Sweet Science: A Love Story Continues...

By 2007, I had been training at Edge MMA (then known as Grapplers Edge), for about 3 quiet years, concentrating mostly on Jujitsu and nogi grappling. One Saturday, I was visiting the Denver County Jail as a volunteer chaplain for Islamic services​, driving directly from an Open Mat grappling session, so I was wearing an Edge t-shirt at the time. One of the deputies approached me in the hallway and asked me where I had gotten my shirt. I told him that I got it from the school that I train at. The deputy frowned and replied that he trained there as well and had never seen me there...

“Hmmm…Is this another of those challenges?” I wondered - it was commonly known at the jail that I was an ex-con who was now providing religious services to inmates and I had clashed with a deputy or two who did not necessarily respect me or what I was doing because of my past; so my hackles went up immediately at this possibly becoming another one of those incidents. I told the deputy that I had primarily been going for jujitsu and grappling and that for the bulk of the last three years I was there only on Saturdays and maybe one other day during the week and that only recently due to a schedule change had I been going on Tuesdays and Thursday nights.

The deputy explained that he was one of the boxing coaches and thus was there on Mondays Wednesdays and some Fridays and that it was no surprise that we missed each other. He then invited me to drop in on boxing classes comma and invitation I graciously accepted. Little did I know that this deputy I’d warily encounter in a jail hallway would become my coach - and friend - for a decade, and running.

At 37 I had had sparse boxing training beginning back when I was 9 years old in Maryland. Every now and then I would encounter a heavy or speed bag and get a little workout, but for the most part I was really not much of a boxer as much as a basic street fighter. I remember many of the fundamentals I learned as a kid and often employed them whenever I found myself in a brawl and I have to confess that those techniques always did me justice.

Let me here impart part to you, Dear Reader, a bit of knowledge that was underscored for me that first night of boxing class at Edge. You probably have often seen a commercial or two that highlights some aspect of athleticism or fitness - or perhaps it was a movie montage where the main character is preparing for a showdown - and the actor has their hands wrapped and is punching away at a heavy bag.

Let me state clearly: that's bullsh*t. Thou shalt not ever - ever, EVER - punch on a heavy bag without wearing gloves.

I showed up to class with only some hand wraps, thinking I'd go through the class and the drills, excetera, showing off a little bit of speed that I could not do wearing gloves. Class started off with warm ups, jumping rope and Shadow Boxing. Easy enough. Then I got on the speed bag. Some of my childhood skills came back to me and I was able to get the bag moving pretty briskly without looking too retarded. So far so good.

Then came the bag drills. Basic punches jobs crosses left and right hooks. Into the bag over and over. Here it should be pointed out that hand wraps doing these provide a modicum of protection to your hands, especially the large knuckles. However there isn't so much protection on the middle knuckles which are generally exposed, yet these also make contact with the bag. 

The bag is leather. 

The skin of your knuckles is not. 

This was the painful lesson that I learned not long into the bag drills when my knuckles began tearing and bleeding.

Outside of that ridiculous experience, the class was wonderful. The 3 coaches (KP - the aforementioned deputy, Aaron Williams - a world class kickboxer, and “Hot Dog” -a professional boxer) we're patient and keen on explaining techniques and body mechanics, physics, and geometry.  I walked away having learned more in an hour and a half then I had in all the years prior.

As was the case with jujitsu, I found myself hooked, and soon 5 of my weeknights we're being filled with Edge instruction: Tuesday and Thursday for jujitsu, Monday for boxing, Wednesday for boxing AND kickboxing, with an occasional Friday evening for straight kickboxing with world champion coach Tom Yoshida. Over the next year I would also be coached by Aaron Lapointe (who we call “Little Aaron” to differentiate), and Big Dre Hobbs, a beast of a pro fighter, who would take breaks from a Ph.D program just to come punch me hard in the face.

There are many reasons that people train martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu and boxing, from wanting to lose weight and/or get fit, to wanting to fight professionally, and all other reasons in between. I think for the most part most everyone who trains eventually bumps up against the idea that grows in their head to at least compete once in a ring on a mat or in a cage. This was the case for me, and after training boxing for about a year, I felt ready to have my first experience in the ring. I already had the amazing experience of live competition having gotten on the mat for a few Jiu Jitsu tournaments and by 2007 having actually won Gold and Silver a couple of times.

In June of 2008, I fought my first MMA cage fight - that's a story for another article - but I'd yet to get in the squared circle. In March 2008, I registered with USA Boxing to enter the local Golden Gloves tournament but unfortunately fighting in the masters division, I was the only person signed up in my weight class and therefore was not able to get a match. Spring came with my first real opportunity when Cops Fighting Cancer was holding their annual fundraising boxing smoker.

I was eager to fight but careful to have a good first fight, as were my coaches. We talked to the promoter who hooked me up with the first match of the event, an exhibition match with Graham Dunn who was an officer with the Aurora Police Department. Graham had been doing a lot of work on the promotion side of things even working with one of the local MMA fight promoters but had also wanted to polish himself back into fighting shape so an exhibition was just the thing for him as it was for me. We even met up and did some training together at one of the local boxing gyms in Aurora just to get a feel for each other but also because even though ours was an exhibition match, it being the first match of the event, we wanted to set a good tone and give our match and the event a really good look with a good start.

