Getting Ready For Fight Nightat the State Street Boxing Club

Every Spring for the last several years a fraternity at the University of California, Santa Barbara has hosted "Fight Night" a boxing competition among students that raises money for a boxing program for disadvantaged youth in the community.

Imagine a warm Friday night in May. The line for tickets started forming an hour ago. But another hour will pass before the national anthem is sung, the colors are presented, and the bell rings to call to attention the gymnasium filled with thousands of enthusiastic students who have come to cheer on their favorite boxers. After the introductions, the festivities begin.

The motivation to enter the competition, to step up and compete for three rounds, varies from boxer to boxer. Some do it for the honor of their fraternity, others enter as a test of personal courage, and still others want a forum which allows them to exhibit the skills that they work very hard to master. Whatever the motivation, this is a serious undertaking that cannot be casually dismissed if one is to have any chance of triumphing over the opponent and vanquishing the demons of doubt that plague each fighter before a bout. The fluttering of the demon's wings we call "butterflies" for lack of a more illustrative term. The contestants get here by training, training the next day, and training some more. And, the sooner they start, the more likely that Fight Night's outcome will be determined by ability, not by fate or the tyranny of random events.

The choice of those who want to seriously compete is the State Street Boxing Club. Boxers from the club have a strong tradition of entering and winning the Fight Night bouts doing it for many reasons, but mostly "for the children" as one fighter noted in a post-bout interview last year.

	Carl trains for a Fight Night bout five months away. The skills he learns in training will serve him well, since they will be automatic when it really counts!
He's learning. The right hook looks good. Elbow at a 90 degree angle and parallel to the ground, contact with flat of the fist. Just don't drop the left!
	Trainer Josh works with Carl showing him how block the left hook to the midsection by dropping the right. Don't drop it too far otherwise you leave the head unprotected. Also, anticipate the left.
Josh helps Carl glove up for his first sparring session--the first of many to come in preparation for fight night. Quite correctly, the glove is held down with the skirt open as the boxer inserts his hand.
	Trainer Josh discusses proper stance with Carl. The first time in supervised sparring is always the hardest. The boxer needs to apply the lessons learned so far in real time. The heavy bag doesn't hit back, the opponent in sparring does. The first timer has the task of applying all aspects of their training so the moves become second nature even though at this point it is far from it.
Josh demonstrates the right to cross to Carl and how the correct defensive posture is crucial in this situation. This pre-bout session keeps the boxer's mind off of what is going on in the ring behind him. He will soon be entering the ring. Until he does, a boxer is like a racehorse approaching the starting gate. They need to be led and guided, but once the bell rings, they are all business.
	Once in the ring, the bell rings and Carl moves out in the engarde position. He is sparring with the club's owner Mike, who will take him slowly through the paces of the three minute training round. No hard punches will be landed, that would be counterproductive. This is where Carl has a chance to put the pieces of the boxing puzzle puzzle together for the first time. In the future, the pace of the sparring session will pick up. For now, its like taking it out for a spin on a learner's permit. The test will come soon.