“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Mike Tyson
What a meaningful quote and metaphor for so many things in life. Handling adversity or crises or dealing with failure or unexpected difficulty. Or in my case, when you actually get punched in the face!! Because that saying really comes to life when you get to get hit and realize you have no idea what to do. Whatever you’ve practiced or were planning goes out the window and, in a word, you’re fucked.
I started exploring boxing lessons about three years ago. I found a personal trainer, Clarence from Solace Fitness, who was willing to do one-hour training sessions. The first 30 minutes focused on agility and strength, and the last 20 minutes on boxing lessons. Clarence held the heavy bag for me, taught me some technique, then held the mitts and taught me even more technique, rhythm, and the basics of slipping punches.
Let me tell you about slipping punches. Even after weeks and weeks of Clarence literally telling me the left was coming now (holding it up) and then punching at ¾ speed and telling me to move right I still had trouble slipping it. Often I’d slip into it, like steering your car into a ditch instead of avoiding it or walking into a puddle instead of around it. Or um, like walking into a punch. You know, being a dope.
Clarence was skilled enough to still not hit me even when I slipped the wrong way into it. He’d somehow punch around the fool.
Eventually, after a few months of Clarence signaling the hand and punching slowly, I was able to find a little rhythm and avoid most of them. I was a boxer.
But then I wondered to myself: what would happen if the person punching me didn’t call out, signal and hold up the hand he was punching me with? Enter Six, my next boxing teacher.
When Clarence left the Bay Area I asked for a recommendation to a boxing gym in Oakland. A real fighting gym in Oakland. I grew tougher the minute I walked in the door. Hello Rocky VI. Or is it VIII?
The original Rocky had a huge influence on me. I was a kid growing up in Philadelphia and Rocky was the shit in Philly. It was the best thing that ever happened to me and to the City of Brotherly Shove. I was obsessed with Rocky and boxing, and at that time Muhammad Ali was still fighting and Sugar Ray Leonard was just starting out. It was a great time for boxing and being a kid obsessed with it. And then when Hulk Hogan and Mr. T appeared in Rocky III it was just too good to be true. A sports orgasm. Sportsgasm. All of my world’s colliding. Sports and pop culture heaven.
Soon after the first Rocky I asked my Uncle Herbie, the only tough member of my family, to show me how to box. Uncle Herbie apparently had worked at a gym or knew how to box or knew just enough to make him dangerous. By the way, it’s a problem when the toughest person in your family is named Herbie. But that’s another story.
So, Uncle Herbie showed me a few moves, and while I was dancing like Muhammad Ali, floating like a butterfly… I was not stinging like a bee. I was fluttering like a one-winged hummingbird. Uncle Herb’s quote to me after doing this a few times was, “you couldn’t box oranges.”
For years I wondered what he meant. How can you box an orange? They don’t have arms. Maybe that’s an advantage that I would need? You can squeeze an orange, but that’s different. And is the juice worth the squeeze? Anyway, I couldn’t figure out what Herbie the love bug meant, other than I was bad at boxing. But why the orange reference?
Years later as an adult, my literal mind realized (or was it that someone told me?) that boxing oranges was something you did at a plant. The oranges were picked, came in on a truck and you put them in boxes or crates. You boxed oranges. It was a metaphor. My whole world opened up.
What else was I missing? Was shrimp cocktail not a drink? Fruit salad not something that you put Wishbone Italian dressing on?
Back to my new trainer, Six. Six is his real name. I had to ask him to make sure, given the whole boxing oranges thing. Maybe it was Five and I was pronouncing it wrong? Or maybe people are named after numbers and I was just not hip to it. Meet my friend 538.
Anyway, after Six saw me flailing in a couple of the group boxing classes, we agreed that he’d be my personal boxing trainer. After all, you never know when your next bar fight or office fight is going to happen. And those AARP meetings get pretty contentious.
Six has taught me everything. How to punch properly, using my hips and legs, how to hit the speed bag, the teardrop heavy bag, and importantly how to avoid punches. Sort of avoid.
In the beginning Six would signal his punches too. He’d hold up a right, shake it, and say, it’s coming. And some of the time I’d slip it, knock it away, or step back properly. He couldn’t cue a punch any better. One time he rented a billboard on Time Square just to let me know it was coming.
Eventually, though we had the take the next step. This meant after a lot of training on how to avoid or block punches, Six would throw them at me and not tell me which hand it was coming from. Can you imagine the nerve? And he wouldn’t tell me where it was going to land. And man did they land.
The minute Six was throwing punches freestyle everything went out the window. I was a panicky mess. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. And when they landed it got worse. If you don’t slip or block the first one, you ain’t blocking the second one. You just stand there stunned with your hands flailing somewhat dazed thinking: I just got punched in the face! Then Six would hit me in the gut, for equal time.
He wasn’t hitting me as hard as he could or even hard at all. If he was, I’d be writing this from the memory ward of the pre-mature aging assisted-living center. But he was hitting me, and it hurt. I was trying to cover up but he was tagging me like a Facebook post.
The best thing was, despite forgetting my technique in the moment, it was exhilarating. I was getting punched in the face and I couldn’t have been happier and prouder. What a man, what man, what a mighty good man… I left the gym like a warrior, fresh from the final battle of Braveheart. I was ready to audition for Fight Club II: Golden Years.
This last week during some freestyling I actually blocked and slipped a few punches and panicked 50% less. Some got through to remind me that I’m still a chump, but I’m making progress. I’m ready for oranges, apples and the whole fruit salad. I have a plan!
Uncle Herbie! Badass! Good stuff Dave
you continue to make me LOL!