I trained with a boxing world champion and learned so much more than how to punch

Everything I thought I knew about boxing evaporated into thin air when I stepped into a ring for the first time earlier this year.

I thought boxing was about aggression. I thought you had to be the biggest, tallest and strongest person in the ring to win. I thought, to a certain extent, that you might have to lose your temper to be good. And I didn’t think it was something I would ever particularly enjoy. But even by the end of my first session with former professional boxer Cathy Brown, I had been proven entirely wrong.

“I always think you’ve got to be calm when you’re fighting, because you miss so much if you lose your temper,” she told me. “If you lose your temper, you’ve lost the fight, because you’re not really thinking about what you’re doing. You’re just acting off pure emotion.”

The second only woman in the UK to receive a professional boxing licence, Cathy Brown competed in professional boxing between 1999 and 2006. During ten years ranked at the top of her professional field, she won English and European titles, and by the end of her career, Cathy had been ranked number three in the world.

Now? Catchy leads women’s-only boxing classes, and runs a charity called HeadGuard which uses boxing and CBT to help young women and girls who have been sexually exploited, abused or trafficked.

She also uses her experience as a professional athlete along with training in said cognitive behavioural therapy to develop clients’ mental and physical strength synonymously – from her base at Mayfair’s luxurious Third Space gym space (which is fanciest, best-equipped and most welcoming gym I’ve ever stepped foot in, FYI). She helps her clients find a sense of inner calm.

Just moments into my weekly sessions with Cathy, it became clear to me that this notion of “calm” was not only central to her own success, but central to boxing – and the biggest thing the sport would be able to offer me. Boxing is, after all, meditative at its core.

Week One, Lesson One: Boxing Is Physical Meditation

Before we got started with our warm-up at the beginning of session one – but after Cathy very kindly gave me a gift of my very own boxing gloves and wraps – she asked me what I wanted to get out of my sessions with her. I told Cathy that I not only wanted to feel stronger, but that I wanted to find a way to switch off from work, in a way that other styles of workout don’t always allow.

I love my job, I told her, but this often means I have a million-and-one ideas floating around and find it hard to switch off. I get burnt-out very quickly and feel like I’ve never quite got the job done.

I enjoy keeping fit, and often go to spin classes – but I’m now almost so used to the routine of them that my mind still wanders while working out. Likewise, I gave running a good stab, but unlike most, I don’t find it helps me switch off ~at all~. Rather, being alone with my thoughts just gives me more time to ruminate. And it hurts my ankles.