Boxing mentality

I’m a pro-gym-class-boxer. Put me into a real life fight with a girl of equal strength and I would have no idea what to do. But inside the safety of a structured gym class, watch out! I can punch that bag with a structured timing that frightens me.

‘Go team!’ shouts the instructor. ‘Punch, punch, kick, kick,’

The girl on the other side of the bag is out of time. Our kicks coincide on the same side of the bag and our toes crunch together

painfully. This annoys me. We both end up standing there awkwardly trying to jump back into the timed rhythm, lifting one knee then the other, hopping about awkwardly like a pained grasshopper. The set ends and we’re standing there almost at resting heart rate, sweat-free.

After a year of sporadically attending these ‘boxing’ classes, I’m now an expert at following instructions. I know the style of my particular instructor; I know what’s coming next, and when the end is nigh. I know that you need to follow directions, not think too much, and go with the flow. Otherwise you achieve nothing. Lateral thinking and intelligence is not rewarded. I’m like a thug or a hit man.

I was once a moderately active person. I spend my entire teenage years training as a gymnast, and until recently danced intensively as a hobby. Now, I occasionally attend gym ‘boxing’ classes merely to get the blood flowing faster than its now normally stagnant rate. As my PhD progresses, so too has the length of time I spend sitting in front of the computer, eating chocolate, and drinking wine. Lower back pain is reaching an all-time high.

But there’s something good to be said about gym-class-boxing as a PhD-stress-reliever. Once a week, I get the opportunity to punch that boxing bag like my life depends on it. “Take that, stupid microscope that I can never get to work, take that!” Relief ensures.

So surely it’s all about my boxing mentality. Perhaps now, during my PhD, isn’t the time to be mourning the lack of competitive sports in my life. So, I’ll appreciate these classes for what they are: the easiest way to get the blood flowing, improve my mood, and make it through my PhD.