Her rebellious Portbello Road clothes hid self-inflicted scars, and street drugs, including heroin, kept her numb. After a rough three years, Sekules straightened out, returned to school, and began exercising. A move to New York City and an aerobics class introduced her to shadow boxing. For Sekules, it was love at first sight. The obvious reason, Sekules tells us, is to inflict so much pain on your opponents that they fall over and can t get up.
Fighting is about the physical.
But pain can be emotional as well, difficult to alleviate because it is impossible to pin down. In the ring, the opponent and anger merge to give one s own internal pain a physical shape. One can, as Sekules points out, fight back. During her rebellious years, amphetamines fleetingly granted Sekules the thinness Cosmopolitan seemed to dictate. As an adult, she continued to struggle with self-hatred related to such oppressive body image ideals.