Climbing Through the Ropes

When my wife and I discovered we were having our second child, I felt a strange mix of sensations. Of course I was excited, overcome with joy at the addition of a new member of the family. There was also apprehension, driving me to pray that my wife’s pregnancy and delivery would be healthy. By the time we found out we’d be having a boy, our first son, I became more reflective.

I don’t consider raising a boy and girl to be particularly different, especially in the early stages of life. But finding out I would be having a son, who would eventually become a man, reified my responsibility as his father: to “train up a child in the way he should go” (Prov. 22:6). I don’t mean to suggest that imparting guidance to a daughter is solely reserved for her mother – I cherish my chance to help raise my little girl. But it’s no secret that young men are struggling with changing social norms about masculinity and manhood, and often grasping for a sense of purpose and drive. In response, young men have flocked in droves to politicians obsessed with domination, and to men with an internet presence eager to sell them self-help programs and supplements to optimize becoming the ideal man. Put another way, while we rightfully tell our daughters they can be anything, our sons are assaulted daily with the message that they can and should be one type of man.

Photograph by Guy Corbishley / Alamy Stock Photo.

Knowing this state of affairs, I continued to think about the model of manhood I wanted to reflect to my son. After all, I would be the first and most prevalent man in his life, and these first impressions mattered greatly. As I pondered what I wanted to show my son about being a man, the one image that came back to my mind again and again is the sport I’ve come to love as an adult: boxing.

Two-time heavyweight champion of the world George Foreman once said, “Boxing is the sport to which all others aspire.” But to tell people you enjoy boxing is, in many social circles today, to invite an immediate, almost guttural reaction ranging from confusion to disgust. As Joyce Carol Oates puts it in her book of essays On Boxing, “Boxing’s very image is repulsive to many people because it cannot be assimilated into what we wish to know about civilized man.” In a 1983 editorial calling for the ban of the sport, the Journal of the American Medical Association stated what many people find so objectionable about the sport: “The principal purpose of a boxing match is for one opponent to render the other injured, defenseless, incapacitated, unconscious.” Indeed, some may hear in my talking about the sport in a positive light an example of someone desperately clinging to the same old destructive manhood I was just decrying. This may seem especially true when one considers the rapidly expanding world of mixed martial arts, which has at times deliberately aligned itself with old ideas about masculinity and domination.

I would not be the first to note that boxing is a sport that uniquely fosters and embodies a certain masculine ideal. Oates writes that “boxing is for men, and is about men, and is men.” As a young Black man, I had few heroes who stood out in my young mind as starkly as Muhammad Ali, head and shoulders above any other great athlete this country has produced. When my father told me that my grandfather had fought in Golden Gloves to somewhat notable success in his region, I felt a swelling sense of pride.

I never boxed as a youth, although I did practice tae kwon do and hapkido, martial arts of the eastern variety that many people associate with terms like “karate,” with bowing and belts and uniforms. My friends and I enjoyed contact sports and wrestling, but even as many around me were getting excited with the growth of mixed martial arts, I always kept such sports at a distance. The cage, its fans enthusiastically told me, was a place to unleash a primal rage, a deep and frantic violence that tapped into something baser. You could do almost anything in the cage: throw elbows, bend an opponent’s bones and joints, choke them. This devolvement into pure violence, and the pleasure fans received from it, bothered me in a way I could not quite explain.

I did not come to enjoy boxing until I was older, when I signed up at a gym downtown as a way to better move my body and recapture the joy I had felt while practicing a martial art. Hitting the heavy bag, pad work, core exercises, and even running on the treadmill became weekly rituals I greatly looked forward to. I felt better, and learning a new practice was a welcome addition to my schedule. I fell in love with the sport, watched new and old fights, invested in better gloves, and even bought a heavy bag for my home.

By the time my first sparring sessions came around, I was eager to simulate an actual boxing match. My gym is, thankfully, filled mostly with other novice fighters, and not with people entering the ring hoping to hurt anyone else. Still, my first time was a lesson in keeping my hands up: I left with a bloody nose and a headache. But I craved more. I went back again and again, my coach chiding me for my “happy feet” and bad nerves, flinching too much and too early as blows came my direction. Put another way, I was afraid. But every time in the ring created an opportunity to learn something, to make a good move or land a good punch or execute a memorable block or counter. Boxing made me love all of it – the importance of preparation, the determination to push when pain reared its head, the triumph of refusing to be conquered by fear. Any bump or bruise on my lip, any headache or sore jaw, any moment where the breath had left my lungs was not something to be feared but a chance to grow.

