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Seven years ago, Kaitlyn Clark tuned in to watch Dancing with the Stars and was immediately drawn to one of the celebrity contestants, champion boxer Laila Ali. “She was so graceful and she had this incredible physique. But I didn’t know who she was. I looked her up and I saw she was a boxer. I decided right then I wanted to be a fighter.”
But Clark was only 15, and her mother refused to give her permission to take up boxing. So Clark waited three years, until she no longer needed parental consent, and signed up at a gym in her hometown of Sarnia. Less than a year later she moved to Ottawa to train at the Beaver Boxing Club and attend Carleton University.
And this weekend, less than four years into her career, she’s fighting for a national championship in Mississauga. “Boxing has changed my life,” she says.
When Clark was a teenager, she weighed close to 190 pounds. She participated in sports, but says she was bullied because of her weight. “When you’re that age, you have low self-esteem and you’re very self-conscious. And if you’re overweight, it’s even worse. When I started boxing that confidence started going up and up. It’s not just that I weigh 140 pounds now. It’s more the way that I look at myself.
“Boxing gave me confidence that I didn’t know that I had. It gave me the ability to set goals and accomplish them. It allowed me to be OK with who I am, which is extremely hard for a girl.”
Clark is just one of several success stories in a remarkable new chapter for the Beaver Boxing Club, which opened in 1943. The venerable Ottawa gym, which is based in Little Italy, has started flourishing again after moving into new premises four years ago. In particular, the club has a rejuvenated youth program for children 11 to 18 years of age, including kids with stories similar to Clark’s.
Kaitlyn Clark works on her boxing skills with head coach Jill Perry at the Beaver Boxing Club in Little Italy.
“I’m seeing a huge increase in participation among young people, particularly girls,” says Jill Perry, the club’s president and head coach. “Some parents think it’s not feminine. But when they see what we do in the class and they see the girls in the club a lot of them change their minds.”
Before the move, Beaver was operating three nights a week by renting space in a martial arts facility. Now the club has its own space on Spruce Street and is open six days a week, including three for youth. On a busy night, there will be 30 to 40 children training at the club. Most are there for the workout and train exclusively with punching bags; others in the competitive program are preparing for tournaments.
Perry says participants come from a wide range of backgrounds, including children who are referred by the police or youth services. “But when you’re in the gym, you don’t know if the other kid is an honour student or in police custody or living at a group home. When we’re in the club, we’re all boxers. It’s a great equalizer.”
Another advantage, she says, is that there is a weight class for everyone. “You don’t have to have a particular build, like you might need for dancing. You could be an 80-pound boy and all the kids in your school are 120 pounds. In boxing, there’s a weight class for you. Come as you are and if you work hard and dedicate yourself you can be a champion.”
That, says Perry, is one of the greatest lessons of boxing for young people. “If you haven’t committed to your work it becomes very apparent when you get in the ring. The value for kids is that they see, if I work hard, if I train hard, I can succeed in the ring. That’s a transferable skill that can be applied to school work, personal relationships, getting a job and applying to university. If I work hard, I can achieve this.”
That has been exactly Clark’s experience. “Boxing has made me want to succeed in school and at work as well. It changes your perception of yourself. It helps you grow as a person. You start thinking more positively about yourself you start making better decisions.”
In addition to training at the club, Clark now coaches younger boxers. She’s currently studying commerce at Carleton University and holds down a part-time job on the side.
Looking back, Clark says she understands her mother’s reluctance to see her daughter take up boxing. “Your parents spend their entire lives protecting you. You’re their baby and then you come to them and say, ‘I want to get punched in the head.’ It’s counter-intuitive.”
But the risk of a head injury, she says, is lower than people think. “You’re not going to get hurt. As a coach, I would never put somebody else’s child in the way of danger.”
Associations that represent pediatricians in Canada and the U.S. both “vigorously oppose” boxing for children and adolescents because of the risk of head injuries, and recommend that youths be encouraged to participate in sports that do not involve intentional blows to the head, such as swimming, tennis, basketball and volleyball. “Although boxing provides benefits for participants, including exercise, self-discipline and self-confidence, the sport of boxing encourages and rewards deliberate blows to the head and face,” according to a joint statement released in 2011 by the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Participants in boxing are at risk of head, face and neck injuries, including chronic and even fatal neurologic injuries. Concussions are one of the most common injuries occurring in boxing.”
At the Final Round boxing club on Brookfield Road, head coach and owner Eric Belanger says most of his members join for the fitness training, and don’t spar. “The majority of people, I’d say 90 per cent, never get punched in the face, or punch anyone else in the face, in the gym.”
His members are attracted by the old-school, rugged workout. He has a couple hundred members, most of them men between 15 and 25. “Studies have shown that boxing is the toughest sport in the world. So in this town, what I see a lot of is hockey players realizing it’s a really good cross-training for their sport. And it’s cheap. It’s one of those sports that anyone can afford to do. We’re $46 dollars a month, and for kids $39 a month. For kids, it’s hard to beat.”
