My upper arms ache all the way up through my shoulders. It hurts to sling a pocketbook over my arm. My hips hurt. My lower back hurts to the extent I can’t sit in the same position for more than ten minutes. My thighs? Fuhgettaboutit.
God Bless You, Advil. Because tomorrow, I’m going to do this to myself again.
I don’t look like a fighter. I’m female. I’m fat. My boobs are more suited to Playboy (trust me) than the ring. I’m clumsy—my body currently bearing the scars of a recent bike crack-up. I fall off curbs and down stairs. I have spatial problems and can’t quite remember what is left and what is right. I know jab and cross, through.
I started boxing a few years ago, as a joke. My husband was taking classes, and the instructor was offering a try-it-free session. He wrapped my hands, and I fell in love.
Throwing a punch felt very foreign, and very wrong, at first. I was the kid on the playground who usually got tripped or smacked or tortured. “Stand,” the instructor said, his gold teeth glittering under the fluorescent lights of the gym, “with your left shoulder forward, your knees only as wide as your hips.” Karim said, “bend those knees. Lower your head. Twist your torso. Now hit, baby girl. Hit.”
I threw like a baby girl at first, too, embarrassed that the heavy bag barely trembled, let alone swung, under the laughable non-force of my sad jab-cross combination. I kept at it, even when I was pretty sure the big boys with the barbed wire bicep tattoos at the gym were laughing at the fat girl attempting to become a fighter. “Don’t look at them,” said Karim. “You and me, we’re the only ones who matter here.” He’d put on the punch mitts and have me aim my punches at them, not getting pissed off when I accidentally hit him in the face. “That was a good one, baby girl!”
I didn’t get hit by an instructor until I’d moved on to Church Street Boxing, an old-fashioned boxing gym by the World Trade Center site with actual spittoons placed around the floor so the Golden Gloves contenders had a place to spit their blood after being hit in the mouth. Antonio hit me after I didn’t leap back to action at the sound of the bell, because I was engaged in conversation with a fighter with a nose as flat as the floor about the condition of Farrah Fawcett. “That bell goes, you go,” said Antonio, “or you get smacked.”
This was no girly kickboxing class. Church Street was another universe.
I thought I’d feel uncomfortable there, at Church Street. I have never felt more welcome at a gym in my life. Usually, as a chubby female not known for my grace, I feel like a pigeon among blonde birds of paradise with eating disorders. Not here. This was a land of broken noses, of dreams that had fallen in the ring and gotten right back up, of careers that had collapsed on the ropes and untangled themselves. This was a gym that kept a mop handy to soak up the occasional bloodstain. This was a gym where Golden Gloves contenders threw punches next to people like me attempting to learn the art; where taut 19 year olds readying for the featherweight title trained next to amateurs, like the 76 year old man who said he liked to feel powerful.
The trainers at Church Street coaxed the tiger in me to the surface. You must run, they said. You can’t last a round if you don’t run. So I ran. I put my fears of being humiliated aside, laced up my New Balances, and ran as far as I could. At first it was half a block. Then an entire block. Then two. I’m up to three and half miles now, which is nothing compared to a marathoner, but is a miracle for me. What astonished me is that I wasn’t a laughingstock as I ran down 35th Avenue in Queens, from my place in Jackson Heights to the edge of the Grand Central and back. The occasional truck full of landscapers or electricians would slow down next to me, the elephant lumbering along as the gazelles sprinted past. “Good for you, honey!” I’d get a thumbs up. The men doing maintenance at the housing project by the highway said they wished they had the motivation to run. When I said it wasn’t far, they pointed out a marathon is run one mile at a time. Wise men.
Now I do my rounds on my own back patio. I bought a stand up bag, the type you fill with sand, to beat up several days a week. I named him Karim, in honor of the man who introduced me to boxing.
I put on my t-shirt that says FIGHTING SOLVES EVERYTHING across the back, roll the bag, filled with about 200 pounds of sand and gravel onto the cheap faux grass carpet I bought to cushion it against the concrete, clip my portable Everlast round timer (three minutes on, one off) to the laundry line, crank up the headphones heavy on the gangsta rap, and get to punching.
I gave myself a boxing nickname, drawing on my New England roots and my history of covering snowstorms. The Nor’Easter.
The kids at P.S. 212 next door are fascinated by the Crazy Fat Lady Boxing Show. They were first drawn by the slamming sound of the bag rocking back from my cross, coming down on the concrete. They press up against the wrought-iron fence separating our properties, watching as I work through combinations and grunt with the force of the punch hitting the bag. I took off my headphones fast enough as the timer went off to hear one kid yell to his friends, “she’s got a TIMER!”
The people in my building have gotten used to my odd hobby. Some have had to learn about it the hard way—the building’s super once tapped me on the shoulder to say hi when I was mid-round. I came thisclose to clocking him. My husband knows to get my attention from the far side of the patio. The neighbors who live right above the patio are tickled, often leaning out the window and their pumping their fists. The man who lives next door stopped me in the street and said he couldn’t figure out what those long strips of cloth—my hand wraps—were, until he saw my gloves.
I love it when the sweat pouring from my head splashes against the bag. I love it when a kick ass song by NWA pops up on the headphones and I throw punches like the world is about to end. I love it when I have 20 seconds left in a round and despite my pain, I keep going. I love it when I’m rolling up my wraps at the end of 12 rounds and my shoulders ache like I’ve been battered myself.
Sometimes I beat up my husband. I’ve beaten up my boss. I’ve beaten up my editor and various co-workers. I’ve beaten up former and current friends. I’ve beaten up my mother. I’ve beaten up my father. I’ve beaten up Julie Gallagher, who made my life miserable in second grade. I’ve beaten up ex-boyfriends. I’ve beaten up the economy.
A remarkable thing happens when you’re able to do that. Another boxer at Church Street told me that people who don’t box don’t understand. It’s not about aggression. It’s about being able to leave everything you’re angry at on the floor, letting you be a calmer person.
Intellectually, I know I look like a four-star dork in my workout gear—complete with nerd sweatband!—when I box. I know I probably look somewhat silly, especially when I really get into it and start screaming my way through punches. I know it’s geeky to have the theme from Rocky on my boxing playlist. I know being proud of a strained shoulder and sprained wrist is a little ridiculous.
I don’t feel that way, though. I feel strong, and tall, and powerful. For the first time in my life.
