The importance of being earnest

So I'm at the gym today, not the boxing gym, the gym gym-- the one I go to for the weights and absolutely nothing else and there's one of the trainers-- I think he's the one with the bumper sticker that says "fighter on board" but I can't prove it-- standing over a middle-aged man-- pudgy, balding, earnestly slogging through a set of sit-ups while maybe-fighter-on-board stands over him. (Note the middle-aged, pudgy blogger, by the way...)

I've been less-than entirely honest with myself about exactly how often I am going to the gym gym ever since my torrid love affair with boxing began, and this is my first visit in two weeks. My previous tediously regimented weights workout has been printed out and forgotten while I perform a routine I've nicknamed "favorite machines," useful for getting my butt actually into the gym itself but not a vehicle for breaking through strength plateaus or actually making any measurable improvement.

The gym gym I've chosen is one of those executive boxing gyms, equipped with a grid of heavy bags which dominate the floor and a teeny tiny little ring (why don't you just tie the fighters together like a Westside Story knife fight?) Notably absent are speed bags, double end bags, and, well, fights. There's a round timer, but I've never heard it. The rare times I've seen anyone use the ring, one of them was always a trainer with focus mitts on.

The grid is there for boxing and kickboxing classes, which are almost invariably packed. The instructors look like they've got skills, but I heard one of them telling people that this is not a self-defense class: it's a fitness class-- if you want to learn self-defense you'll need to go elsewhere and that ended any interest I might once have had in the classes.

Private lessons with these people are very expensive (I checked), well above my pay grade. I'm a doctor, sure, but not the rich kind: I'm a county doc and while that's plenty of money for me, it's definitely not "private-boxing-lesson"-type money, let's just get that straight. But I always like to peek at the people while they're getting their private lessons-- you know, see if I can pick anything up.

By this time, private lesson guy is on the heavy bag and I'm trying to figure out what's going wrong when it hits me: no opponent. At the gym gym there is never an opponent. There is never even the suggestion of an opponent. That's why the ring isn't really big enough for two people, that's why there's no timer, and that's why the sounds coming from the heavy bag are so muffled: he's pretending to hit it. He's pretending to train. He's pretending to box. There's nothing wrong with him-- he's not too old to try: he's trying-- he just needs an opponent. Because at the boxing gym, when I show up, I look around and there are my opponents. Training. And the heavy bag sounds like it's in trouble.