The social aspect of the club is also attractive. “When you go to Goodlife, you jump on a treadmill, you’re by yourself. Whereas in boxing clubs there tends to be more of a family feeling to it, everybody works together, everybody gets along.”
“When somebody comes in here, nobody judges anybody,” he says. “If Justin Trudeau comes in, he’ll train next to the street kid, and everybody gets along.” In fact, the club is where Trudeau trained for his infamous bout with Senator Patrick Brazeau.
Some teenagers spend hours at the boxing club after school, says Belanger. “If they want to hang out, sit on a couch, watch TV, chat with the rest of the guys after you train, we’re not going to tell them to go home.”
For teens facing peer pressure, boxing can be a handy excuse. “In boxing, you can’t even permit yourself have a diet Pepsi, let alone to get into alcohol or drugs. The difference when you’re using boxing as your excuse is you get to keep that ‘cool’ factor. Maybe your friends are 16, you can say ‘sorry I can’t smoke weed this weekend, I’ve got a fight next week.’ You’re still cool, you know?”
Belanger says he’s never encountered head injuries at his gym or in other amateur boxing matches he’s been involved with over the last 18 years. “I’ve coached the national team for Canada, I’ve coached kids, adults … and I’ve never seen a head injury.”
Perry says amateur boxing has many protocols in place to prevent and address head injuries. “The number of concussions in boxing is much less than a lot of the other sports. Amateur boxing is different from pro boxing. It’s not about the knockout. It’s about winning on points.
“All of our athletes have to have a medical every 12 months. They have to have a medical before they compete and after they compete. And there has to be a doctor at every event. I don’t know of a sport that has that level of safety.”
At the Beaver Boxing Club, only about a quarter of the youth participants are part of the competitive program. The majority are there for the conditioning and activity from hitting the bags and learning technique.
“We don’t rush them into competition,” says Perry. “You have to be very committed. You have to really want to do this. We take safety very seriously. You’re not going to be competing unless you’ve learned defensive skills and you’ve decided that’s the path you want to take.”
Even Clark’s mother has come around.
“She’s very happy for me,” says Clark. “She told me after I won my first tournament, ‘Do it until you’re not happy doing it anymore.’ She’s definitely turned into my biggest fan.”
Last year, Clark won a silver medal in the 152-pound class at the nationals. This year, she’s dropped down to the 141-pound class and is hoping for an even better result.
“From the second that I found out what the sport was, I wanted to be a fighter, I wanted to be a champion. I still want to be a world champion.”
查看原文...
But Clark was only 15, and her mother refused to give her permission to take up boxing. So Clark waited three years, until she no longer needed parental consent, and signed up at a gym in her hometown of Sarnia. Less than a year later she moved to Ottawa to train at the Beaver Boxing Club and attend Carleton University.
And this weekend, less than four years into her career, she’s fighting for a national championship in Mississauga. “Boxing has changed my life,” she says.
When Clark was a teenager, she weighed close to 190 pounds. She participated in sports, but says she was bullied because of her weight. “When you’re that age, you have low self-esteem and you’re very self-conscious. And if you’re overweight, it’s even worse. When I started boxing that confidence started going up and up. It’s not just that I weigh 140 pounds now. It’s more the way that I look at myself.
“Boxing gave me confidence that I didn’t know that I had. It gave me the ability to set goals and accomplish them. It allowed me to be OK with who I am, which is extremely hard for a girl.”
Clark is just one of several success stories in a remarkable new chapter for the Beaver Boxing Club, which opened in 1943. The venerable Ottawa gym, which is based in Little Italy, has started flourishing again after moving into new premises four years ago. In particular, the club has a rejuvenated youth program for children 11 to 18 years of age, including kids with stories similar to Clark’s.
Kaitlyn Clark works on her boxing skills with head coach Jill Perry at the Beaver Boxing Club in Little Italy.
“I’m seeing a huge increase in participation among young people, particularly girls,” says Jill Perry, the club’s president and head coach. “Some parents think it’s not feminine. But when they see what we do in the class and they see the girls in the club a lot of them change their minds.”
Before the move, Beaver was operating three nights a week by renting space in a martial arts facility. Now the club has its own space on Spruce Street and is open six days a week, including three for youth. On a busy night, there will be 30 to 40 children training at the club. Most are there for the workout and train exclusively with punching bags; others in the competitive program are preparing for tournaments.
Perry says participants come from a wide range of backgrounds, including children who are referred by the police or youth services. “But when you’re in the gym, you don’t know if the other kid is an honour student or in police custody or living at a group home. When we’re in the club, we’re all boxers. It’s a great equalizer.”
Another advantage, she says, is that there is a weight class for everyone. “You don’t have to have a particular build, like you might need for dancing. You could be an 80-pound boy and all the kids in your school are 120 pounds. In boxing, there’s a weight class for you. Come as you are and if you work hard and dedicate yourself you can be a champion.”
