How Boxing Taught Me to Survive

A carefully placed jab is the best way to knock someone out when they're wearing headgear. If I punched the exposed area of my opponent's face—the eyes, nose, and mouth just below the surface of the protective material—he would drop. I could do this with a jab, the straightest, most direct of all the punches.

I was boxing against Kurt, a senior at my high school. I was a junior, and Kurt was dating Danielle, also a junior, who I had a crush on and whose locker was next to mine. Or maybe I had a crush on because her locker was next to mine—proximity always seemed key to young romance.

I didn't know Kurt boxed until our training sessions, with a 70-year-old former middleweight named Marty, happened to overlap. (I called them "training sessions" but I wasn't training for anything, though Marty occasionally used "bar fights" as hypothetical fighting scenarios. I was 16.) I was surprised to see him at the boxing gym, only because it seemed like such a cliché that I would see him at the boxing gym, as if we were in an episode of Saved by the Bell.

Before I could decide what to do, which would have been nothing, Kurt paused hitting the speed bag to ask if I wanted to spar. It wasn't done with animosity or intimidation—it felt like an acknowledgement that we were both there, and it might be a cool thing to do, even though we didn't know each other well. I played JV soccer when he was varsity, and he probably recognized my face from talking to Danielle by her locker each morning, his back against the wall, one foot up—a jock cliché—as I pretended not to listen to them discuss whose house would be more "chill" to go to after school.

Kurt and I put on headgear, stepped into the ring, and set the three-minute timer that would signify the beginning and end of each round. As we traded soft punches and blocks, I wondered what would happen if I knocked him out. How would he face Danielle the next day? What if he couldn't? How sweet would my brief morning exchange with Danielle be if I casually mentioned that I knocked out Kurt the night before, and that's why he wouldn't be in school that day, or the next day, or maybe ever again?

"I heard he might not make it," I'd say, and walk away before providing further explanation, only to give her a quick look over my shoulder, implying, I'm here for you, babe.

The scenario played in my head, so I activated my "headgear knockout strategy"—carefully placed jabs to the unprotected area of Kurt's face. Right jab and block, right jab and block. The strategy worked—sort of. I wasn't getting closer to knocking Kurt out, but I was grating on him. His skin turned red, irritated by the pressure of my glove. His breathing intensified into huffs, and then snarls.

My right jabs were getting repetitive, so I changed my pattern and tried a left jab—my weaker, slower punch, leaving my left side open. Kurt juked right, and heaved a forceful blow at the side of my head.

I heard a crack, and then dropped.

My first exposure to boxing was about eight years earlier: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! for Nintendo. You played as Little Mac, a 17-year-old, 107-pound, hugely underqualified boxer from the Bronx. There were 14 characters to fight, including Pistol Honda, Mr. Sandman, and the game's boss, Mike Tyson. I made it to Tyson a few times, but never beat him. I didn't know anyone who did or saw anyone who did until there was YouTube.

I boxed for the first time at overnight camp when I was 14. It wasn't an officially offered activity, probably for liability reasons, but when I saw the camp owner's son Evan hitting the heavy bag in the gym, I asked if he would teach me. At this point, I knew Punch-Out and Rocky, but I didn't know how to throw a punch, or how to receive one.

Evan and I sparred every day after lunch. Sometimes a crowd of campers eating popsicles would gather to watch. The attention made us hit harder. Neither of us were experienced boxers, but no one in the crowd knew enough to notice our clumsy form. They were enamored by the swinging fists and flying beads of sweat. When the timer rang to end the round, we'd walk to our imaginary corners and guzzle bug juice.

I suspect my interest in boxing, and the campers' enthusiasm in watching Evan and I box, had something to do with defying expectations. Rocky was a tank, as were the top boxers at the time—Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Oscar De La Hoya. I wasn't built like them. I wasn't even built like their featherweight counterparts, and neither was Evan. We were scrappy, over-privileged, over-parented Jewish kids from the Philly suburbs. What were we doing in the ring?

I remember a moment at synagogue the following school year, during a Jewish holiday, when the rabbi explored athletics as part of his sermon. He asked a question to the congregation:

"Which professional sport has the most Jews?"

Hands were raised. Golf? Tennis?

I knew what sport I connected with, so I raised my hand. The rabbi called on me.

"Boxing."

