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Everything I thought I knew about boxing evaporated into thin air when I stepped into a ring for the first time earlier this year.
I thought boxing was about aggression. I thought you had to be the biggest, tallest and strongest person in the ring to win. I thought, to a certain extent, that you might have to lose your temper to be good. And I didn’t think it was something I would ever particularly enjoy. But even by the end of my first session with former professional boxer Cathy Brown, I had been proven entirely wrong.
“I always think you’ve got to be calm when you’re fighting, because you miss so much if you lose your temper,” she told me. “If you lose your temper, you’ve lost the fight, because you’re not really thinking about what you’re doing. You’re just acting off pure emotion.”
The second only woman in the UK to receive a professional boxing licence, Cathy Brown competed in professional boxing between 1999 and 2006. During ten years ranked at the top of her professional field, she won English and European titles, and by the end of her career, Cathy had been ranked number three in the world.
Now? Catchy leads women's-only boxing classes, and runs a charity called HeadGuard which uses boxing and CBT to help young women and girls who have been sexually exploited, abused or trafficked.
She also uses her experience as a professional athlete along with training in said cognitive behavioural therapy to develop clients’ mental and physical strength synonymously – from her base at Mayfair’s luxurious Third Space gym space (which is fanciest, best-equipped and most welcoming gym I’ve ever stepped foot in, FYI). She helps her clients find a sense of inner calm.
Just moments into my weekly sessions with Cathy, it became clear to me that this notion of “calm” was not only central to her own success, but central to boxing – and the biggest thing the sport would be able to offer me. Boxing is, after all, meditative at its core.
Week One, Lesson One: Boxing Is Physical Meditation
Before we got started with our warm-up at the beginning of session one – but after Cathy very kindly gave me a gift of my very own boxing gloves and wraps – she asked me what I wanted to get out of my sessions with her. I told Cathy that I not only wanted to feel stronger, but that I wanted to find a way to switch off from work, in a way that other styles of workout don’t always allow.
I love my job, I told her, but this often means I have a million-and-one ideas floating around and find it hard to switch off. I get burnt-out very quickly and feel like I’ve never quite got the job done.
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I enjoy keeping fit, and often go to spin classes – but I’m now almost so used to the routine of them that my mind still wanders while working out. Likewise, I gave running a good stab, but unlike most, I don’t find it helps me switch off ~at all~. Rather, being alone with my thoughts just gives me more time to ruminate. And it hurts my ankles.
The training sessions I was embarking on, Cathy explained, would largely consist of learning six key punches, then performing them – impromptu – within a multitude of different sequences. Those punches being the jab, the cross, the lead hook, the rear hook, the lead uppercut and the rear uppercut – and the cardinal word in her description being “impromptu.” Not knowing what’s coming next, and having to think on the spot, forces your brain to focus on the task in hand – and the task in hand only. There is no space for your mind to wander.
We started the session outside of the ring, on the bag, where Cathy wrapped my hands for the first time and taught me the correct stance for both a jab and a cross. She had me throw both punches on repeat until I felt comfortable with them. Punching anything was a totally alien feeling to me, so TBH, we spent almost the entire hour repeating this sequence, first outside then inside the ring.
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Regardless, I experienced something in that first session that I very rarely experience in my day-to-day life: I couldn’t think about anything other than what I was doing. I was totally present, concentrating and totally in the moment. At the end of the session, I felt like I was coming out of a meditative state and back to the real world. All of the stresses that I entered the session with suddenly had far less weight.
Cathy finds boxing to do the same for her, she told me. “I know that if I am having a day where my head’s in a tumble dryer,” (I loved this description), “with loads of information, if I just take a step out and do some boxing, I regroup. I calm down. I am able to focus again.”
Week Two, Lesson Two: Boxing Can Also Help You Regain Focus
I was genuinely so excited to return to Third Space for my second session the following Thursday. We were in May now, my mind felt busier than ever, and I was eager to reap more of the calming benefits of boxing that I’d dipped my toes into the week prior.
We practised the same punches as in week one, this time adding hooks and rolls to our sequences. A hook being a punch which involves swinging a bent arm in a horizontal arc towards your opponent’s cheek, and a roll being a defensive movement to evade said hooks.
I found myself back in the meditative state I had entered before: totally engrossed in Cathy’s instructions and trying with all my might to remember the sequences then perform them correctly. Even when we progressed to sequences of up to six different punches in a row.
During one of our breaks during session three – we kept the talking and the boxing separate – I quizzed Cathy on boxing’s ability to improve focus, alongside its meditative effects. It felt only right, that if it could transport you into this totally present and focused state, you might see improved concentration outside of the ring, too.
Boxing can definitely help improve your focus in all aspects of life, Cathy told me. Needed, in a world where our ability to concentrate is fast dwindling. ~Ahem~ TikTok. She tells me that a lot of her clients have neuro-diversities, and find the sport soothing.
“When you’re boxing, as you’ve experienced, you have to be in the moment,” Cathy told me. “You can’t be at work, you can’t be on your socials – you have to be concentrating on what your body is doing and the technique you’re doing it in.” As well as helping with relaxation, that actually retrains the brain to be able to focus more easily.
“We’ve done a lot of research on neuroplasticity now – the idea that you can retrain your brain to be able to focus,” and that you can regenerate your neuropathways. “I find a lot of people who I train have ADHD, autism and even dyspraxia, and they can transfer what they learn in the boxing ring into real life.” I was excited to see what impacts boxing might have on my ability to focus.
