My hipster experience with boxing
(Originally published on my personal blog on Dec 23, 2016.)
I didn’t grow up in the inner cities of America, nor am I from Mexico, or Russia, or even England. I was a graduate student from Hong Kong studying physics. People like me are not supposed to be boxers, which is probably why I wasn’t that good at it, but hey, I had my fun.
I wouldn’t consider myself a true boxer, in the sense that I wasn’t groomed into boxing due to my surroundings by the age of 12. I was drawn to it as a fan first, probably due to how the sport is portrayed in pop culture. Therefore, as much as I hate to admit, I am probably what one would called a “hipster boxer”, a tourist of the sweet science that is boxing. After all, I do wear glasses with large plastic frames. But I have never gone to one of those $100 a month yoga/kickboxing/cross fit gyms either. Not that there is anything wrong with them, but I have always preferred good ole boxing clubs with old newspaper clippings on the walls and duct tapes on the bags.
But just as much as someone who boasts their homemade Pho over the ones at Trader Joe’s, me debating about the authenticity of a boxing gym probably only makes me seem more of a hipster. Man, this whole hipster name calling thing, you just can’t win.
Teenage Angst
My bout with boxing was kickstarted by a bad break up and a $5 copy of Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. In need of validating my newly found and lost masculinity, I took inspiration from the movie’s main character, who was experiencing a mid-life crisis, and completely missed the point of the movie.
I found out that my university had a boxing club, but it was a hilly mile and a half away. I didn’t have a car at the time and it was too far to walk, especially in Michigan winter. Then I found a short cut that was not only shorter, but also must less hilly — the train track.
At the time, it was not stupidly obvious to me that it was dangerous to walk along a train track at night. I guess it was one of those things that you’d expect everybody to know once you knew it — like how Earth is round. If I have gotten run over by a train, I probably wouldn’t have felt sorry for myself.
Anyway, that’s how I started boxing.
Outside of my In-Group
After getting my BS from Michigan, I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee for graduate school. University of Tennessee didn’t have a boxing club, but the city has one and it was free! It was called the Golden Gloves Boxing Arena, and it had a good mix of people who would later become my friends. It was a diverse group that was quite different from the friends I met through my doctoral program in physics.
Then every year, all the frats at the university would organize a boxing tournament, and dozens of freshmen who have never boxed before would flood the gym, trying to hone the sport in two months’ time, and earn a shot at glory in front of hundreds of sorority girls. This was great for the regular boxers because we got to try out new techniques with these new guys — moves that are too difficult to pull off against more seasoned fighters. I learned how to throw bolo punches and shift stances that way.
The final tourney usually lasts around 3 days. The gym used to host it and every night the crowd would pack the place way pass what the fire code allows. Having never been invited to a tail gate or a frat party before, it was quite an awe-inspiring display of testosterone.
In the end, boxing helped me to better blend in the American culture, and showed me many different walks of life that I’d have never had the chance to encounter otherwise. Many international students choose to, or are chosen to accomplish the same by attending churches, but boxing was my kind of church. And in a way, I’d like to think that my church was more organic and genuine.
My First Fight
After almost 5 years of being on and off training, chickening out on fights, and having opponents chickening out, I finally got in the ring and did my three rounds.
Because I am not a US citizen, I wasn’t allowed to compete in ranked matches. A ranked match contributes to one’s chance at trying out for the national team — who would want to take a fight with no consequence or reward? Not a lot of people. But there are some, and on April 13th of 2013, there were two. I was one of them, the other person’s name was Dakota Sellers. That was his second fight. It was my first.
I was in control throughout the first round, slipping most of Sellers’ punches. I even landed a decent uppercut that sent him into a standing eight count early in the round. Then during the second round I walked into a straight right hand that sent me tumbling backwards until I was caught by the ropes.
But I wasn’t hurt, or at least that was how I felt at the time. I actually remember thinking to myself, “oh no, the ref is gonna give me a standing eight count because I lost my balance”. It was not until I watched the tape that I saw the punch — you can hear his right hand landing on my face around the 3:45 mark.
This false sense of invincibility probably helped me regain my posture, because pretty soon I was back in the fight. Sellers was bigger than me, but I had a tad more experience and was beginning to find openings. During the third round his nose started to bleed and the ringside doctors actually stopped the clock a couple times to check on his nose. I was a little upset that they didn’t just call the fight and give me the KO win. I later won by unanimous decision.
I had my second fight a few months later in Jonesville, Virginia, against someone named Damien Hamlin, who later also did some MMA fighting. It was hosted in the gymnasium of a local high school. I won by split decision. My final record was a measly 2–0.
No Last Hoorah
I guess this is where I’m supposed to give some kind of life lesson, but I have none. However, since saying exact this is also considered a cliche, I’ll try to come up with something.
I like boxing. You sweat a little, bleed a little, and cry a little if you’re a baby. It teaches you how to take a punch, or at least what a punch feels like, and that should have some metaphorical meaning in itself, I’m sure of it. You can jump your ropes, hit your bags, box your shadows, work your mitts all day long, but ultimately you’d have to step in the ring, and fight with another human being. Not a grand challenge to overcome or a symbolic mountain to climb, just another human being, just like yourself, plus or minus a few pounds. Then you’d expose each other and make each other learn from their mistakes, usually by punching at them repeatedly.
Every once a while you’ll have to face someone who is a little crazy, but if you know your basics, and you better do, you can take comfort in knowing that crazy won’t get you too far. Just watch out for the wild swings, keep your hands up, bob and weave and step to the side, and you should be okay, at least for most of the time.
Throughout the years I have had a torn rotator cuff, two broken ribs, a slipped disk, numerous sprained wrists and ankles, and the worst of them all — a permanently deviated septum. But these injuries aren’t the reason I have stopped boxing, it was more just laziness. That and the new city I have moved to doesn’t have an “authentic” boxing gym near me. So, I have “hung up the gloves” for now, but hey, I’m only 31, I might lace them back up one day.
And to those $100 a month white collar fight clubs, I say never! Not because I’m better than them, but because c’mon, $100 a month just to get beaten up? I’m not that stupid, not if I can do it for free.
