PAMELA LEBLANC: FIT CITY

Fist to fist with boxer Jesus Chavez

Conditioning boxing hones muscles, burns calories, makes you sweat

By Pamela LeBlanc
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, June 29, 2009

Mangled noses, smashed lips and bloody eyelids aren't my style. Maybe that's why I've never yearned to lace up a pair of boxing gloves and let fly with a string of punches.

Until now.

I can thank two-time world lightweight boxing champion Jesus "El Matador" Chavez for the change of heart. Chavez, 36, recently retired from the ring (but says he's thinking about going back) and when he's not running or lifting weights to stay in shape, he spars with adults and children in an open-air annex behind the downtown RunTex store.

It's his way, he says, of giving back to a city that's offered him so much.

Boxing, it turns out, is an excellent workout. It can help you lose weight, improve agility and coordination and hone muscles. It's also a fine way to vent frustration. Chavez has a way of making you feel powerful when you're doing it, too, even if you are a 45-year-old recreational athlete who's never landed a punch in her life.

Still, I wondered if I might take home a black eye as a souvenir of our recent bout.

Chavez was born in Adelicias, Chihuahua, Mexico, but grew up in Chicago, where he started fighting as a 10-year-old. He moved to Austin after serving three and a half years in prison for his involvement in an armed robbery at 16. He knew he had to get away from corrupting influences, and he had family in Texas.

He's been in Austin on and off for 15 years. He began his professional career here, with trainer Richard Lord, even setting up residence in a small room at the back of Lord's gym while he immersed himself in the sport in the mid-1990s.

Twice, he's been deported — briefly, in 1994, after he was released from prison, and again in 1997, after entering the country illegally. That violation earned him a 4-year exile to Mexico.

"It was difficult in the beginning because I was considered a man without a country," he says. "I had never lived in Mexico and had just gotten kicked out of the U.S."

During that time, he fought Mexico's national champion for the National Boxing Federation title, earning new credibility in his homeland. He returned to Texas after getting his green card in 2001.

"Boxing is a fundamental of my life," he says. "It helped me through a lot of difficult things."

This I know: You have to be in extremely good shape to fight 12 rounds, and Chavez is in good shape. He runs three or four days a week, lifts weights (light weights, many repetitions) and boxes. His career record? Forty-four wins, five losses.

Fighting has taken its toll, too: two torn rotator cuffs, two torn ACLs, one torn retina and five surgeries to repair all the damage. Tragedy, too. In 2005, Chavez fought Leavander Johnson in the International Boxing Federation championship. Johnson collapsed and fell into a coma after the fight, which was called in the 11th round, and died the following week.

Outside of fighting, Chavez's demeanor is gentle and polite. He's focused and intense, with a gaze that doesn't let go. He loves kids, and spends a lot of down time with his parents, who both live in Austin. (His mother is ill with heart disease.)

Chavez charges $60 an hour ($35 per half hour) for conditioning boxing lessons. He's also teaming up with the Police Activities League of Austin in July to teach boxing to youth.

Today, as he winds black fabric around my hands and wrists, he asks me if I'm nervous. I am, a little. But not because I'm worried about getting hurt. It's more about making a fool of myself. No one's ever taught me to fight, and I have no idea how to throw a punch.

"I think a lot of people are very intimidated by the sport," he tells me. "It's more than just learning how to fight. I'm trying to show people it's the battle of the fittest. There's a lot of core work involved in boxing, a lot of foot movement, hand-eye coordination and defense."

When my hands are wrapped, he holds out a pair of Superman-blue boxing gloves. I cram in my hands and he laces them up. Then he slips on a pair of black mitts, each with a red dot the size of a Ping-Pong ball in the center. That's my target.

I've got 3 inches on Chavez, who's 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. That doesn't matter a bit.

First, he helps me with my stance. My body weight has to be neutral, and I must be nimble. Chavez flits around like he's got a lighted match pressed to his rear end, and I have to be ready to put my body weight behind any punches I throw.

He demonstrates a jab. He is quick and precise, like the piston of an 18-wheeler, as he whips his fists straight out. I feel mushy and slow, like a bowl of tapioca pudding. And my fist droops a little when I hit.

It takes some getting used to. Soon, though, I start dancing, channeling Muhammad Ali. I stab with my fists.

Chavez sets the clock, so I can tell just how long a 3-minute boxing round lasts. It seems like it goes on forever.

I learn a straight punch, a hook and my fave, the upper cut. Soon, I'm hopping around the gym, whaling away on Chavez, who fields every punch with his mitt and praises me when I throw a solid punch.

"One, two, one, two!" Chavez calls out, instructing me which arm to punch with. "Uppercut! Jab!"

It feels great. I love it. He teaches me a fade, and now I'm ducking and dipping to avoid punches.

Sweat is trickling — no gushing — down my forehead, my neck, the small of my back and my legs. I'm sweating so much I'm swimming in it. But I'm focused and can't see beyond Chavez's eyes.

"Protect your face!" he says, as my nonpunching fist inadvertently sags to my hips. I raise it up and swing some more with the other arm.

After a while, Chavez sheds his mitts and invites me to hit him.

In the face.

And I can't do it. Which is ridiculous, considering I'm a middle-aged woman who's never boxed before. Something stops me, even though Chavez is dodging my punches like I'm delivering them through gelatin. Do I actually think I might hurt him?

Still, it's liberating. I have to agree with another boxing student, 31-year-old waitress Leah Simone. "It's changed my outlook about boxing, that it was really barbaric," she tells me. "I knew there had to be skill involved, but I never realized how much endurance. I have a better appreciation of what good shape they're in."

In the end, I flop on the floor, flat on my back, panting like a guppy in a pool of stagnant water.

"I think your mascara is running," Chavez tells me sweetly.

I glance in the mirror. He's not kidding. Big black smudges for all to see.

Two black eyes — I knew it!

pleblanc@statesman.com; 445-3994