Shannon Russell tries out a timing bag and ... (Michael E. Keating photos) | ZOOM |

        I recently conducted a brief survey with myself and came across some staggering information: If I were dropped alone into a poorly-lit room and had to rely on my wits and athleticism to elude a highly disturbed individual, I would rather raffle off my pancreas than face heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, who defeated runners-up John Rocker and Cujo by a whopping 62 percent.

        The more I contemplated this potential fiasco, the more I wondered why someone like Iron Mike shouldn't be afraid of ME. Never mind the sea-kayaking, lawn-bowling optimist you thought you knew. I am clearly a ruffian, subscribing to a brand of barbarism that includes jaywalking and neglecting enormous late fees at the local library.

        I decided there was only one more thing I needed to cement my bad-girl image, one last achievement that would instill unparalleled fear in the likes of Mr. Tyson, and hopefully land me a lucrative career and several very important shoe endorsements.

        I had to become a pugilist.

... trades punches with her boss, Jennifer Scroggins. | ZOOM |

        For Summer Adventure No.7, I traveled to Shamrock Boxing Club and Gym in Covington for a how-to lesson from 34-year boxing veteran Terry O'Brien.

        For reasons relating to chronic clumsiness and an acute astigmatism, I opted to bring along a few of the city's toughest individuals, the kind you DON'T WANT TO MESS WITH. They're part of a very powerful and efficient clean-up crew. If they wanted to, they could waste this very paragraph and replace it with something entirely more interesting, such as an excerpt from any 1978 media guide. They are Enquirer assistant sports editor Jennifer Scroggins and sports copy editors Mike Mudd and Justin Hathaway.

        First, however, it must be said that O'Brien has influenced some of the best boxers in Cincinnati and even in the world. He coached junior middleweight Kevin J. Daigle, who challenged for the International Boxing Federation world title 10 years ago, and he has even met Muhammad Ali and Don King.

        But perhaps the greatest challenge of his career was teaching the four of us footwork.

        “Footwork is the most important part of learning to box,” Terry said. “You need to know this before anything else.”

        We began our journey where most journeys begin, standing in front of a medium-sized mirror propped against a wall. While watching our reflections (from the waist down) we attempted to execute the four complicated and critical steps of boxing stance: up, back, over (left) and over (right). It was very important to keep our left feet planted while staying poised on the balls of our right feet, and then take 2-inch sliding steps in the direction Terry indicated. Within minutes, we most closely resembled the midsection of a Salsa-dancing centipede.

        I dared to snicker until I heard a deafening and somewhat crabby HONK, which turned out to be a key moderator of our activities and is better known as The Automatic Timer. This timer is a small, mechanized box situated on the gym's ring-side wall and is surely a cross between humankind's technological advances and a very, very angry duck. It was set to a normal boxer's routine: three minutes of work and one minute of rest. Drill Sergeant Duck, which wisely declined a duel in the back parking lot following our training, boldly sounded off during our entire stay.

        Now, we didn't feel too horribly inadequate about bumbling around in front of Terry, thanks in part to our wild card, Mike Mudd. The aforementioned individual, who answers simply to “Mudd,” has been a boxing fan since he was 10 and is an unabridged encyclopedia of its sweet science. He was easily able to parlay footwork techniques into Terry's other stations (including timing bags, speed bags, jump-roping, sit-ups, push-ups and a 40-mile jaunt across the Alaskan tundra), and it wasn't long before Jennifer and Justin were up to speed, too.

        And then we were ready to spar.

        In the center ring, the premiere fight pitted “Jabbing” Jennifer Scroggins against Shannon “Killer” Russell, and everyone expected a doozy. Prepared to deliver, we donned gloves, headgear and mouthpieces and stood in the ring, poised for destruction. We looked alarmingly scary. For me, this was compounded by Neurosis Rabidosis, which is a direct reaction to the mouthpiece, whose manufacturers undoubtedly conducted many serious meetings and several company picnics to devise an irrigation system that channels drool from one's mouth right onto one's shirt.

        But it wasn't a time to look pretty. It was time for Round One.

        Some might suspect it was a brutal contest of wits and skill, ultimately giving way to flying teeth, gushing blood and an eventual knockout. These people would be wrong. Jennifer and I promptly forgot all the footwork we'd learned and spent the first two minutes circling each other with the speed of a battery-operated carousel.

        Then the fight escalated into a full-blown gigglefest.

        “It was just weird,” Jennifer explained afterward. “I really didn't want to wail on someone who's my friend. I didn't want to hit you.”

        To which I expertly remarked: “Yeah. It WAS weird!”

        We tentatively traded taps aside each other's temples, sometimes resorting to a special brand of defense that allowed us to make zero progress while punching each other squarely on the gloves.

        Round Two was different. We lost our will to laugh. We lost our desire to smile. And, most importantly, we lost our ability to move without assistance.

        Physically exhausted, we stumbled around the ring. I incorporated several weak one-two punches to her mid-section while she commenced walloping my head.

        We gladly surrendered after the two, two-minute rounds, with one thought in mind: HOW CAN WE REMOVE THESE GLOVES IN 3.5 SECONDS OR LESS?

        “Malevolent” Mudd then stepped the ring to meet Justin, who recently moved to Cincinnati from Oklahoma and was dubbed by Jennifer as “The Tulsa Hurricane.” In their two rounds (one was three minutes, the other two) Mudd and Justin lit into each other with the wrath of territorial tree frogs. Mudd bobbed and weaved, throwing the occasional jab, overhand right and hook. Justin not only held his own, he actually had to chase Mudd across the ring during Mudd' s height of fatigue.

        “I can't remember the last time three minutes went slower in my life,” Mudd said. “After about two minutes, I got really tired and I could feel all my technique going out the door. I got arm-weary a lot faster than I thought.”

        Justin agreed.

        “It took forever. It felt like an eternity,” he said. “People say this is a barbaric sport, but this gives me new respect for boxers. My whole body aches, from my feet to my calves to my arms. And I was only in the ring for five minutes.”

        Terry evaluated our day's work, and on a scale of one to 10, awarded us eights after we promised to leave and never come back.

        So, after another brief survey of high importance, I ruled that, considering my utterly sad boxing performance, Mr. Tyson has absolutely NO reason to fear me. But with a few more practice sessions, and extensive muscle enhancement surgery, I think I'll be ready for that poorly-lit room.

        If not, there's always baseball. Or dog-walking.

Wanna box? Forget all you think you know

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