I never thought I would end up being here the sound of gloves pounding on the bag, the annoying timer bell, and the heat of everyone’s bodies all around the gym. It is an awesome feeling being around here, but I never thought I would even come close to doing the thing that I do today. I started out differently in the beginning of eighth grade year and was definitely not expecting myself to come this far in my life, not just with my passions but with the way I see and view things has also changed as well.



It was not very long ago when it was the beginning of eighth grade, I was basically still a little kid who didn’t really have much of a social life since I was shy and didn’t have many friends. I was decent kid got fair grades made some good friends and had trouble talking to girls it was probably a normal thing back at that age, but I felt like a total loser and was always a doubter towards myself. Confidence for me was low and I thought that I would never ever be confident and to me being confident was being smart I wasn’t that smart so I wasn’t that confident. Being shy would probably be the worst traits about me though I was a shy kid at school who normally talked to friends and was a loud kid at home always having fun playing video games or going outside to have fun. In the inside I was actually very outgoing; I just had no idea how to become that guy so school was kind of difficult to me. Every day till half way through December I was noticing differences about myself; I seemed different and happier. I was becoming more social and outgoing towards the people at the school. It’s crazy on how things change because sometimes you’ll never know when it happens.



A month later I actually felt like a normal human being, able to talk to people around me and was able to make friends. It wasn’t just my personality that changed it was my looks too. I was more decent looking; I did my hair I gained some muscle, and I had contacts on all the time so I didn’t look like a dorky kid anymore. It felt great being this person. It was as if an inner being just came out and decided to wake up from the inside to out. The self-confidence I had was amazing it made me feel more alive; my outgoingness was always there I was actually someone cool. School became more easier to me too it was either I got smarter somehow or I was able to understand things better, either way it was an amazing feeling to actually be able to understand school work and do my homework without feeling so overwhelmed. Its crazy how you can go from loser to an actual person, being recognized by people felt great to me and I was starting to get more used to it that talking to almost anybody was easy! I was starting to make some more close friends and I actually got to know people on a personal level which made me be able to respect a lot of people on what they go through. In the way I was changing I was also becoming more mature meaning I was becoming more responsible with my life too. I was even thinking about the future at the time which was pretty good for a kid who was in the eighth grade. Even my parents have noticed the change and were very surprised in how much I have grown in over a year, I wasn’t even in high school and I already acted older.



After a few months of the certain changed that happened I was stuck, thinking about what my real interests were. I was an aggressive guy that liked sports that had lots of action in it, so I would ask my dad if there were any sports that would be good to follow up in that category; he told me
“Why don’t you try boxing?” I gave it some thought then I said
“Let’s do it”.
Later that day we went to a boxing gym which wasn’t too far from my house and started talking to the boxing coach, the feeling inside the gym was intense with a lot of intimidating guys seeing who can be the toughest at training. I wasn’t so intimidated by these people and decided to give that gym a shot, inside me felt like a beast striking that bag with all my power and speed. I made sure I trained hard all the time to make sure I can be the best; it felt great training every day to make yourself better this was my calling in my lost young life and it felt great. When I first sparred with someone it wasn’t very pretty it basically tested my will into how long I could last for three minutes. It was intense my heart was pounding my fists were clenching and the bell hasn’t rung yet, my mind was steady but focused I thought to myself, “You came so far what’s going to bring you down now?”, but right when it went on I snapped, it was probably one of the hardest things I have ever encountered in life nothing else mattered in that three minutes--all it was, was me, the ring and the other guy fighting each other till that bell when out I hit him he hit me it was just back and forth constantly hitting each other every time that bell rang when it was time to go back up and face each other I got stronger and stronger and kept coming back I couldn’t stop I always had to keep on going. Although my body was getting weak I felt my spirit feeling strong. I smirked at my opponent and told him
“Thank you, you did great!” he replies back
“You put up a fight! You’re probably one of the hardest fighters I have matched up against”.
After everything I felt a new type of passion that made me grow even better as a person and made me more than a loser at school boxing was my favorite thing in the world after that and it has been since the beginning when I started training everything that I grew up with in my life in the eighth grade became my identity.