If religion brings people together, then I unified them, because the congregation roared into laughter.

I looked around, confused as to why my answer had turned the synagogue into a comedy club.

The elderly Jewish man sitting next to me must have sympathized. He nudged my shoulder and whispered, "Most boxers are black."

Once everyone settled, the rabbi revealed the right answer. It was fencing.

I'd go on to learn that my answer wasn't as ridiculous as the congregation's laughter made it sound. Over ribeyes at Sullivan's Steakhouse—named after bare-knuckle boxer John L. Sullivan—my grandfather educated me on the history of Jewish boxers. There was Benny Leonard and Barney Ross (the latter the name of Stallone's character in The Expendables), both of whom were world champions, Ted "Kid" Lewis, Abe Attel, Maxie Rosenbloom, and many others.

Between the years of 1910 and 1940, 26 world champions were Jewish. In 1928, Jews were the dominant nationality in pro boxing, followed by the Italians and the Irish. The Jews' prominence in boxing wasn't necessarily because Jews liked to box, or because they were especially talented at the sport, but because, like bootlegging and racketeering, it was one of the few career options they had.

My grandfather was also a boxer. When he attended the Citizens' Military Training Camp, a military training program held in the summers between 1921 and 1940, he tried out for the boxing team. He made the team in his weight class, although was cut after getting knocked out in his first match.

After World War II ended and the GI Bill of Rights was instituted, most Jews left boxing for more entrepreneurial enterprises. By 1950 there were only a few Jewish boxers, and the numbers have declined since.

Marty's boxing gym was in the back of a sports arena, between two noisy ice hockey rinks. The setup was simple: boxing ring, heavy bag, speed bag, bench press. Marty had three sons, all Philly boxers, who had outgrown their dad as a trainer. He always wore the same outfit: tight-fitting black jeans tucked in black T-shirt with a slight pouch and sneakers. His sneakers matched his silver hair, which was balding on top and slicked on the sides, maintained with the comb he kept in his back pocket. He wore a gold chain tucked under in his shirt. His last name was Feldman, so I assumed on the chain was a Jewish star.

My training sessions began with a warm-up. Three rounds of jumprope, which I got good at. I could whip the rope fast and cross my arms while barely lifting my feet. Three rounds of sit ups while Marty gripped my ankles with his callused hands, his Brut aftershave infiltrating my nostrils with each rep. Finally, three rounds of pushups.

"You can do the regular kind or you can do the girl kind," Marty would offer.

The "girl kind" was when you did a pushup with your knees on the floor, so you're pushing up less of your body weight. I did the regular kind.

After warm-ups and hitting the bags, Marty and I would step into the ring. He'd hold the pads and I'd wear the gloves. I knew I delivered the perfect punch when my glove made a clean snap. It's the equivalent of the swish when you shoot a perfect jumper in basketball. Marty would voice his approval when my punches connected. "There it is!" "Boom!" "Knock out!"

One time, my mom came to pick me up from a training session 15 minutes early and had the chance to watch. In the car on the way home, she asked about what she just saw.

"So, do you just punch the whole time?"

The answer was yes, but it was so much more than that.

Boxing made me feel alive. I didn't need to ask my dad to explain the rules and exceptions to the rules, like I did with football and baseball. It was obvious: hit or be hit, or protect yourself long enough that you tire your opponent out. Boxing is controlled survival. Literally, it's a form of life or death.

Still, it's fair to say that my stint as a boxer up until this point was a joke, or at least an extended period of failure. I never beat Mike Tyson in Punch-Out. I got laughed at by the congregation of my synagogue for suggesting that Jews could box. I thought I could nab Danielle from Kurt by jabbing the unprotected area of his headgear. Most of all, I desperately wanted to be Rocky, but I was never anything more than Little Mac.

That's why lying on the floor of the ring after Kurt knocked me out felt like my first accomplishment in boxing—it was real. I wasn't pretending, not to myself or others. For that moment, I was a fighter.

I don't know if Kurt ever mentioned the knockout to Danielle. I think he saw my incessant jabs as me stepping out of rank, and like a game of Whack-A-Mole, wanted to knock me into place. I never saw Kurt at the boxing gym again, even after he and Danielle broke up. I assumed he quit.

But me—I continued showing up to train with Marty, preparing for my next fight.

Follow Alex J. Mann on Twitter.