Childhood+Essay

It seems like just yesterday I walked through the glass doors at Knock Out boxing gym in Downtown Oxnard. I remember arriving there with my bestfriend at the time Cindy, her brother Angel and mom Martha. We jumped out of the car and I remember thinking to myself “ I can’t believe am doing this, girls like you don’t box”. We walked in and I remember the owner of the gym, Nikki, walked up to us and asked what he could help us with. He was a short, tan and extremely buff man that reminded me of my good friend Josue, who is also short and really buff but not tan. I joked with Cindy and said, “I didn’t know Josue had a job!” Cindy’s mom then told Nikki that we were there to try the boxing class. We had to sign a paper with some basic questions; Name, age, phone number, parents information. When we signed the papers he walked us through the gym to the back where the ring was. The room smelled of sweat and air fresheners, eww. We got to the practice floor where we met the coaches. Adrian was tall and really funny. Mikey was short and looked super young. I was really nervous because I wasn’t used to rough sports like this. “Have you guys done any other sports before?” Mikey said. “No” Cindy answered. “No” Angel said. “Yeah” I responded. “ I played soccer for a year, and I played field hockey for a bit” “Is that all?” Mikey said. I didn’t want to tell him that I had been an All-Star cheerleader for two years. “Yeah, that’s all i've done. Nothing like this though” I said. “Your such a liar Yahaira! She was a cheerleader for a long time. She can do flips and everything!” Cindy yelled. Mikey looked at me with a surprised look. “ So you wore sparkly outfits and flipped all over the place and did stunts and stuff?” “Yeah, for two years” I said. He wondered why I didn’t tell him this when he asked. I told him that girls don’t usually go from cheerleading to boxing. Once we met and everything he let us borrow each a pair of gloves. Angel got black, Cindy got red and I got pink. The smell that came from the gloves was disgusting. They smelled as if someone had worn them on their feet on a blistering hot day. We set the gloves down while we conditioned. Pushups, jumping jacks, jump ropes, high knees, kickbacks, and much more. By the time we did 2 minutes of jumping jacks and 50 pushups I was exhausted. After what seemed like days of conditioning we went to the back parking lot to run, three miles to be exact. Everyone passing by in their cars seemed to look out there window to see a class of 11 boys and 2 girls running in the hot sun. We finished that and it was finally time to start boxing. We went inside and each started with a punching bag. I had no idea what to do. Mikey took me into the ring with him so he could teach me the basics. Jabs, hooks, and upper cuts were all foreign words to me. I was used to stunting, tumbling, and jumping from cheer. I’m not going to lie; I was horrible at boxing my first time. I never kept my arms up, I would always hit myself in the face and I would get the combinations mixed up. I wanted to give up and quite, but after three rounds in the ring with Mikey It wasn’t as bad as I thought.After two hours at the boxing gym we had decided we wanted to go back again. The next Monday we were back ready to learn more. I wasn’t looking forward for conditioning but I had to do it to get to the boxing. After the third week I was getting better and better at it. I was doing combinations as if i've been doing them for years. After a month and a half Cindy and Angel quite so it was just me left. I didn’t want to do it by myself but I started to love boxing so much I wasn’t going to quite just because they did. I’m a leader, not a follower. A couple weeks passed and they told me it was my turn to get in the ring the following day. I was super nervous but I was up for it. They told me I would be sparring with a girl that had been boxing for about a year. Her name was Amy and from what I was hearing, she was fast and took boxing really serious. I showed up to the gym as usual with my mouth guard and gloves and wraps. I was kind of nervous but I was excited at the same time. I put the headgear on and I knew there was no backing out. Everyone in the gym gathered around the gym excited to watch two teenage girls fight. We both stepped in the ring and waited. Ding! Went the bell. Everything happened so fast and all I remember was getting close to her and jabbing. She punched me in the face; I forgot the number one rule when you’re in the ring. Always keep your arms up. I took the hit pretty well and then it was my turn to attack. By the time the third round was over we both ended up with bloody lips. We stepped out the ring and shook hands. I walked over to my Mikey. “How did I do?” “For your first match, you did excellent” “I think I could have done better” “She’s had more experience than you so don’t worry about the little mistakes you did. Just work on improving them”. He gave me water and I walked over to my dad, who recorded the whole thing. He was proud because I walked in the gym knowing nothing at all about boxing and two months later I was in the ring with someone with more experience. In the end I learned to try new things because you never know if you will like things unless you try. Boxing is now my favorite sport and I love it. I hope to keep doing this for many more years and to keep improving as the years go on.