January to march 2023
Poipoia te kākano kia puawai
Nurture the seed and it will flourish
What’s currently happening within our boxing club ?
There’s plenty in the pipeline. It’s 2023 and we are into March already time is flying. The boxing club is consistently growing, people come people go boxing is only for the strong and the brave or anyone who wants to become. Some people are about it and some aren’t just like anything. For us, we’ve lived and breathed boxing for many years. It is an activity of such that you learn to love the good the bad and the ugly. Isn’t that what life is ? We must learn to embrace that and cherish those times. I have seen boxing change so many peoples lives for the better. Including myself. The pursuit of betterment is an every day challenge for everyone and I believe in times like today it is important to have these skills. Why ? Because if you know how to fight you can be in the best position possible to look after yourself and whānau if ever in an ugly situation. It also gives you the skills to have self control and confidence to de escalate situations but most importantly to remain resilient when times get tough. You learn to understand yourself and the rhythms of movement you have within, physically, mentally and spiritually. After all it is better to be a warrior in a garden then a gardener in a war. “Poipoia te kakano kia puawai” Nurture the seed and it will flourish! We stand strong by this whakatauki at the boxing club by using our core values to instill mana within our rangatahi and community. Check out some of our photos below to see what we have been up to at the start of 2023!
Preparation for the 2023 South Island novice Boxing championships.
Our crew have been putting in some solid mahi since the start of the year. We as coaches laid out the expectations of what is expected of our members who want to lace the gloves up and fight in this tournament. The novice champs is a great opportunity for any one who is wanting to step into the ring to have their first match bout. This year there is more entries then ever before and we have around about 8-12 looking to compete. What does their training regime look like ? Most of our fighters are training twice a day, first sessions at 5:30am and second session in the evening around 6pm. We are big believers of consistency breeds results and we are confident we will be bringing some South island novice titles back to Otepoti. We are proud of their efforts to date the crew have been working very hard on their craft and we are just currently 2 weeks out from showtime! One thing we know is it is hard to prepare for game day nerves. In the past we have seen many people who are great fighters in the gym rock up and struggle to perform on stage. We have also seen boxers who are average in the gym rock up and put in stellar performances. Because of this we decided to have a practice run and run a small sparring inhouse fight night in which we opened it up to close whanau to come and watch the fighters compete in front of a small home crowd. It was a great practice run for our competitors to get up and have a feel for what it would be like before they get out there in a few weeks time. We matched them accordingly and they all showed up and put on a great show for a small local crowd. We had 12 fights and every bout was exciting from start to finish.
Below are some photos of our very first inhouse fight night.
“Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora te manuhiri. Nāu te rākau, nāku te rākau, ka mate te hoariri.”
”Your food basket and my food basket will satisfy the guest. Your weapon and my weapon will dispose the enemy.”
