A few months ago, I joined the world of boxing. Ever since the seventh grade, when my dad secretly signed me up for athlete bootcamp classes, I’ve had an affection for exercising at high intensities. I am a high-energy human, so the aggressive tire flips and sprint intervals that I, football bros and tennis girls did fit my personal disposition.
As I grew up, I gravitated towards other high-intensity classes or workouts, which eventually led me to teach cardio strength interval training fitness classes during my undergraduate years at Notre Dame and join a CrossFit gym during the summers.
Newly graduated and transitioning to the world of work, I decided to try a new style of fitness. My job is the co-ordinator for Self-Healing Communities of Greater Michiana, a non-profit whose goal is to teach our community to take care of themselves and others in a way that prioritizes the nervous system.
All my work is centred around brain care, and one of the best things we can do for our brains is to try something new to challenge them. Learning new skills forms new connections between brain cells, which helps build the brain’s synaptic flexibility. I am all about caring for my brain, so trying something outside my comfort zone, like boxing, seemed like the right decision. A new skill and a form of movement that requires high energy sounded like a great decision!
I signed up for a month-long commitment. Two to three sessions a week. One hundred dollars. Not too much risk in trying it out.
The first session wrecked me
My coach was immediately inviting and reassured me that I did not need to have any previous skills to join. But dang, that first session wrecked me. Nine minutes of straight jump rope. Around 30 minutes of stepping. Yes. Simply stepping one foot in front of the other. Right leg forward first, then the left follows from behind.
“Keep an angle. Never let your body become square. Legs at a comfortable, slightly wider than shoulder distance from each other.”
I didn’t know learning to move my body in a forward motion would take so much concentration. I didn’t know there were so many parts to how a boxer moves their body.
Each session developed into newer variations, building new skills upon older ones. Nine minutes of jump rope turned into 12 minutes of jump rope. Stepping forward turned into stepping sideways, which has turned into stepping with jabs. Punch (forward step, right), punch (forward step, left), punch (back step, left), punch (back step, right), step to the right (right, then left). My mind ached while integrating it all together. It seemed silly, but the simplest movements can be the most tedious to master.
Boxing is my new Yoga. Every step has a purpose. Every jab has to be connected to my breath.
I joined boxing not only to challenge my brain, but to satisfy my itch of high-intensity workouts. I realized working out at such high intensities has been a space of distraction from connecting to my body. With high-intensity workouts, I can turn on auto-pilot during burpees or bicep curls.
Sure, I feel my heart rate go up or the pain of the muscles working, but the mental grit of making sure my technique is 10/10 or that my breath is connected to the movement is not something I’ve really needed to focus on to be satisfied with a workout. I thought boxing would be similar. I thought it would be a hard, cardio-intensive workout, but one where I could let my mind wander.
Well, I thought wrong about what boxing would be to me. It ended up feeling a whole lot more like Yoga than CrossFit. Odd.
Yoga is the type of movement where my mind is required to focus: focus on my breath, focus on an awareness of where my body is spatially, focus on how I am feeling. Boxing is a completely different movement, but holds the same principles.
Boxing is my new yoga. Every step has a purpose. Every jab has to be connected to my breath. I have to be aware of where my feet are placed to keep proper alignment.
“Learn your body. Learn when you start to feel off.”
“Slow down. Get down the move before you add power. Take a second to recentre.”
“Do you see where your body is angled?”
“Relax your shoulders.”
“Don’t forget to breathe.”
“Boxing is all about getting into a rhythm.”
These all sounded like the ‘Yoga with Adriene’ YouTube videos I would listen to on the floor of my dorm room. I didn’t think that these would be the same messages I would hear my coach share with me while boxing. I thought all I was going to do was punch a bag as hard as I could and do some cardio moves.
A sense of groundedness
It makes sense, why boxing is similar to Yoga. Boxing is an embodied sport. Your body is your weapon, your tool, your equipment. Just like a baseball player needs to know how to use their bat or a soccer player needs to be one with the ball, a boxer needs to know their body. If I don’t have the right foundation, if I am not grounded in myself, I am going to get the crap slapped out of me.
Boxing has brought me the knowledge that I don’t even realize when my shoulders are tense. I don’t realize that I breathe through my mouth when jump-roping, and I don’t realize I am at such a disconnect from my body and what it is doing.
I signed up for boxing thinking that I was going to take my mind off of me. It would be a place to escape myself. But I think I am being called to learn another lesson, that I need to connect more with myself. I need to learn the art of knowing exactly where I am.
If I am ever going to throw a proper punch, I have to be focused, with a sense of groundedness in the location and stability of my body. I have to have a Yogi’s sense of self-awareness. I welcome this new lesson and am eager to see how it progresses in the future.
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image 1: Pete Linforth; image 2: KoolShooters; image 3: Cottonbro Studio
