It’s weird but there are actually five fairly recent entries in my daily journal about…BOXING?
I know. Who would’ve ever guessed that boxing would be something I would think about, write about, or more importantly, blog about?! But boxing has been this major theme on my mind for the past month or so, and today, my musings have all converged into a flowing stream of thoughts I want to write about on my blog.
My boxing fixation started when Lou and I watched this incredibly interesting documentary on Muhammad Ali, and then a couple of weeks later, we watched the movie Ali with Will Smith. Then, there’s this really kind friend in my life named Robinson — his dad is the caretaker of a wedding property that I work a lot in my side hustle, and I’ve gotten to know Robinson and his dad, Enrique, pretty well over the years. Anyway, Robinson is a young boxer and mixed-martial arts fighter, and my chats with him about his “passion for pugilism” have sort of added some new layers to my thoughts.
But today, on my hike, I think my thoughts about boxing kind of turned into this amalgam of sorts that added some weight to the thoughts and feelings I’m sincerely fighting to understand at the moment. I feel like it’s quite right to say that I find myself standing just outside of this old familiar boxing ring that I haven’t been in for some time, and in many ways, I feel like I’m bobbing and weaving just to stay on my feet…
But right now, I’m also wondering if this fight has ever been mine, to begin with…?
There is a very important person in my life who has pulled me into and pushed me out of this metaphorical boxing ring over and over again for the past 25+ years. So it’s a ring I know very well, yet it’s one that has never created any sense of victory for me — even when I’ve pictured the ref raising my hands up to give me the unanimous decision I believe I deserve. But what I realize all these years later is that when you’re fighting against someone you love, there’s never a winner — particularly when the fight ends in a knockout. I think that’s because now I understand that in relationships, you can only really feel the satisfaction of a win when you fight for people, not against them, and that’s a distinction this particular person in my life and I can never seem to make.
But for me, I have to say that I believe this person is worth fighting for, and I know for a fact that’s why I usually end up finding myself being drawn back into an unwindable emotional battle that usually leaves all involved kind of bloody and raw. I always think I’m in the ring for the right reasons, but a few suck-punches to the face usually disorients me so much I completely lose track of my more honorable motives.
When I was watching the documentary on Muhammad Ali, I was completely fascinated by his mind and the literal poetry of his fighting. Of course, his rhymes before a fight are classics, but what I noticed while watching the film was how dialed in Ali was when it came to dancing with his opponent’s inner fighter — not just the guy who showed up in the ring. When Ali would employ the “rope a dope” strategy — where he’d allow his heavy-weight opponent to push him up against the ropes, and then draw him in so he’d start to fatigue from throwing an exhausting series of “non-injuring” punches to his body — there was something so inspiring about the way Ali could take those punches.
I guess he just understood how to absorb the blows because he was looking at the bigger battle inside of his opponent — not just the one that he was fighting with the boxer in the ring.
He knew how to wear down the fighter from the outside-in so all his opponent had left was his will to win, nothing more.
And Ali absolutely knew how formidable his own will would be…
For me, the blows that matter in my boxing ring show up in the form of words — not punches. But when you’re wired the way I am, verbal blows can take a real toll, and at times, they can land in such a way that causes me to feel physically bruised. And when something feels physically painful, the desire to defend myself gets too strong to contain sometimes, and I end up throwing my share of low blows and well-placed jabs that forever leave a mark on this person I wish I never had to fight.
For the past several days, I’ve been watching a battle with this person unfold, and I’ve done everything I can to keep myself out of the fight — yet, even when I’m on the outside of the ring, I might as well be in it because too many people I love are hurting each other right in front of me. I want to get in the ring and break up the fight, I guess, but I know from past experiences, venturing into this particular battle can often turn all of the focus all onto me, and suddenly, I’ve helped no one, and…I’m the slow-moving target that attracts all of the most decisive blows.
So this time, when the fight bell went, “ding, ding,” I did everything I could not to mix in…
And so when the punches and the jabs were being thrown, I felt the fight differently in my being. I could feel how well the “rope a dope” can work when you let your opponent punch and jab until he has nothing left to give, and, I could somehow feel that the power of this opponent’s punches came from a place of fear, heartache, and addiction that only looked like anger, rage, and hate. They were coming from the inner fighter in this person, but when no one punched back, his hits and jabs revealed how vulnerable and weak he was growing inside of himself.
My kind friend Robinson once made a comment in passing that he probably doesn’t even remember saying to me — but it left me with an important impression. After he answered some of my questions about what motivates him to get into a ring with a fighter who’s amped-up enough to take his head off, Robinson simply said, “I love the feeling of overcoming his power with mine.”
It was the first time I ever had a personal exchange with a boxer like that, but it mixed in well with my impressions from the Muhammed Ali documentary and film. There are some people in this world that have the kind of will that needs the expression of the fight. And, when the battle is contained in the honesty of mastering the will to win and defeat the opponent inside of yourself as well as the adversary in the ring, that makes sense to me. I actually admire that kind of fight because it’s the manifestation of this internal grit that spills over into your character, I suppose. It’s the kind of intangible quality that makes a guy like Robinson or Ali go to radical extremes to beat their bodies into the kind of shape that makes the “rope a dope” a pounding they can endure while never losing heart or their will to keep striving.
I’ve stepped away from the ring after what could’ve been a very ugly fight this week. It wasn’t pretty to watch…but I want to believe that no one threw any punches that they can’t survive. And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t hurl any words I can never take back. That’s progress for me, and I feel some hope in my heart that the person I love — who is in this battle for his own life — will one day understand how important he is to me, and how my prayers for him have always contained my most honest words.
So what I’m thinking about the most today is this:
