This is a memoir narrative, which means I’m going to tell you a story. In the summer of 1964, when I was nine, I made a punching bag out of hay and a burlap bag. I strung it from a cherry tree in the side yard, and, using the gloves I found on the top shelf of the family front closet, I pounded that thing every day for months. Later, I figured out that the boxing gloves had been my father’s, from his Army days. In my mind, I think of him as having passed on boxing to me, even though I’m pretty sure he never instructed me in any boxing moves.
I didn’t get actual boxing instruction until my early twenties. By then I was working as a life coach on the side, pursuing my writing and paying the bills painting houses. In those days the term life coach hadn’t been coined yet. I stepped up to the challenge of pioneering in that field. I specialized in unlocking family legacy as held onto by the body. I had clients pound on a punching bag - exactly how I started - as a way of breaking through to long-buried feelings. I always worked with myself, first, and as I unlocked old legacy, I discovered a passion for competitive coaching.
Twenty years I put in long hours coaching competitive boxers. I loved every minute of it. And, the weave between life coach tactics and competitive coach tactics got tighter and tighter. I began to see glimpses of myself as a guide. Not a coach telling people what to do, but a story mapping guide walking side by side with others, pointing out signs, offering options of perception and interpretation. Guiding everyday people as they entered the matches of everyday life, guiding boxers applying their training to everyday life.
One year ago, age 64, I stepped away from the boxing gym I built up all those years in Seattle, WA. I moved deeper into the Northwest territory anddeclared my retirement transition into a bonafide story mapping guide. It’s been a challenging year. A coaching mindset is a splendid way of having an excuse not to do the work with oneself, first. Coaches tell people what to do. Story mapping guides are like Sherpas — we don’t tell anyone how to climb the mountain, we walk side by side as the trekker climbs their own mountain. I had to step in the ring with tough matches. Like neediness. Round after round after round, taking on cellular then DNA layers of family and cultural legacy. Feeling unheard, unloved and abandoned. I lived in the dark inner catacombs for a long time, stumbling through depression, addiction, feeling worthless. Story mapping guides must be comfortable being present in unfolding stories not their own. That meant I had to unlock many of my personal stories and let them go. So, I did.
Today I worked with my first boxer in many, many years, a teenager interested in exploring a boxing workout. I stuck to my training, scrubbed emerging coach mindset impulses, kept the path clear for learning more about walking side by side. I asked him to describe in his own words what In Life As It is In the Ring, my stock phrase that links the boxing lifestyle with everyday life, means. He struggled with the three minute round. I held my tongue — guides do not tell and direct, they listen, wait and offer options. At the end of the round, he wrote down I bring my values to the ring.
This was new to me. I’ve always thought of the phrase, in life as it is in the ring, from the other end around — as meant to describe applying the boxing training to everyday life. It was a great awakening. We have a range to explore. Whereas, before, I had one end of the range and nowhere else to go.
