creech Bledsoe — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:45:09 +0000

The Holly Holm (30-2-3, 9-KOs) vs Anne Sophie Mathis (26-1, 22-KOs) “World Dominance” fight is bothering me, and it should bother everyone with a stake in professional boxing.

Both of these phenomenal, world-class boxers fought well and did absolutely nothing wrong. However, referee Rocky Burke and Holm’s corner were not only neglectful, but dangerous.

Holm is a punch-and-move technical boxer with tremendous foot speed, and Mathis is an out-and-out powerhouse brawler with a knockout right. It was an outstanding match-up, and the first five rounds were incredible.

In the fifth, Holm seemed to move less and trade more bombs, and the damage began to pile up on her. The ref called Mathis for rabbit punches (which can take a serious toll), but that was apparently his last good call.

In the sixth, Mathis dropped Holm to the canvas, and after FAILING to issue a count, the ref let a weaving, disoriented Holm face further mauling from Mathis.

At the bell, Holm’s corner had their first opportunity to make a exit plan, but they didn’t, as far as I can tell.

The seventh round was a travesty — not at all what good boxing should be.

Holm had no more legs, and mostly swayed and staggered, with her head drooping and guard wide, just taking shot after shot from Mathis.

At one point Holm was beat back into the ropes and actually became entangled, hanging drunkenly as Mathis ripped into her, tearing open a gash on her cheekbone before the ref finally made his way over to help Holm out of the ropes, propping her upright and signaling the fighting to resume.

Mathis unleashed two rights in a row on the incoherent Holm, putting her through the ropes and nearly onto the judges’ table. She was pushed back into the ring where she rolled to her side, completely limp, blood streaming from her face.

In the photo below you can see that Holm is still having to hold herself up by draping an arm over the ropes, even as she finally receives attention from her team.

Mathis behaved impeccably. There was no jeering, parading, or trumpeting over the fallen Holm. Mathis won the fight and deserves the title; of that there is no question.

Holm did her best to do what her inattentive corner left her in there to do. I can understand their decision to let it go in the sixth, but why they allowed their fighter to be brutalized in the seventh, when she clearly couldn’t protect herself, return a shot, or even hold herself upright, is unimaginable.

The ref failed her utterly. I don’t even have words for him.

Holly’s post-loss press video is heartbreaking…

The fiasco has garnered some press, but of course since it’s a women’s fight there won’t be nearly the outrage that there should be.

The thing I’m most curious about is what Holm’s conversations with her trainers and corner were like, in the privacy of their own gym, after the initial devastation of the fight was past…

I hate when fights are called too early, but in this case there was no doubt in my mind that serious mistakes were made, and that a fighter’s life was needlessly endangered, both by the ref and by the corner.

I know boxing is a tough sport, and people get hurt. But there’s a line, and this one went well past it.

What do you think?