Ring Talk: Episode 2: When it clicks

She kept saying:   “It will click!  It will click!  And when it clicks you won’t be so frustrated”.

She being coach Jennifer Huggins and true to form, the day it clicked was a beautiful moment and the frustration of not seeing or feeling the fruits of my none stop labour lifted immensely.  Now, I’ve since experienced many moments of different emotions during training, sparring, camps and fights but nothing compares to that first “ah-ha” I experienced.  I’ve learnt to deal with it better since I suppose but, lesson right up front:  Listen, and more importantly trust your coaches.

Focus time with coach Jen!

I remember the evening in question vividly.  It was sometime in early 2013 but let me set it up for a sec.  Before I joined Kingsway Boxing Club (KBC) in Feb of 2012 I was boxing on and off downtown for fitness and weight loss initially.  I kept going back for about 2 or 3 years  because I literally fell in love with this sport.  KBC is where the magic really started to happen and the love evolved.  Deeply evolved.  I became stronger and more technical and so on.  I was also very honoured to be asked to participate in the second annual Fight To End Cancer as their first corporate female fighter (super big deal right there!).  Of course, I obliged and just going in for a workout turned into training daily to sometimes twice daily and later technical training and of course, sparring.

Fight to End Cancer 2013.

Confession:  I initially had a love/hate relationship with sparring and in the beginning mostly hate but not because I was getting hit so much, and it was a lot!  When the coaches dissected everything – the punches, the head movement, all the different defense techniques and so on, I was good.  Tap sparring, no problem.  Shadow boxing, I could do it for days.  The minute I went into open sparring and especially with people who were bigger or had more experience, I would become so frustrated and intimidated:  a lethal combination and not in any good way for a novice boxer at any age. The worst part was that it showed.  The team pushed me hard to begin with and even harder when the frustration showed.  Today, I thank them for it of course and so you know,  I never backed down.  Ever.  Not once to date (I had to put that in for good measure)!

If I look back, the frustration stemmed from knowing I’d been working on my own at home and coming in on extra days to train and to work on what I’d learnt in the previous class.  Knowing that I’ve been doing all the work only to still not get the #sweetscience made me sad, literally.  It’s all I thought about.  Every.  Damn.  Day!  Having the coaches call out what you need to do and you’re 2 or 3 seconds slower so by the time you do it, you’ve been punched at least 2 or 3 times.  Oh, my life!  What am I not getting?  Why can’t I get it?  Fuck, I’m going to get killed on fight night!  Why am I doing this again?  More fucks!  I usually got praised and high five’d for my hard work at the end of each class, showing heart, my none stop efforts and everyone telling me I’ll get there and that “it will click”.  I’d usually want to answer with some colourful sentence of profanity but instead just smiled and said thanks.  Why was I getting hit so many times and why was I slower than everyone else I used to ask myself!

So, to the night in question.  Another club came for sparring and I think it was their second or 3rd time coming in to visit.  These guys were pure brawlers.  They all had the same wild, “I’m here to knock you the *&^% out” style of boxing and they brought in a kid who could have been mine.  Maybe 15 or so and he would spar with the girls.  I overheard one of his older/adult teammates give “verbal courage” before we went in.  I remember thinking to myself “wow”, you’re a douchebag (and that’s not a word I use, even back then) and what a terrible role model to the young man.  I shook it off fast.  To me this was to learn and grow not beat someone up.  Yes, it was open sparring and I expected to get hit many times, and man did this kid start out with fire!  He came at me with all he had and very quickly I could tell he was getting gassed.

I remember feeling so calm though and for the very first time, I felt like I held my own the entire 3 rounds.  I also realized that my conditioning was on another level which made me beam with pride on the  inside.  While young gun was huffing and puffing between rounds, I didn’t have to worry about that and could focus on the task at hand.   I applied all the fundamentals I’d been learning and practicing and although super basic, they worked.  I was blocking, trapping, moving my head, moving my feet, getting hit and making him miss!  Best of all, I landed many shots or rather – I set up my combinations to land shots I wanted to land.  I was fighting my fight like they say.  I had such a feeling of accomplishment leaving the gym that night.  It clicked, and I got it!

Swagger. Balance. Life.

Oh yeah, of course the swagger I usually walk with went BAM!