Frejah, Tina, And A Really Dumb Hobby ~ Or, That Time I Tried Boxing

On beating yourself up

Almost everyone does it. I’m not sure why.

After the fact (or even during it) all the blame, second-guessing and paralysis. We say things to ourselves that we’d never permit anyone else to say. Why?
1. It leaves us bruised and battered, unlikely to do our best work while you’re recovering.
2. It hurts our knuckles.
3. It distracts us from the work at hand.

Perhaps there’s a more humane and productive way to instill positive forward motion. I’m sure there is.
At the very least, this is a dumb hobby.
~ Seth Godin

Once, back in the nineties, I took a boxing class.
I figured that with the boss I had and all of the sex I wasn’t having—I must have a lot of hostility to work out. And besides, I had read in Vogue that you could burn 1200 calories an hour boxing!

Sign . Me. Up.

The instructor, a tall, Mandingo Warrior named Frejah (pronounced Free-Jay) who trained professional fighters at a famous gym in Venice, would have us carefully bind our fists with tape, lace up our gloves, and stand in front of a six-foot tall dark blue leather punching bag that was suspended by a heavy black chain from the ceiling. Every class he’d stand behind us, kicking our legs into a wider stance as he ghetto-yelled “encouragement” which could have easily been mistaken for harassment—all in the name of motivation.

“Come on you little pussy” He’d holler at Kenneth, a guy who came in wearing a white shirt with a pocket protector, “You couldn’t hurt your grandmother, who by-the-way, said to say hello to you this morning.”

Some of us may have giggled.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?!” he swooped in beside me and bellowed in my ear like a drill sergeant, “Do ya?!” I shook my head no emphatically as I pawed at the bag like a baby kitten. “Is that how you hit a fucking bag?!”

He went and stood in front of all of us as we tried in vain just to make the heavy bag swing on the chain.
We all sucked. And this was like week four.

“Hit the fucking bag!” he screamed, foam escaping the sides of his snarled lips. “Hit it like you mean it!”

There was a timid girl next to me, Tina, wearing glasses and a ponytail. Her face was filled with determination but every time she hit the bag her glove would just slide off and she’d almost do a face-plant on the behemoth. Frejah became silent as he watched her punch and lose her balance, punch and lose her balance.

His silence was not a good thing. It meant that the pressure was building—and he was about to blow!

I couldn’t watch.

As I sent a flurry of kitten punches into the body of my bag, Frejah got into Tina’s face. Inches away he started sneering insults. “What the hell do you think you’re doing you little mamby pamby?”

I had no idea what that meant, it just sounded bad. Weak and lame. Frejah was right. We were a bunch of mamby pambys.

He grabbed the glasses off her face and tossed them over to the side. Oh, fuck, I thought, How do I watch what’s about to happen and still look like I’m hitting the bag? My talented right eye traveled over somewhere around my ear to get a good view. (It never happened before—and it has never happened since.)

Frejah was yelling obscenities at Tina while pushing her in the chest with his glove.
Goading her to hit him.
“Your daddy an asshole?” he sneered, “I bet he’s a reeeeeal piece a work. You hate him dontcha?” He pushed Tina a little harder with just one gloved fist.

“Hit me. I’m your shitty daddy. Hit me! You know you want to!”

But that bitch stood her ground. She didn’t budge. Until she did.
Without so much as blinking Tina landed a solid left hook squarely on Frejah’s right jaw. Then she walked out. I found out later that she drove all the way home (without her glasses!) with her hands still bound in the bright red boxing gloves.

We all froze in place like life-size, mamby pamby ice sculptures. Frejah barely flinched. His glove went up to his face and he nodded. I think I saw..admiration?

After waiting the appropriate three minutes to thaw,  I found my nerve, grabbed Tina’s glasses off the floor, unlaced my gloves, and never went back to class. Boxing had started to seem like a really dumb hobby, dangerous in more ways than one. I decided to take up running. Getting run over by a car seemed like a gentler way to go than boxing with Frejah.

One of the guys who stayed, told me later that Frejah only got more abusive as the months went on (it was a twelve-week class) but that in his defense everyone who stayed (one heavily tattooed girl who was more masculine than Vin Diesel, and looked like she could kick the shit out of Frejah if given the chance—and five guys) —they all got REALLY good.

I guess that form of abuse “motivates” some people.

I met Tina that Saturday for coffee at Borders to give her back her glasses and basically say, “What the fuck, girl?!” I told her I wasn’t going back. Tina nodded, “Frejah sounds like all the voices in my head,” she said, “I don’t need to pay someone to talk to me like that!”

“I know. What a dick,” I agreed.

“But I can’t tell you how silent the voices have been since that night. I think I scared the shit out of them!” Tina laughed.
So did I.
Then she leaned in, “And for the first time in over three years I called my horrible father” she whispered like he might hear her. “How did Frejah know?” She looked at me with an odd combination of wisdom and naiveté.

“It’s his job. I think guys like that can smell it,” I said and went to order a giant slab of pumpkin bread so I didn’t have to think about how much I wanted to slug my shitty dad.

Maybe I should have kept boxing?

Carry on,
xox