A moment that changed me: I stepped into the boxing ring – and decades of quiet anger lifted
On meeting me, you would never guess that I used to be an angry person. I'm talkative, sociable and self-possessed – but for nearly 20 years I lived with a quiet fury. It started with my parents, whose strict conservatism restricted everything in my life: what I ate, what I wore, where I went, what I thought. As immigrants from Bangladesh, they believed that control was the best way to protect their daughters, but it suffocated me.
I had to fight to go to university – for all the things that men in my community were given as a right. At first, my anger felt ambient – mild and ever-present – but it became something harder, more bitter, when I was pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 24.
The marriage lasted days, but the fallout lasted decades. I remember researching a magazine feature years later and speaking to a relationship expert who referenced my 'forced marriage'. I was quick to jump in and say: 'It was arranged; not forced.' She tilted her head gently and said, 'An arranged marriage you did not want?' It was the first time I realised how angry I was.
My anger manifested in different ways. I was irritable and snappy with my mother, emotionally guarded in relationships, and fiercely self-sufficient when it came to money. I never again wanted to be in a situation I could not easily escape.
I considered therapy, but the cultural context in which I grew up does not sit easily with western techniques. I can't imagine explaining my anger to my mother or expecting some form of apology. Instead, I accepted that anger was something I would just have to live with.
Then, in the spring of 2023, I walked into a boxing gym. I had never boxed before but I wanted to try it so that I could depict it accurately in the novel I was writing. I remember standing sheepishly by the ring at Mickey's Boxing Gym in east London while the eponymous Mickey finished his morning class.
He noticed me and told me to warm up ahead of our one-to-one session. I had never been in a gym before, let alone a boxing one, and had no idea how to 'warm up'. I retreated around the corner, out of view, and fiddled with my phone instead. As the morning class filtered out, I gingerly returned to the ring.
We began with some basic footwork and the fundamental punches: the jab, the cross, the hook. We worked in three-minute 'rounds', punctuated by 30-second breaks, all announced by a digital bell.
Midway through the session, we moved on to the pads. Mickey held up two padded mitts and called out different combinations – patterns of punches I had to land on the mitts. As I punched, he called out instructions – 'keep your chin down', 'let me hear you breathe', 'hide behind your shoulder' – and then came the moment that changed things for me.
'Hit harder,' he instructed. I punched. 'Harder!' I punched again, the sweat dripping off me. 'Harder! Use your power!' I punched again with all my strength. 'Let me hear you!' he shouted.
I cried out loud as I punched – an ugly, guttural sound, so different to everything I'd been taught. In that moment, I didn't have to be demure, delicate or diplomatic. I could be as fierce and angry as I wanted. I pounded the pads, shouting out with each punch. Over the course of those three minutes, I felt my anger lift: the years, maybe decades, of it.
The bell sounded and I crumpled on to the ropes, sweaty and euphoric. I was emotional as I took off my gloves. I felt lighter, freer, unchained from something heavy.
I went home and told my partner: 'I think I've finally found my sport.' This was revelatory. South-Asian women are one of the least active demographics in the UK and the idea of finding 'my sport' – and that sport being boxing – felt somehow absurd.
The two sessions I had booked for research turned into two years of boxing. As a result, I am much calmer, happier and more patient. Best of all, I no longer dread spending time with my mother. Where once I found it emotionally draining, I now know that an hour in the gym will re-energise me. Boxing has given me a sense of equilibrium that was missing for so much of my life. After decades of battling my anger, I have finally found some peace.
The guys at the gym often ask if I'll ever take part in a boxing fight. They say that, after two years of training for three to four sessions a week, with dozens of sparring partners, I'm ready to get in the ring for real. I smile and tell them that I only box for fun. What I don't say is that I've already won the longest fight of my life.
What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah is published 19 June
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