Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Some people call it pugilism while others refer to it as "the sweet science."
According to Merriam-Webster it's the art of attack and defense, with the fists, practiced as a sport.
Boxing.
It's all that... and to me, it's so much more.
I started boxing around 10 years ago after being attacked by a client at an employment resource centre in Toronto. I wasn't looking to learn to fight, or (even) to get even, but something about being physically attacked at work had left me feeling very vulnerable.
At the time, I was working out at a regular gym right near work. One evening, after my usual (boring) workout, I noticed two heavy bags in one very small room. The girl who was working them was tiny but fierce and something about the intense look of concentration on her face made me pause.
She saw me watching and invited me in. She showed me how to position my feet and how to pivot one foot when throwing a punch. She told me she had just started working at the gym, part-time, and would be giving a few boxing classes a week.
I really wanted to do it but I was intimidated. Who am I kidding? I was downright scared. I asked a friend of mine to join me and since she agreed I had no excuses not to give it a try.
And so one fateful night we walked into the very small room... and I never looked back.
I loved every aspect of it. I liked the training, including the skipping, push-ups and sit-ups. I liked the camaraderie. I especially liked how difficult it was. Every week it felt like the hardest thing I had done but every week I wanted to go back and try harder. Do better.
After a while, I joined a boxing gym and started taking my training seriously. I changed the way I ate, what I drank and how I lived. I was far from being anyone's Million Dollar Baby but I was proud of myself.
I started sparring and realized that I even liked getting hit in the face by my 250-pound trainer.
As long as I got to hit him back.
I started reading books about boxing, watching boxing matches on television and even met George Chuvalo, the Canadian heavyweight boxer who fought from 1956 to 1978 and famously said after a fight with Muhammad Ali "He went to the hospital with bleeding kidneys and me, I went dancing with my wife."
After moving back to Montreal I slowly lost track of boxing. I joined a regular gym and went back to my usual (boring) workouts.
But I always missed it.
The feeling I had when I skipped and everything disappeared except for the sound of the rope flying through the air. The emotion I felt when I hit the bag and it echoed across the room.
They say the most meaningful things are sometimes the very same things that scare you the most. For me, that's exactly how it was with boxing.
So last week, after three years of not doing something I loved, I tried it again. Nothing had changed - not the feeling and not the emotion. Nothing except for my own level of fitness.
Thanks to Studio Breathe and a 50-minute boxing class, I was back in the ring - figuratively, at least.
And I loved every minute it.
