Blows to the Head: How Boxing Changed My Mind (Excelsior Editions) Review

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Blows to the Head: How Boxing Changed My Mind (Excelsior Editions) ReviewFirst off I will say that I am not a fan of boxing, despite the important historical and cultural impact that personalities in the sport such as Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis had during the last century. I've read too much about the corruption, hype and brutality that unfortunately has dogged certain segments of the sport since - well, the beginning of human history. However, from the whimsical cover to the final page, "Blows to the Head" is a beautiful, winning and openly personal meditation on the sweet science that convinced me how pure and fulfilling boxing can be in the right hands (no pun intended), and how life-affirming and positive it is for one incredible woman. Binnie Klein "turns over stones" and finds her "out of the box" self as she describes her fascinating personal journey of mind, body and spirit by taking up boxing at an age when many people are considering slowing down and working on Sudoku puzzles as a lifestyle.
Through a variety of compelling anecdotes, the author relates in intimate detail her rigorous training full of blood, sweat and tears with an amazing boxing coach whom she originally discovered through an AARP article, and who becomes a part-Angelo Dundee and part-shaman to her. However, this book contains a lot more layers in addition to describing a woman's personal heroine-quest accompanied by Everlast gloves. With incisive humor and a unique perspective, she relates how she spied a pair of boxing gloves on a wall, and among other circumstances those gloves not only helped to open up to her a luminous new world of personal fitness, strength, and colorful personalities, but also a new-found interest in history and her family's genealogy. Those gloves also become an invaluable metaphorical aid to confronting some of the demons of her past - and present.
As entertaining as the book reads as a memoir and family history, it's also an absorbing history of boxing and athletics, feminism and empowerment, and the struggles of Jewish immigrants to America in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Klein describes fantasy "interviews" with historical Jewish boxing luminaries such as Benny Leonard, Barney Ross and Daniel Mendoza. These gentlemen come alive on the pages as courageous, brilliant, charming and sophisticated, and they shatter all dismissive preconceptions and negative stereotypes about boxers being a bunch of palookas. However, even more empathetic are the descriptions of the ever-supportive relationships within the author's contemporary new universe. Klein and her readers joyously uncover the positive impacts that her coach, other female and male boxers, and children from contemporary American immigrant societies at a local community center discover in opportunities to build self-confidence through activities like boxing. It's both astonishing and encouraging.
I can say wholeheartedly that this book is one of the most enlightening, witty, and captivating reads I've had in a long time. And while this might sound trite, perhaps the book's greatest message is this: don't be afraid to try new challenges no matter what your age, condition, gender or station in life is, and despite what other people say about what you do. After all, if you're not open to new experiences, the fun in life you're missing is probably your own!
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