Sparring with Socrates
2020 was full of lessons, but some of the best for me this year were discovered while boxing in the park with my trainer. This fall, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed boxing as a form of working out. The combination of mental and physical stress mixed with the high paced combinations and full-body movement made for some noticeable results and a renewed excitement about getting better each week.
I met my trainer through an Instagram post where I talked about getting stood up by another trainer. One of my followers, a personal trainer I’d worked with in the past, said she knew of someone that might be a good fit and would reach out. When she connected us, this trainer told me he was no longer training, but that because of the referral, would consider it. His only condition was that we had to do early mornings, which thankfully was what I was looking for also.
Now when I tell you that this trainer was no longer training, it is important to understand why. He’d been a champion boxer for 15+ years fighting all around the world before retiring to then become a top trainer at one of NYC’s most prestigious gyms. But while training as a world-class athlete, he’d also graduated from Princeton with a degree in history and then with his masters from St. John’s University in public history. One of his personal training clients recruited him to leave his training career and he now oversees the NYC office for a nationwide nonprofit focused on racial reconciliation through education and the arts.
Very quickly, I realized that I was going to learn a lot more than just how to throw a better left-hook. I was basically sparring with Socrates.
Learn to fight, not to box - While we were out training in Washington Square Park, the gym of the neighborhood in COVID times, we’d see other trainers with clients doing speed drills or boxing combinations. I made the comment that they looked like they were going faster or doing more complex things and he said, “They’re learning how to box. I’m teaching you how to fight.” He went on to explain that style points only matter in the ring when it goes down to the judges. That wasn’t what I was there to learn.
Slow and strong is better than fast and weak - As we got further into our work together, we did eventually get to more complex combinations of 7 to 9 punches fired all in a sequence. But frequently, a majority of the punches I threw were much more like glove taps because I was optimizing my stance and my movements for speed instead of strength. While an ideal fighter is both fast and strong if you have to pick one, pick strong and make every punch count. Being fast looks good, but if you don’t do any damage to your opponent, you’ll just end up tired.
The fastest way to learn how not to do something is to get punched in the face (or ribs) - Because we were boxing outside of the world of gyms and insurance and waivers, we couldn’t quite spar or have him throw even a love tap back at me. But, on an occasion, just the threat of seeing his hand coming toward my face when I dropped my guard or towards my ribs when I was leaving them unprotected while trying to look good on my combination, was enough to get me to rethink my posture and my commitment to defense so I could be around long enough to throw back some offense.
Footwork and Core Win - As we were getting back into the combinations and the flow from one punch to the next, I got in my head about how my hands and my arms looked. My focus on my upper body started to make everything hurt when I landed punches. He saw this and made me go throw all my combinations again, but with my hands behind my back and only focusing on my core and how it turned and my footwork and how they got me in position. We added the arms back to the exercise and all of a sudden, the punches were landing with a deeper pop on the pads and less pain in my arms. The power comes from your feet, is wound up in your core, and made visible through your fists.
Punch through the target - If you aim your punch to hit the target, the strongest part of your punch is happening prior to impact. If you aim your punch to drive through the target, the strength is hitting the target and then driving it backward. Kind of like setting a goal, if you only aim to reach the goal and not beyond, if you fail or have hardships come up on your way to the goal, you’ll miss it. But if you aim beyond the minimum acceptable goal, you’ll surely hit it and hit it hard
Know your advantage and exploit it - I have long arms and I am tall. After a little while, I started to see how that could be very advantageous for me when fighting and is the reason that wingspan, or reach, is always listed on the stats of the boxers before they enter the ring. My long arms allow me to keep my opponent further away from me until I am ready to throw a punch. But on the flip side, means that opponents with less reach have to get inside my striking distance to throw a punch at me. Knowing that it changes the way I would approach a fight and how I would look for my spots and look to defend.
It is not about the combination, it’s about the opportunity - For training, putting together combinations of punches all in a row is a good way to get familiar with coming in and out of punches from different starting points and angles. But in a fight, no one is walking up to their opponent and thinking, jab, jab, cross, hook, hook, uppercut - they’re looking for the openings and sitting on the patterns they’re seeing until one of the patterns they’ve recognized, like dropping your right glove every so slightly before firing off a left hook, you can make them miss and then make them pay. Sometimes it is rounds and rounds of taking punches while looking for your shot, but if you can recognize the patterns and be patient enough to wait for the right opportunity, victory is yours.
Today was our last session and I am pumped about all the work we did this fall. There is a lot of life lessons in a boxing lesson, but most importantly is always get back up and get back into the fight. When you have an opponent like 2020 coming at you like a relentless heavyweight, it’s not about speed or fancy footwork, it'‘s about playing good defense, knowing how to take a punch, but then coming back stronger from everything you learned.
For me, 2020 might be one of the best teachers I’ve had and I can’t wait to get up from this last round of punches and wait for the opportunities I’ve been seeing all year to come together into something that looks like a highlight reel combination that lands with speed and with strength in the days and months to come.