How I got started (in boxing) - Part One

How I got started (in boxing) - Part One

by Andrew Schweitzer

     If I had any exposure to boxing when I was younger, I certainly don't remember any of it. I grew up in a small little town in Ontario called Essex which is a hockey town. In fact, the first boxing memory I do recall with any clarity didn't happen until I was ten years old. It was hard to ignore the rematch between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson when Iron Mike riped a chunk out of Holyfield's ear.  It was all over the news and talk shows. I was disgusted by it and even more disgusted when he was only getting banned for one year. My conclusion was that boxing was a terrible, terrible sport. How little I knew back then...

     I was a nerd growing up. I can say it with a bit more confidence now since nerds are cool (So to speak), but when I was a little kid, I was more interested in Star Wars than sports. I grew up in a hockey town but couldn't care less about the Detroit Red Wings or the false hope that Toronto Maple Leaf fans install in themselves every year when they try to convince themselves that this is the year they finally win the Stanley Cup. Today it even horrifies some people that I don't give a damn about Stanley or his stupid cup.

     I was really underweight growing up. I remember being 12 and the most I could do on the scale was just 65 pounds. While I was content with being able to take a walk without having a heart attack, it was my sophomore year in high school that I was tired of looking like an anorexic. I decided to spend the next four months begging my parents for a weight-lifting bench and weights for Christmas. 

     It took a lot of convincing (See: begging and pleading) but I finally got it Christmas day and had it up by the new year. While my parents thought that I would get tired of it after a few lifts, it was quite the opposite. Once I had finished dinner I would be downstairs doing every sort of exercise I could do with the weights and my bar.


     Results came along slowly but they were visible. I remember my older sister coming home from college for a holiday and gasping at how much my body had changed. I felt bigger and stronger but at the same time it felt like something was missing.


     One day I was watching Raging Bull and decided to practice a few punches that DeNiro was doing. My dad saw my and exclaimed how I should join a boxing gym. I was optimistic about it but at the same time, I had other commitments. I was doing stage work, school, other things as well as the fact that there were no boxing gyms in my town. That and access to a vehicle was limited-my family had their own lives to lead.

     So for my birthday I asked for a punching bag which I received and quickly hung up in my garage and bought myself a pair of gloves. It was a used one but I didn't care. All I needed it to do was keep hanging in there as I wailed on it for hours on end. I would go out there for three hours and practice what little punching technique I knew which was primarily all the boxing scenes from Raging Bull. Punching felt good but to my unwrapped hands and bleeding knuckles, not so much. I decided that it was time to look for a club to train at. I'll get to that next week.