Domino Effect

Part 2

Coach Manel is explaining the tactics I should use in the first round. I need to save my energy until the last couple of rounds and then slowly increase my attack against my opponent. While both have on headgear and gloves, as required for an amatuer boxing event, we still both have the ability to do serious bodily harm to one another. Coach tells me to open my mouth. I do. He sticks my mouth guard in. This is my last match in this Olympics, and it needs to be my finest. I didn't come all this and work so hard for so many years to end up in second place.

When I first began to box at the age of ten, my mother had hated it. My father was abusive and she didn't want me to end up like him. She didn't want me to take my anger out on other people. However when she left me alone to live with my abusive father, it was no longer her choice on whether or not I would be a boxer. I no longer used the sport as a mere pastime; I used it for my very survival. At the gym, I could temporarily forget about all the challenges I would face when I got home. When I was at home, I could use my newfound skills against my father. Even though he was twice my size, it often didn't matter because he was frequently so drunk his punches would miss me by a couple of inches. I would then punch him a couple of times in the gut trying to get him away from me. My father died right after my eighteenth birthday from an alcohol abuse. I was able to keep living in the same apartment through a part-time job I had after school.

At first, living on my own was hard, but then I realized that I was practically doing it before had my father died. The only thing that changed dramatically after he was gone was my level income. In the first couple of years after he died, I usually only had enough money to pay rent and buy a modest amount of groceries. After I graduated from high school I got accepted into college. That's when I met Coach Manel. I remember the day clearly.  He was doing some training with his clients in a gym called The Jab. The Jab was only a five-minute walk from campus. That day I was so enraged because of something that had happened in class. I went straight into the gym and to the punching bag, sending jabs, hooks and a couple uppercuts into my inanimate opponent. Manel must have seen me. He walked right up to me and observed my movements, shouting out commands. At the time, I didn't know the amount of authority he had over the gym nor the impact he would end up having on my life. At first, I didn't follow his orders. I ignored everything he said. I was too angry to care about the looks he gave me. They were the looks of disappointment. It was the same look my mother had given me when she found out I was boxing for the first time. I broke down, sending my punches faster and harder. Apparently, disobeying Manel was asking for trouble.