I’ve been practicing meditation inconsistently for a few years. I’ve cycled through a number of apps - Insight Timer, Headspace, Calm, Plum Village - in an effort to built some habits around taking time for myself to breathe and recenter myself. Downloading an app was a good first step but never led me to consistent habit formation, particularly as I try to reduce phone use and subsequent doomscrolling (the irony).

Where I’ve had more success in meditating consistently is structure and practicing in a different environment. Meditation retreats and wellness getaways have helped me make time for my practice and engage in more mindful interoception, but those trips are an annual-at-best ritual. (I had an incredible time at Miraval, for instance, but it’s a bit of a $plurge.)

Luckily, our boxing gym now offers a meditation class - and I’ve started attending and meditating inside the boxing ring every Sunday morning.

At first glance, a boxing gym, much less the boxing ring, is the least likely place you’d expect to engage in mindful practice:

Needless to say, not a conventional spot for meditating. But I’ve found that meditating there helps my mindfulness practice and my boxing game.

First, you don’t need a perfect environment to take a moment for mindfulness or for yourself. I had always imagined meditating requires an ideal set of circumstances or surroundings: incense burning, lights dimmed, candles lit, the space insulated from any sounds or senses from the outside world.

But as our coach reminded us, the world isn’t quiet or perfectly curated for meditation. So, in that sense, meditating someplace where you hear the sounds of the birds chirping and the cars driving by, or where the evidence of past fights is literally beneath our feet, is fully raw and real. It’s a valuable reminder that we need to make our own peace and space for ourselves in the more chaotic world.

Second, whenever I feel fear, anxiety, or stress, I can always return to my breathing. Breathing is the connective tissue between our minds and bodies, and it is always there for us if we need to pull our thoughts out of scary spirals and recenter.

I do a decent job at refocusing on breathing in moments of mental duress, but what I’m working towards now is returning to mindful breathing when I’m boxing. Sparring is scary and nerve-wracking, and I often forget to breathe while I’m defending punches and trying to land my own on my opponent. Holding my breath in is unfortunately self-defeating in two ways: it makes it harder to maintain my stamina and it amplifies my anxiety.

Put differently, my mental resilience as a boxer is still very much a work in progress.

I’m hopeful that meditating in the ring will help me bring more of the mindful breathing from meditation into my boxing practice: a reminder that when I go into that ring, I focus on my breathing above all else regardless of what I do.

A small nudge to close out this write-up: challenge yourself to meditate or focusing on your breath somewhere that feels incongruous with mindfulness. The world isn’t quiet but you can quiet your mind within it.