The Nature of Boxing

Boxing has given me stamina as a writer, as a nature advocate, and has carried over as resilience for every other aspect of life

I just cleared out my storage unit and, with it, a monthly financial drain. It feels good. Now, reintegrating all the belongings that have been hidden away means sorting through my past. Among many, many other things, I came across old fight cards; records of bouts that never happened. Whether opponents pulled out, the fight was cancelled or my manager pissed off the promoter, they are evidence of an incredible amount of sweat and sacrifice that my body is still paying for. They also sting a little. I don’t have the wins or record I imagined I’d have after those countless hours in the gym. Still, training for each one of those fights shaped who I am today.

Getting ready to spar

For those who know me as a nature writer, herbalist, and wildlife advocate, my years of devotion to boxing might seem like a contradiction. But the inner strength I cultivated through boxing training has given me stamina as a writer, as an activist, and helped me cope with the profound ecological grief I’ve felt since I was a child. The fortitude I nurtured through training has carried over into resilience in every other aspect of life, and in today’s sociopolitical climate, we need all the resilience we can get.

In my early twenties in NYC, when I began, the sport was necessary way to push past limiting inner narratives. To move beyond my story of the physically deficient asthmatic kid. To reclaim my body after assault. To appreciate my body for what she is capable of rather than what she looks like. To quiet my busy mind and reconnect with my animal nature.

One of the fight cards I unearthed

For over a decade, I supported myself through coaching boxing while facilitating nature-connection experiences in and around New York City. I trained as both an amateur and professional, coached recreational and competitive fighters. The focused wildness of the ring felt deeply aligned with attuning to nature. Whether reading an opponent or the land, boxing and ethical wildcrafting require whole-body attentiveness. Both practices sharpen my instincts, reconnect me to my animal body, and heighten my situational awareness.

I often describe herbalism as a bone-deep remembering, an ancestral skill that feels like genetic memory. Something my body has always known but, through generations of separation from nature, temporarily forgotten. Boxing is similar. Within each of us is a primal framework for fighting; a natural capacity as innate as breath.

That’s me giving the jab not recieving it.

Many people are surprised by their own reactions when they step into the ring for the first time. Even individuals with flawless technique on the bags or during shadowboxing often find their form unraveling when fear and adrenaline kick in. It can lead to sloppy movements, as raw instincts overpower learned mechanics. This underscores the importance of not just technical skill, but meditative calm and emotional intelligence. Boxing is what led me to a formal meditation practice.

Meditating in a perfectly grimy boxing gym. Photo by Sonya Kitchell

And now, after a long break, I’ve been coaching again at the local YMCA and have built an incredible community here in Western MA. Some boxers, I’ve been working with for almost a year and our conversations go beyond boxing. We’re talking about mutual aid networks, about resilience, ecologically and socially. Boxing isn’t just a physical practice. It’s a way to process the rage, grief and pain we absorb in today’s news and in daily life. Boxing trains our reflexes and helps us move overwhelm through our bodies rather than letting it accumulate as anxiety or a feeling of paralysis. The focus required helps us get out of our heads. Plus, it’s fun and we’re building a skill not strolling on a treadmill and staring at another screen.

With one of the boxers I trained in NYC for a showcase with GEMS

So I hope you don’t mind if I incorporate boxing and express more of my full self here¹. Through conversations with other martial artists and professional coaches who also see boxing as a practice of whole-body self-development and means to connect more deeply with the natural world, I’ll be weaving boxing into nature writing more regularly.

Shout out to my coaches over the years: Terry Sutherland, Keith Dosreis, Bobby Miles, Lonnie Bradley (you hear his voice while I’m on the speedbag here), and Christophe Mendy.

---

“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing-for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible to see your opponent is you …”
~ Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing

In the comments, I’d love to know…

How does your relationship to your body shift when you focus on what your body is capable of can do rather than how your body looks?

Have you ever had to reconcile two seemingly opposite aspects of yourself? What did that integration look like?

How do you process grief, ecological or otherwise? Have physical practices like boxing helped?

1. For those of you who are interested, I write about boxing in both of my hybrid, nature-based memoirs: Awakening Artemis and Earthly Bodies.