My first love

Wow, I've been posting a lot this week. Good for me, hopefully it'll create some momentum.

But I had a run-in today with my first love today, and I must admit, it fit me like a glove. A boxing glove.

I've written before about my first time joining a gym in Philadelphia four years ago, and when I moved to Boston in September 2006, one of the first tasks I completed - before even buying a kitchen table - was to join a gym. Partly I did this because I knew I wanted to get fit and lose weight, but partly it was because I was bored at this seemed like the "grown-up" thing to do.

So I worked out at the BSC in Wellesley for about 8 months, going through the motions, until I saw a sign-up for small group classes. Well, I didn't want to run outdoors (icky), I couldn't tell you what a "Pilates Ring" was (still can't), and I certainly didn't need prenatal yoga (and hopefully won't for a long while) ... but there was something that caught my eye: boxing.

I signed up on a whim and I fretted about it for two weeks until the sessions began. What if everyone else knew what they were doing and laughed at me? What if the class was all huge guys with giant muscles who are going to kick my ass? What if I'm so out of shape that I collapse? My inner fears nearly ate me alive, until the first class arrived.

I didn't fall in love at first. Mostly I had pain in my right shoulder (pre-existing condition) and I couldn't believe how terrible I was at jump-roping. But through my 3 eight-week sessions, I slowly gained strength and courage, skills and enthusiasm. I became friends with the only other person in the class and built a good training relationship with the instructor. For the first time in a gym, I knew what I was doing (sort of) and I looked forward to Tuesdays at 6pm. And when it came time for me to leave Boston Sports Club (I moved and there wasn't a convenient location), I knew that the thing that I would miss the most would be boxing.

I never really found a replacement for boxing, and while I love weight training and yoga and running, I don't yet feel as passionate about them as I do about boxing. I wonder if I ever will find another athletic activity that brings me the same levels of euphoria and empowerment that I feel when I'm punching in jabs, crosses, uppercuts and hooks. I don't know that it's really the boxing that I love or the memory of that first time that I thought, "I am strong, I am powerful, I can do this."

You can imagine my excitement when last night, I walked into my personal training gym and was handed a set of boxing gloves by the trainer. We'd done boxing sessions once or twice before, but as part of interval training. This time, I could tell that he had his hands full with some new clients who needed more orientation to activity than I would, and I think he remembered how excited I get every time I get those gloves near a heavy bag, so he just let me go for the full length of time, giving occasional suggestion and also forcing me to take breaks, because I would have forgotten in the midst of my boxing haze.

I'm really happy with my gym right now, but when it comes time to move on again, I think I'm going to try to get back into boxing. I don't know what it is about that sport, but when you find something that makes you feel that alive, you sort of have to follow it, don't you?