Stepping Into the Ring and Stepping Into Character
NOW and then, you make a decision that changes your life. You marry, get divorced, change jobs, take up boxing.
Boxing?
It seemed an absurd decision for a myopic, middle-aged man with no physical  grace. It was also one of the best.
Let's be honest. I did not do it to get in shape. I already was in decent shape, what with jogging and occasional weight lifting. I don't smoke, my cholesterol count is good, and my worst habit is drinking beverages that bring
on silly laughter.
What drew me to boxing, which at its worst can be so shabby and brutal? Someone once said that boxing is "the sport to which all other sports aspire." If all games are mock forms of combat, one could argue that boxing is the closest to the real thing. And is there another that demands such a blend of speed, strength, grace, endurance and courage?
Or perhaps there is a larger truth here, one which I will face later.
Two years ago, when I began to confide to friends that I was thinking of trying the sport, I was met with incredulous looks. "Aren't you afraid of getting hurt?" someone asked.
"No," I said. "I expect to get hurt."
I decided to try the Kingsway Boxing and Fitness Center at 40th Street and Eighth Avenue. It was close to my office (the gym has since moved to 28th Street and Fifth Avenue), and my research told me the people there would be no-nonsense. It is run by Michael Olajide Sr., a former fighter, whose son Michael Jr. lost a super-middleweight title fight to Thomas Hearns in 1990.
One day I walked in and saw a slender, unassuming young man who worked there. I told him what I wanted and he didn't laugh. I changed into workout togs and presented myself to him. He took me over to the wall-length mirror and drew two  chalk lines on the floor.
"Put your left foot here and your right foot there," he said.
That was the beginning. For the next hour, I practiced moving forward and backward in what seemed an unnatural, crab-like motion, trying to keep my weight evenly balanced and flicking out my left arm in what was supposed to be a jab.
I could keep my weight balanced, off and on. I could shoot my jab out straight (though I couldn't imagine hurting anyone with it) and bring my fist back smartly, so as not to leave my face unprotected. I could keep my hands high and my elbows fairly close together, so as to protect my midsection if I ever got in the ring.
But to do all those things together consistently was maddening, and to do them all in some kind of fluid motion, and quickly, while trying to hit an opponent and keep him from hitting me seemed inconceivable.
All around me there were real boxers. One of them was Tokunbo Olajide, the young man who had greeted me. He was another son of Michael Sr. Watching him work out, I realized he was slender only because his muscles were all cables and cords. He moved like a dancer, hit like a sledgehammer. He is one of the better  amateur boxers in the region.
Some of the men had necks like fire hydrants and backs like anvils, yet they  moved with a speed and grace that defied belief. Their fists struck the heavy bags with the sound of thunder. A few of them nodded, and a couple introduced themselves to me. They were friendly, which helped me get over my nervousness.
I went to the gym four or five times a week. The trainers had me hitting the  heavy bag while circling to my left, then throwing punches at pads they held in  front of them. I tried to hit the double-end bag, which bobs on a springlike cord stretched from floor to ceiling and which baffled me again and again, and the speed bag, which the real boxers could turn to a blur but which frustrated me no end. I skipped rope and did pushups, trying to get stronger.
Life in a boxing gym is timed by bells. For three minutes, the air is full of the sounds of fists slamming into leather, of jump ropes whirring in the air. A  bell sounds and there is a minute of near-silence, broken mainly by heavy breathing. The bell rings again, and the noise starts anew.
One day, while I was working on the heavy bag, a trainer said to me, "You've  got a lot of stamina." Progress.
Weeks, months went by. I bought a good pair of high-topped shoes and my own gloves. I saw that I was not the only one in the gym whose youth was behind him. I slimmed down, and my muscles tightened. I did more and more push-ups, reaching 30 or more at a time, doing 60, 70, 80 a day. People who had not seen me for a while said I looked much more fit.
I felt better about myself. Maybe that was part of the larger truth behind all this -- that I hoped by venturing into this world of canvas and leather to feel more manly. I knew I had paid my dues in sweat.
But not yet in blood. What I was doing so far was make-believe. I had yet to  get in the ring with someone. I confided to my bartender, who had been a serious boxer in his youth, that I hoped to spar sometime soon. "I'm not too worried," I said. "After all, I got my bell rung in high school football practice a couple of times."
He looked at me skeptically and said: "Ah, there's a difference. You get your bell rung in football and you go sit on the bench. You get your bell rung in boxing and you might get it rung again on the way down."
He left me alone with my thoughts, the main one being: What in heaven's name  am I doing?
One day in the gym, a trainer told me to fetch my headgear and mouthpiece. Then he asked, "Can you see without those glasses?" "I don't have to see very far," I replied.
Indeed not. That first day of sparring, all I saw were my opponents' fists coming at my face, landing more often than not. Most of my punches were swatted  away as if they were motes of dust. All that I thought I had learned about footwork, breathing evenly, keeping my chin down, seemed for naught. Each round  was an exhausting eternity.
Afterward, my face looked as if I had taken a bad fall. "I didn't belong in the ring," I told a trainer.
He smiled. "You've got a good strong jab," he said. "You just have to throw it more often."
Words have never meant more.
My confidence grew. My breathing improved. I could throw my jab with a lot more snap. Most important, my defense was better. And a good thing, I thought one day as I went against a man much younger and stronger. He landed some jabs on my headgear, but I caught him a few times, too. This is getting easier, I thought. All I have to do is circle to my left and keep my right hand. . . .
I can see it now in slow motion. His left arm comes straight out, locking at  full extension the instant his fist lands on my chin. Something goes "click" in  my head and my knees feel like jelly. I stay on my feet, barely, and finish the  round. Everything in boxing is hard, it seems.
The ring is no place for illusions, and I know there are men in my gym who could dispatch me in 10 seconds. (I steer clear of soft-spoken young men with crew cuts and tattoos; they're always tough.) I know that the supervised sparring I do is nothing like the deadly ballet that is high-stakes boxing. But  the blood that occasionally flows from my nose is as red as anyone else's.
I keep at it, knowing that the skill that would have helped me on the playground of my childhood is of no use now, except for conditioning.
Baloney. Here, finally, is the larger truth. To borrow from Joe Louis, I have been running from it, but I can no longer hide. I like feeling tougher -- all right, not as tough as Mike Tyson, but maybe tougher than some other office workers on the far side of 50. When I put on the gloves, swallow my fear, step into the ring and get hit, then come back for more, I feel alive. Anyone who wants to can laugh at that.
But let him try laughing through a mouthpiece.