On the day of the fight in the large warm up room where me and other fighters gathered a lot of things came to a head for me mentally and spiritually. First, I was fighting as an official team member of the Denver Sheriff's Department Boxing Club. This in itself was an amazing circumstance given the fact that I'd served time in prison from 1989 to 1996, finishing parole in 2001. Years later, not only was I a volunteer at a jail I had been housed at once (or twice), I'd landed at a martial arts school whose founder, coaches, and students were law enforcement officers. 

I was training, bleeding, and sweating with people I was programmed to distrust and despise, and most certainly the same was vice versa. Yet, as I looked around at my "team", I saw nothing but welcome, warmth, and trust. We were, first, fighting for a good cause, and I felt pretty good at helping people cope with cancer, no matter who they were. Second, I realized, I wasn't a convict anymore, I didn't need to carry any of the residue I have been carrying for years. I was free - free to walk the halls of the county jail as a civilian, free to have comradare with whomever I chose to, including someone wearing a badge.

To this end, the captain of the squad pulled me to the side and told me he was proud to have me fight under his banner and that everyone felt the same way - then he gave a DPD boxing uniform and told me to get rid of the one I had come to the venue with. I got dressed, taped up, and warmed up with "Saint", one of the other the officers fighting that night, who popped me upside the head with a mitt, saying "welcome aboard, dude". Then the Sergeant, a burly, old-school fighter himself came up to me with Vaseline and smoothed a gob of it over my eyebrows, and pulled my headgear snug. "You're part of the team, and this makes it official". 

By "this", he meant the small menthol vapo-inhaler that he pulled out of his pocket and stuck into both of my nostrils. Apparently, it was the "team inhaler" and had been up a lot of noses...

Breathing naptha, I realized I had reached a huge, sharp turning point in my life - and I hadn't even fought yet.

As for the fight itself, I really don't remember all of it - I was floating most of the 3 rounds as soon as that first bell struck. Graham and I made a damn good show of it, regardless. We thought maybe as an exhibition, we would go about 60 percent - especially since I was a newbie and Graham, a veteran, didn't want to thrash me. That's what we thought. Reality was different - especially after Graham's first jab flattened my nose. Automatically, I jabbed back to recapture that point - and we exchanged a knowing look that said "okay, 85%". I am sure, however, that I went 100% and Graham hovered at 80, out of respect and pity. 

We danced the dance, fought inside and out. It was glorious - jab after jab - hooks met by straights. And plenty of clinching. And for me, plenty of panting and wheezing. I have never, ever, been as tired as I was that night. By the end of the third round, I had no idea how I would survive to even start the third and final round. Until, coach Chad started clowning me.

As I draped over the rope in a way that clearly said "I quit", Chad chided me, saying I know that you are a devout Muslim - I thought men were not allowed to imitate women in your religion - you're out there looking like a girl". Now, to know Chad is to know that this was hardly intended as a homophobic comment, and more about his ridiculous sense of humor and crazy tact for motivation. He's a Marine (read: jarhead) to the core, and one of the few White dudes that can walk thru any Chicago hood and feel at home (since, that's where he grew up), and I haven't met anyone who can hold a candle to his music/mix collections. Quite simply, he is one of the best people I know. 

Anyway, I state all that to point out that his comment made me laugh out loud, stand up straight and let adrenaline surge through my limbs for one last go. All I could hear was him and Aaron spurring me on - Aaron calling out combos, which I tried like hell (not so successfully) to throw.

I lost the fight. 

Turns out the scorecards had us fall out even, but the decision was made in Graham's favor on "style points". You get no argument out of me. I saw the fight - on a DVD made by the promoter - and I was stoked and honored to hear boxing great Ron Lyle commentating on it - pointing out that I should be using the jab more due to my length and how Graham clearly had more savvy to deal with me pretty effectively.

I lost the fight, but I didn't care. I had won so many other things - won in so many other ways. I am sure it was the best fight of the night - up until my boy Ralph fought. That too is another story. That night, I went to sleep happy and proud. I had come quite the distance - and was (and continue to be) blessed to have people from all corners in my actual corner. That night in May when the lights went out (as the fight poster mottoed) my own life became illuminated.

Two days later, I was back in the gym. Back with Big and Little Aaron testing and increasing my speed and technique. Back with Chad teaching me to use the Philly and how to fight inside so as to surprise any opponent "smart" enough to get past my reach to target me in close. Back to Hot Dog and Dre puonching me with 300+ pounds of weight and power - and ridiculous speed to boot. Back to Tom telling me to use my knees more than kicks whenever I got to his class on Fridays. Back to Matt, Dave, Simeon, Francisco, Saint, Phil, Ralph, Lumumba, Chilo, and a plethora of other fighters and teammates that I sparred, drilled, learned, and grew with.

It was a daily grind, a nightly ritual - and it was all to culminate a year later - on another night in May, where I would take fight number 2. And that, of course Dear Reader, is a whole other story for next time.