If sport, properly understood, is humans harnessing and elevating the capabilities of the human body, there are few sports that exemplify this like boxing. The training itself is part of the sport’s legend: running outside in the dark, punching the bag for hours on end, jumping rope. Muhammad Ali famously used to do sit ups and punch his own body repeatedly to get it ready for the ring. It is no coincidence that the training montage is a mainstay of the Rocky franchise – the mark of a truly great fighter is focus and dedication, the ability to deny oneself temporary pleasure in pursuit of a larger goal. These denials are done day after day in anticipation and expectation of a grand payoff when the fighter climbs through the ropes and begins the contest.

Such work as part of a pursuit is seen not just in the movies but in the Bible as well. When Paul writes of self-discipline in his letter to the Corinthians, he invokes boxing, noting “I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Cor. 9:26–27). This image has remained with me, a constant reminder that as Christians, our ultimate prize requires daily training and breaking down our body to build it up.

These lessons from boxing are not just for men – indeed, we are in a renaissance of excellent women boxers who know the hard work and dedication the ring requires better than I ever will. And of course, fervently pursuing our ultimate prize as Christians is not just for men either (see Gal. 3:28–29). But Oates is right that boxing fosters and creates masculine imagery, and this is a moment when masculinity itself needs to be properly molded and guided.

What this sport provides is not simply blood and sweat, hard hits, or exerting your will on another person – it gives us so much more. Boxing reminds viewers that steady dedication to a task is the way to succeed. There have been plenty of men who are brave, strong, and mean, but only by being consistent will true dividends be achieved. So it is with manhood. As our culture divides over how to conceive of gender roles, the self-proclaimed online gurus of manhood see what they deem feminism’s excesses and tell young men that a man is never unsure, never nervous, never afraid, never vulnerable. And, perhaps above all, a man never loses, and he never sacrifices. After all, what is sacrifice if not a self-inflicted loss? But that is not life as a man. Being a father demands far more than fathering children does, and being a good husband is harder than being the head of a household.

What I want my son to know, whether or not he comes to share my love of boxing, is that no man can accrue benefits without accompanying responsibilities, and no man has ever been impervious to failure or shortcoming.

What I want my son to know, whether or not he comes to share my love of boxing, is that no man can accrue benefits without accompanying responsibilities, and no man has ever been impervious to failure or shortcoming. Indeed, all of my favorite fighters have lost – Ali, Joe Louis, Mike Tyson, George Foreman. These were tough men, the “manliest” that could be – and they all fell. What made them great and enduring is not that they had powerful fists and impressive strength. Rather, their greatness came in their ability to pursue excellence in the little things they did, day after day. And, when the time came, they faced their fears and climbed through the ropes, just like their opponents. Even getting to the point where one climbs through the ropes is worth relishing.

Of the many traditions of the boxing ring, there is one anyone who has seen a match is familiar with. After a bout ends and the final bell rings, the two fighters embrace and congratulate each other, before similarly showing honor and respect to the cornermen for their opponent. Given how unpleasant fighters can be to each other in promoting a fight, an outside observer may find such an outpouring of love immediately following combat a bit odd. But these moments show that the fighters understand something we can apply to manhood more generally: I respect you and see you. I honor your hard work. I know that I am vulnerable to harm, just like you. I know that nobody does great things alone, and I honor those on this journey with you. Even if I am the victor, I respect that you have come here and shared the ring with me. Or, put more succinctly: I know what it takes to climb through those ropes.

And perhaps this, more than anything, is what I want my son to know about manhood. All of a man’s life does not need to be a fight – in fact, it should not be thought of that way. But there will be times when you do feel alone, when your back is against the ropes, or perhaps you are face down on the canvas. There will not only be wins in this life. A man who seeks to only win, to only control, will surely find himself outmatched and angry at everyone and everything around him. What I hope he knows is that a respectable way to be a man is to pursue your goals diligently, preparing for whatever challenges may come. Regardless of whether a man wins or loses when those challenges arise, preparing for that climb through the ropes is all you can do.

My son was born last fall in a hurry – we rushed to the hospital and I had to keep it together and drive safely but speedily to get there. My wife’s strength through carrying and birthing our son in itself reflects how nonsensical the male obsession with strength is. But I tried to be a steady presence for my wife anyway, as I have tried to be for my son in the days since. I have often been reminded that being a good man is sometimes mundane, boring even. But hitting the heavy bag or running hills can be too. I don’t need my son to think of me as Superman; I hope he learns from me to be a husband and father who does the little needful things day after day – occupying, as a favorite poem of mine puts it, “love’s austere and lonely offices.” All I need is for him to become an honest and godly man – that prize would be greater than any title belt. That prize will not come in the ring, but it would be silly to think we don’t have to train for it.