Go Down Swinging

“It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up.”
– Vince Lombardi

Never in my life did I think that I would sign up for a boxing lesson. Or as the case was, two lessons. This would be good for me, I thought. It was long overdue that I tried to summon the fight in me to confront my deep fears. I was in a resort in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia, visiting with my husband’s family who gathered here annually to celebrate Thanksgiving. Boxing lessons were offered in the resort’s gym and I signed up on a whim.

“Why do you start with a left jab?” I asked. “It feels awkward. I am more comfortable with my right hand.”

I was slowly becoming more comfortable staring into his piercing eyes and dark pupils. He had the hardened face of a fighter and large scars on his knuckles to prove it. His pupils had seen it all, I thought. Whoever the opponent, the man in front of me was going to size him up, find his weakness, and then either knock him out or go down swinging.

“Starting with a left jab does three things: it sets up your offense with your right hand, keeps the other person off you, and helps you determine how close your opponent is to you. If you’re close enough to touch your opponent with a jab, then you’re close enough to unload a punch,” he said with a slight twinkle in his eyes.

Black and white pictures hung on the wall of the boxing studio to commemorate the legends: John Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Rocky Marciano. Like my instructor, these men had a fighting spirit that seemed to define them. They looked like born fighters, tough to their core, and ready for any opponent.

Why couldn’t I find that fight in me to deal with my husband’s cancer diagnosis? Why did I just fall apart every time I thought about it? It was shameful, honestly. I knew that I could do so much better for myself and for him.

“Let’s put two minutes on the clock. Start with a left jab, then throw a right straight, left hook, and then uppercut, uppercut. Then, I’ll change positions. Adjust your stance to mirror me and then throw your sequence again,” he said and started the timer.

I tightened my core and began throwing the punches in the sequence I just learned. Being on offense felt good. I was in charge. For the moment. Thoughts of my husband’s cancer faded away as I stared into the instructor’s dark pupils and concentrated on my technique. With total focus on the punches, all other terrible thoughts about cancer melted away.

It was hard to keep them out. Round-and-round the dark thoughts would roll in my brain – a true form of self-torture. If that weren’t painful enough, I had the expectation that I should be enjoying my time with him now and actively NOT thinking about his survival or the future. That the horrible thoughts would come despite my best efforts to keep them at bay made me feel like even more of a failure.

In contrast, my husband was taking the drugs and dealing with the side effects, while he was minimizing the experience for us to help keep our lives normal. His image should have been on the wall. And I had given up. Pathetic.

“Time’s up. Take a one-minute break. Then, go back to work on the speed bag,” he said.

The few steps to the speed bag gave me time to contemplate the failure of my mindset as a caregiver. I needed to change the way I thought about his cancer and its impact on our lives. And I had to rid myself of these negative thoughts about his prognosis and my approach to dealing with it.

The speed bag was a small teardrop shaped punching bag that would swing back and forth each time it was hit. The goal was to hit in a downward direction on the bag with just the right force and timing so that you would hit the bag every third time it swung back and forth. When he demonstrated the technique, the sound of the speed bag hitting the wooden frame and his glove hitting the bag was like dub-dub-dub-HIT-dub-dub-dub-HIT. A melodic, beautiful sound when you had the timing right.

Now, it was my turn. I tried to find the same rhythm using only my right hand, but it wasn’t easy. Dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-HIT-dub-dub--HIT-dub-dub-dub-dub. Each time I hit the speedbag off-center, it would unpredictably change direction. To get back on track, I would need to grab it, refocus, and start patiently over again.

“Keep going. Forty-five more seconds,” he said. “The speed bag is more for defense than offense. It helps you to learn the timing for deflecting shots at your face. The whole idea of boxing is to hit and not get hit back.”

What if I couldn’t put up a fight with this cancer diagnosis because thoughts about his cancer kept hitting me in the face? It was like his cancer was my opponent and had a killer left hook that kept knocking me down. Where was my defense?

“Remember, the way you fight is the way you do everything in life,” he said. “Some guys are real aggressive and others wait for their opponent to make a mistake. Then, they capitalize on that mistake and deliver a counterpunch. Everybody messes up eventually and leaves their guard open,” he finished with an air of confidence.

I looked at the men on the walls and then inside myself. The past is past, I thought. Could I summon the fight in me to face this diagnosis and regain my positive outlook? I had always been a fighter. Now, wasn’t the time to walk away.

Best to go down swinging.