Several of my Korean female friends are all fellow pro boxers whom I have had the awesome pleasure of meeting via boxing. Many of them I've even sparred with and some of them have been previous opponents of mine too. It's a strange feeling, meeting up with a fellow female fighter afterward and knowing she's wearing that guard on her nose because you broke it the week earlier in a pro fight with her. She smiles, you ask her how she's doing and then she jokes about insurance for her nose. Can't say I haven't used this joke when meeting up with another fighter friend of mine who put me in the exact position. It's never been about them as a person in the ring though, it's always been about the sport of boxing and your own skills as a boxer. And that's why we're able to go round-after-round beating upon each other and then meet up afterward.
It's a different thing though, being a female boxer here in Korea as supposed to being a female boxer in Canada, just like I think the male boxers here have a harder time than in Canada. Sports aren't exactly regarded as a respectable trade or career path here, that is unless you're involved in Korea's much loved soccer or golf. I got into an interesting conversation about this fact, us being female boxers in Korea, with one of my fellow female fighter friends today. It was interesting to see just how similar her and I thought about our position, despite her being Korean and me being a foreign boxer. So I came up with a little list of what we think about as female boxers. Some of the ten things I jotted down were stronger felt by me whereas some were stronger on her end.
1. We're not jealous of a prettier girl, especially if they're skinnier then us, that is unless we think she can give a good fight in the ring and then our feeling towards her is admiration and respect. We all leave the ring looking pretty rough, not pretty, so looks mean nothing.
2. We size everyone who walks into the boxing club, not because we want to be stronger or better than them but because finding a suitable sparring is a hard, rare find in Korea.
3. We'll be the one standing in the middle of the street watching a street fight. Correction, not watching but judging them -- scoring them. And yes, we find most street fights embarrassing for those involved. They definitely make us pro fighters look real good.
4. Sometimes we really envy the average person and would love to just have a "normal" life -- wear normal clothes and work a normal 9 to 5 jobs where we can clock out at the end of the day. Boxing is not a job we can take a day off and step away from -- it is a deligator and a lifestyle. It's a job that pays so little for the 100% it constantly requires from us.
5. For every person who asks us why we box we're tempted to ask why they don't.
6. Boxing may have started off as just a sport for us but it's clearly more than that -- it's what we are. It's very much a huge part of our identity so ya, we're going to cry when we lose AND when we win a fight because we love boxing and have dedicated so much of our being to it.
7. We hate it when people compare us to mauy tai/kick boxers. Their main focus is the lower half of the body and ours is the upper half. It's like comparing apples and oranges, both are in the same category -- both are fruits -- but they're totally different. Yes, we are all fighters but it's certainly not the same fight. No one is better than the other, we're all different, and we'd appreciate these differences being respected.
8. We (correction, more so me and not so much my friend) are not embarrassed or shy about our boxing injuries, ESPECIALLY if they were scored during a fight. We wear our black eyes and bruises proudly because they were earned so yes, hell yes, we're going to sport them with pride.
9. We don't think it's cute, funny or at all a turn-on when we tell you we're a pro boxer and you tell us to hit you. First of all, we don't know whether to be more insulted that you're implying that because we're females that we must not be able to hit hard or that you think you can take our punch, or perhaps that you think we'll just punch you for free. We're professionals, we get paid to punch and we're not interested in punching random people "for fun" or punching to prove something that we certainly don't have to prove. Moreover, at the risk of losing our pro license and being thrown in jail for a simple "innocent" punch, we just think you're down right an idiot for asking us to punch you -- grow up.
10. Female fighters stick together, regardless of if they're going against each other in the ring or not. We have enough competition to go against -- our parents and family not wanting us to box, social norms we don't follow (especially here in Korea), our opponent in the ring, and our own expectations and inner demons. The last thing we're interested in is putting down someone else in our very same position. We've got nothing but love for our fellow fighting females.
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