Earlier today as my trainer was instructing me to bend those knees a little deeper and really use momentum to jump on what some would call a, ahem, 10 inch platform, I heard these words come out of my mouth: “yeah, but I don’t trust myself”.
I took up boxing last summer after reading this INC article, “Hit me: Inside San Francisco’s Founders Fight club” about silicon valley’s brightest and most successful using boxing to become “less afraid of conflict”. If anyone needed to get better at speaking up and confronting conflict it was this girl and if getting punched in the face meant I’d be more likely to voice my opinion, this money-maker was all yours.
I spent my May, June and July up at 530AM in the ring with Ricky–it took all I had to drag my ass out of bed after 12 hours of paperwork and contract negotiations (this was in transformers pre-production of course) but I was committed and hitting things wasn’t the worst way to relieve some Bayhem stress. It felt great to start my day swinging, when you focus on punching another person and avoiding being punched back everything else fades away.
My sessions with Ricky quickly ended when the film crew arrived and production picked up; 20 hour days don’t leave a lot of room for sparring. Soon enough, summer faded away and when the circus left town in October so did I.
Ricky and I were over.
When I got to Seattle I knew I needed something that was mine, a routine. My boxing gloves were staring at me from the corner of my closet so I put them in a box and shut the lid, “You’re nothing to me without Ricky”, I thought as I closed the closet door. My boxing days were behind me, how could anything ever compete with those hot summer mornings with Ricky?
And then one day my friend convinced me to join her gym so we could work out together. Weeks of treadmills and dumbbells went by and nothing had changed (and my gym partner moved to Portland, thanks a lot Liz) Then I met Jennifer. Jennifer and I had one of those “consultations”–You know where the gym sets you up with some random trainer and you talk about your “fitness goals”. Well if you don’t know this about me already, I’ll let you in on a little secret, I’m a sucker for a good conversation and a great deal. So as I sat in that small, smelly trainer’s office and got to know Jennifer she mentioned that she was a trained fighter. My boxing gloves starting calling me all the way from a top Capitol Hill. There was no turning back; 45 minutes later Jennifer and I were set up for 10 one on one sessions at 40% off original price.
So there I was today, in session 5, staring at this, yes 10 inch platform, wondering why in the hell I can’t just jump up and land my two feet right on top. As I heard the words “I don’t trust myself” come out of my mouth I caught Jennifer smirking out of the corner of my eye. And suddenly I realized she knew; we weren’t just there for the boxing, we were there for the transformation.
See Ricky had been a great sparring partner, and he wasn’t too hard to look at either. We focused on staying fit and moving around the ring, I got to a point where I could go 00:1:30 rounds without needing Pedialyte. But Jennifer is different. Jennifer is all about using boxing not only as a technique to get fit, but as a technique to become mentally stronger. Jennifer is preparing me for the fight–not necessarily in the ring or on the street when I may or may not get attacked by one of these Seattle weirdos, but for the every day struggle of being alive. She is training me to fight the negativity in my head, to replace “I’m not sure” with “Get out of my way”. Jennifer is helping me get my power back.
My next jump was smooth, my feet landed flawlessly on to that 10 inch platform and I thought to myself “Trust, ain’t nothin but a you thang baby.”
15 inch platform here I come.
What do you do to work on mental strength? How do you learn to trust yourself? Share with me in the comments section below or tweet me on twitter @TeresaSabatine!
Teresa Sabatine 