That, says Perry, is one of the greatest lessons of boxing for young people. “If you haven’t committed to your work it becomes very apparent when you get in the ring. The value for kids is that they see, if I work hard, if I train hard, I can succeed in the ring. That’s a transferable skill that can be applied to school work, personal relationships, getting a job and applying to university. If I work hard, I can achieve this.”
That has been exactly Clark’s experience. “Boxing has made me want to succeed in school and at work as well. It changes your perception of yourself. It helps you grow as a person. You start thinking more positively about yourself you start making better decisions.”
In addition to training at the club, Clark now coaches younger boxers. She’s currently studying commerce at Carleton University and holds down a part-time job on the side.
Looking back, Clark says she understands her mother’s reluctance to see her daughter take up boxing. “Your parents spend their entire lives protecting you. You’re their baby and then you come to them and say, ‘I want to get punched in the head.’ It’s counter-intuitive.”
But the risk of a head injury, she says, is lower than people think. “You’re not going to get hurt. As a coach, I would never put somebody else’s child in the way of danger.”
Associations that represent pediatricians in Canada and the U.S. both “vigorously oppose” boxing for children and adolescents because of the risk of head injuries, and recommend that youths be encouraged to participate in sports that do not involve intentional blows to the head, such as swimming, tennis, basketball and volleyball. “Although boxing provides benefits for participants, including exercise, self-discipline and self-confidence, the sport of boxing encourages and rewards deliberate blows to the head and face,” according to a joint statement released in 2011 by the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Participants in boxing are at risk of head, face and neck injuries, including chronic and even fatal neurologic injuries. Concussions are one of the most common injuries occurring in boxing.”
At the Final Round boxing club on Brookfield Road, head coach and owner Eric Belanger says most of his members join for the fitness training, and don’t spar. “The majority of people, I’d say 90 per cent, never get punched in the face, or punch anyone else in the face, in the gym.”
His members are attracted by the old-school, rugged workout. He has a couple hundred members, most of them men between 15 and 25. “Studies have shown that boxing is the toughest sport in the world. So in this town, what I see a lot of is hockey players realizing it’s a really good cross-training for their sport. And it’s cheap. It’s one of those sports that anyone can afford to do. We’re $46 dollars a month, and for kids $39 a month. For kids, it’s hard to beat.”
The social aspect of the club is also attractive. “When you go to Goodlife, you jump on a treadmill, you’re by yourself. Whereas in boxing clubs there tends to be more of a family feeling to it, everybody works together, everybody gets along.”
“When somebody comes in here, nobody judges anybody,” he says. “If Justin Trudeau comes in, he’ll train next to the street kid, and everybody gets along.” In fact, the club is where Trudeau trained for his infamous bout with Senator Patrick Brazeau.
Some teenagers spend hours at the boxing club after school, says Belanger. “If they want to hang out, sit on a couch, watch TV, chat with the rest of the guys after you train, we’re not going to tell them to go home.”
For teens facing peer pressure, boxing can be a handy excuse. “In boxing, you can’t even permit yourself have a diet Pepsi, let alone to get into alcohol or drugs. The difference when you’re using boxing as your excuse is you get to keep that ‘cool’ factor. Maybe your friends are 16, you can say ‘sorry I can’t smoke weed this weekend, I’ve got a fight next week.’ You’re still cool, you know?”
Belanger says he’s never encountered head injuries at his gym or in other amateur boxing matches he’s been involved with over the last 18 years. “I’ve coached the national team for Canada, I’ve coached kids, adults … and I’ve never seen a head injury.”
Perry says amateur boxing has many protocols in place to prevent and address head injuries. “The number of concussions in boxing is much less than a lot of the other sports. Amateur boxing is different from pro boxing. It’s not about the knockout. It’s about winning on points.
“All of our athletes have to have a medical every 12 months. They have to have a medical before they compete and after they compete. And there has to be a doctor at every event. I don’t know of a sport that has that level of safety.”
At the Beaver Boxing Club, only about a quarter of the youth participants are part of the competitive program. The majority are there for the conditioning and activity from hitting the bags and learning technique.
“We don’t rush them into competition,” says Perry. “You have to be very committed. You have to really want to do this. We take safety very seriously. You’re not going to be competing unless you’ve learned defensive skills and you’ve decided that’s the path you want to take.”
Even Clark’s mother has come around.
“She’s very happy for me,” says Clark. “She told me after I won my first tournament, ‘Do it until you’re not happy doing it anymore.’ She’s definitely turned into my biggest fan.”
Last year, Clark won a silver medal in the 152-pound class at the nationals. This year, she’s dropped down to the 141-pound class and is hoping for an even better result.
“From the second that I found out what the sport was, I wanted to be a fighter, I wanted to be a champion. I still want to be a world champion.”
查看原文...