Week Three: Mobility Is Important (Even If You’re Under 30)
Continuing on my quest to feel calmer and more focused, we started week three with the same warm-up exercises we had completed in the first two sessions. “It’s really important that you warm up the joints rather than jumping straight into exercise,” Cathy reminded me. “Our joints are quite fragile, especially our shoulder joints,” which are used more than I was used to in boxing.
First, banded overhead shoulder rotations, which warm up the rotator cuff, then banded backflies (which involve holding a resistance band out in front of you and pulling the band outwards then back together. Next, overhead squats with the same resistance band to stretch out your spine, then thoracic rotations “which is the stretch where you lie on the ground, bring your leg up and rotate the thigh.” We finish chest openers on the floor, and lateral leg swings to warm up the hips.
I think, in week three, I realised how much my weekly boxing warm-ups had acted as a lesson in putting more attention on my mobility and flexibility. My first major physical boxing lesson, perhaps.
As a twenty-something year-old woman, I’ve always dismissed mobility as a non-issue. At least, not until I hit older age. But that, I learned, is a totally short-sighted view. Mobility has a direct benefit on your safety (injuries often happen at the joint), and being able to move more freely and fluidly reduces stress. Note to self: spend more time on warming up, and mobilising my joints, before all forms of exercise. That too can be pretty meditative.
Week Four, Lesson Four: I Have Power! But Being Female In Boxing Is Tough
For me, week four was when I really started to relax into boxing, and that meant my punches finally felt powerful.
“You relaxed more, and you had more power in your shot”, Cathy said, reflecting on my fourth session. And it happened almost all of a sudden.
Sure, the introduction of the upper cut threw a bit of a spanner in the works (getting your weight in the right place to throw a powerful uppercut is tricky, people) – but with my jab, hooks and crosses, it was like a switch flicked and I was finally feeling the impact of my punches against Cathy’s pads. The noise. The heat. The shaky hand in the shower afterwards. Cathy started reacting with “whew!” noises, which felt hugely empowering. I didn’t really expect to get such a thrill from punching so hard.
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I thought about the connotations of women who have strength; women who can punch – and quizzed Cathy on how she felt she had been perceived over the years as a female in a male-dominated sport.
“It’s quite a weird one,” she pondered, “because they always say that women who stand up for themselves and speak up for themselves are aggressive. But actually, if a man did that, they’d just be assertive.”
Alongside recalling swearing more and raising her voice a lot to fit in with her male peers, Cathy reflects on (surprisingly) recent times when male attendees to her class would question her ability to punch as hard as them, or teach them proper technique.
“I have kicked a lot of guys out of my classes” {for that reason}, Cathy told me. “I’ve never had to kick a woman out of my class, but I’ve kicked a lot of guys out because they come in disrespectful and belittle my boxing knowledge.”
It’s all about “embracing the beauty of being a woman,” Cathy tells me. You can be feminine and still be a fighter. A woman can be strong and not be aggressive. You can stand your ground and not be aggressive. And there’s no such thing as “punching like a girl” – it’s just a punch. A good punch is a good punch, thrown by a female or not. I liked the feeling.
Week Five, Lesson Five: Always Be On The Ball
Now that I’d mastered loading my shots with power, week five was all about moving around the ring – and being able to preempt a punch coming. The technical side of boxing, if you will. Cathy taught me that, no matter how hard my punches are – and how good my footwork and focus – you need to be on the ball. “Boxing is very much a thinking person’s sport.”
“Yes, of course you need power because you’re punching each other in the face – you can’t deny that – but you also have to have your mind with you. You have to have a calm mind” and you need to always be watching what your opponent is doing.
We moved around the ring as we carried out our sequences, learning to back your opponent into a corner with nifty footwork – or move yourself away from the ropes. I (tried to) perfect my rolls, and finally got to grips with keeping my hands to my face at all times. Something I’d be struggling with in sessions one-four. Everything felt quite overwhelming in week five: it felt like there was so much to think about, and my body wasn't quite doing what my brain wanted it to do. Though that's natural, Cathy reassured me. Things always feel tough before they get better.
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Week Six, Lesson Six – It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You Later
More quickly than I’d have liked, my final session with Cathy came around – and to say I was disappointed was an understatement. Not only did I enter my final lesson feel physically stronger than I had in ages – but I had really gotten into the routine of using my Thursday evenings to switch off, recharge and focus on myself. I also genuinely loved boxing, and spending time with Cathy. It was something I'd really miss, I thought, if I didn't carry on.
It felt like the perfect finale to my course by joining one of Cathy’s Third Space members’ classes straight after my final session, pulling everything that I’d learned together and really experiencing the community that boxing offers. There were people of all ages in Cathy's class, including so many strong and motivated women who clearly reaped the same boxing benefits as I had. “My greatest joy is teaching women in boxing,” Cathy told me.
I remembered that I had felt embarrassed when we started out: embarrassed that my punches weren’t hard enough and embarrassed that I looked like a fish out of water. But Cathy had patiently pressed forward with teaching me where to place my feet, how to “protect my beauty” (never leaving my face uncovered for my opponent to take advantage of), and how to punch “through” the pads rather than into them.
I was now taking part in a boxing class, with people who could punch more stronger than I could, caring a whole lot less what people might think. I felt confident.
I decided I liked Cathy’s ability to spark that in me – and to create a non-judgemental community in her classes. You feel obliged to obey her orders, but she’s not intimidating, loud or scary. Rather, she makes you feel entirely at ease, powerful, and as though your inner strength is much closer to the surface than you might think. I don't think is the last time boxing will be my workout of choice.
For more from GLAMOUR's Senior European Commerce Editor Sophie Cockett, follow her @sophiecockettx.
