On to the Next Chapter: No Double Entendre Intended

It’s been a good run.

That’s what I would say about my short-lived but well enjoyed amateur boxing career. But after a devastating decision at provincials last month, and a lackluster performance at box-offs, the run, it seems, is over.

I remember sitting in a classroom at the University of Regina in 2004 with my cooperating teacher (and a bunch of other prospective interns and their mentors). The task at hand was to create a list of personal and professional goals for the future. I turned a few heads with my “Compete at the 2008 Olympics” contribution. Heck, at that time, even to me, the goal was just as enchanting as its elusive achievement.

So I would spend the next three years working away at the sport of boxing, picking away at it really, deciphering it, getting inside of it, wearing it, and, at almost whimsical times, living it.

Flashes of memories hit me now like a too-fast slideshow. Running in frozen-faced blizzards with my dog, pounding leather with determined fists, a rib cracking here, a neck snapping there – sweat, blood, pride, war. There are shades of saddening defeat, and of maddening victory, the will to do more and to be more – the search for the invisible limit.

And then there are flutters, fleeting but clear, of glory.

And few people have understood, fewer still will understand; there is a plight to all this. There’s a guy in the mirror and a voice in your head that spurs you on, holds you back, gets you up, and beats you down all at once. In twenty-five fights he’s all I’ve ever met. Because the war against the self is repetitious and tedious; it begs of time and tears.

Because the war against the self is the war for the self. It’s strengthening in all its destruction.

With all that it sheds it builds.

When a man sweats off his 17 extra pounds, his extra skin, his baggage, his indulgence, his smug contentment, his weakness, all that is left is starving emotion. It’s only logical though; it takes a lot out of someone to put so much into something.

For the first two years it’s okay – because satiation comes in learning, not just winning. A loss is a lesson and an honour. But time marches on, and losses leave lessons behind in favour of sad surprise: Provincials 2007. Then the will starts to go, and the baggage creeps back in. The emotion goes and the old pounds and guilt retake their place. The logic goes and the nonsense manifests: Box-offs 2007. It sucks when opportunity knocks but it’s coming from next door: Olympics 2008.

But, thank God, the long and learned hunger for self-betterment remains.

And so the will walks out of the ring and into a book.

I’m on page 45 so far. Go Riders Go.

- Khodi