SPRINGDALE -- After more than a year since holding any public events, Straightright Boxing & Fitness, one of Northwest Arkansas's only boxing institutions, hosted a small gathering April 17 of youth fighters for an experience of amateur, competitive boxing.
The move comes as many businesses begin to accommodate more and more people amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Straightright is easing into hosting more events with the hope of once again inviting other boxing gyms for their "Gym Wars" sparring shows, a public showcase where family and friends watch all ages of boxers test their skills, and for many, it's a defining starting point for young boxers hoping to enter the world of amateur boxing.
The atmosphere takes on the image of a theater.
Rows of folding chairs surround the elevated centerpiece of the gym, a 24-foot square boxing ring under a giant circling fan. Cool air cuts through the normally sweltering warehouse. "It's the same gym we sweat in," says Kevin Lightburn, head coach and owner of the Springdale gym. There's a second location in Little Rock.
A chorus of nondescript chatter from parents and young children join the commotion of gloves pounding heavy bags and speed bags and ropes skipping on needlebond carpet.
All the lights are dimmed but the center stage and a small area where Lightburn gathers the young fighters to announce their pairings. Above them, rows of banners list the names of State Golden Gloves champions who trained out of Straightright. About 50 banners have hung across their walls since opening in 1991.
"It's equivalent to when you're young in school, and you have to give a speech in class, you're worried you're not going to pronounce words correctly," said Lightburn. "You have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable because that's what sparring is like in front of other people."
The gym's coaches experienced that lesson first hand, not in the ring, but in their livelihoods.
The coronavirus came at a trying time for the reopening last year, shuttering their doors only two months after moving to the new location. And like most public gatherings, Gym Wars along with in-person group training seemed to become a thing of the past.
Moving to a new building was part of a fresh start for Lightburn whose marriage, approaching 20 years, was coming to an end. He turned his head toward his goal and poured thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into a reimagined gym with a new boxing ring and 20 new heavy punching bags, all of which he set up with little help.
Over the course of a weekend, Lightburn moved more than 20,000 pounds of equipment from their 7,500-square-foot gym on Bleaux Avenue to a 3,500-square-foot building on Turner Street and a storage facility, all with the help of assistant coaches Kalvin Henderson and Bernard Oliver and a handful of members from the school's amateur boxing team.
"I was super excited. With all the gyms I've ever opened, the people that come to my gym, that's our strength. The gym is our people," Lightburn said. "They're the reason we made it through the pandemic."
Many of the members allowed the gym to continue taking payments through the pandemic, Lightburn said. They held Zoom classes for members three times a day in rotating shifts with coaches from the Little Rock and now-closed Siloam Springs locations.
"We lost our income the months we were closed," said Coach Bernard Oliver who teaches the daily morning fitness and afternoon boxing academy classes. During the closing, he took a side job driving for Uber and Doordash while also working at the gym as Lightburn's office manager. "We couldn't do things that were physical. We lost our personal training bonuses and struggled to keep the lights on. We had to take it and move forward."
Now, moving forward more than a year since the start of the pandemic, Lightburn gathers his boxers again to announce their pairings. The banners of past champions continue to line the walls, but there is no chatter from the audience. Only the sound of sharp exhales as boxing gloves pound heavy bags and ropes skip over the needlebond carpet. The fighters warm-up. Lightburn takes a spot to watch from outside the ring along with fighters waiting their turn to spar, and expectations are all over the place.
"It felt like more pressure. Whenever we spar in class, it still feels like class. It felt more like an invite to a competition," said Matt Xiong, 26, who started attending classes at the gym just before the start of the pandemic. "I felt pressure to make sure I looked good, and I felt like that made me more tired because I don't feel like I've felt that tired before."
Xiong hopes to become a professional or coach boxing one day, but in the meantime, he's training to enter the amateur boxing tournaments with a spot on the gym's boxing team. Tryouts are approaching.
[Don't see the gallery above, click here: nwaonline.com/425boxing/]
While many boxers come into boxing with some idea of the direction they want to take with the sport, Lightburn says he never tries to force people into a direction because it creates too much pressure. Sometimes fighters do that on their own.
"Matt said that was so different. We gave it a theme and a name. You made it bigger," Lightburn replied. "We'll be in class sparring and today we're just going to have fun, and you'll see some guys put out amazing stuff."
It's only one example of the mental preparation involved in boxing, a sometimes grudgingly difficult sport with an added element of public performance.
But for Lightburn and the other coaches at the gym, like everything else in life, boxing is just another thing to find comfort in the uncomfortable.
Charlie Kaijo may be reached by email at [email protected].