Sometimes I hate boxing the way I hate poker because it’s a pursuit built on deception; lying. If you know what your opponent is thinking, you’d be able to defeat them. So boxers keep tricks up their sleeves: feints, tactics to create openings, strategic eye movement, misleading combinations and footwork. Good fighters are great liars. You win at the expense of someone else. I was raised in violence, and for a brief while, when the COVID-19 lockdown was at its worst, I contemplated never stepping into the cage/ring/mat ever again. I thought it might be nice to leave all violence behind when I went to college—why would I leave one hell to find another? Why is it that I keep finding myself being hit, and hitting others? I used to feel as if every fight (of every sort) that I’ve been through in my life were all rounds of the same fight, and that I was nearing either my KO point or a collapse from exhaustion (I couldn’t tell which). Now, it feels right; I feel ready to fight, because I can no longer fight with anger as an impetus. Though I’ve been in countless combat situations, I never had a real officiated bout. But I will soon, when combat sports are allowed again. I’ve never actually hit someone with all my might; it was always restrained, just to defend myself or to prove a point. That will change (or I hope it will change, as you never know how you will react in a fight until it happens) in my first fight, and I don’t know how I’ll handle it. I wonder if I’ll cry, or if I will be able to do it at all. I may find that fighting is not for me.
Despite all of that (really, because of all of that), I love fighting because—if you have any empathy for your opponent at all—you bear witness to a tender story that is revealed through their fighting. Their fight exposes elements of their self, their personality quirks, what hurts them, what drives them. Their story is written not only in the way they fight, but on their face and the way they look at you. Additionally, the training period is good for me. A lot of people take up boxing because they have a desire to hurt others (presumably because they are hurt), but they quickly realize the amount of discipline and dedication required to be an effective fighter, and that original intent is often lost on the way. I’m at the boxing gym every weekday, early in the morning. I enjoy having a reason to get out of bed, and though I train alone, there are three people that share the gym-space that I enjoy seeing. I might want to be a real professional champion fighter one day.
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