Freshman Shirlee Jaffe takes a hard shot at the heavy bag during a recent workout in Teagle Hall. Frank Dimeo/University Photography
Freshman Shirlee Jaffe didn't tell her parents about her first fight, in Lackawanna, N.Y., until after she'd won it. When she came home brandishing her trophy, their response was well, parental. Although they didn't love the idea of their daughter as an amateur pugilist, they tried to remain coolheaded while telling her, "Just be careful."
But when she brought home her second trophy, from a match in Niagara Falls, "they started to get excited," she said. Maybe they began to realize that there might more to their daughter's victories than just raw luck.
Jaffe is 5 feet 5, weighs about 115 pounds, on average, has a blond ponytail and a light build -- not exactly what you'd picture as a threat in the ring (she fights in the 119-pound weight class). But when she puts on boxing gloves and begins her punching combinations, her face turns fierce and it's easy to see that the pre-med psychology major takes her boxing seriously.
In addition to her course work in the College of Arts and Sciences, she makes sure she works out two hours a day, at least five days a week. She spends most mornings in Teagle Hall; in the evenings she spars at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center gym in downtown Ithaca, which has a practice ring -- donated by Cornell. She also runs to improve her stamina.
"When I stepped in the ring, it was an adrenaline rush," said Jaffe of her two fights, which both consisted of several short rounds adding up to six minutes. "They are the longest six minutes," she admitted. "The only way you can get through them is just to get in there and show what you can do. It's a great feeling when the referee raises your hand and says you won."
Jaffe moved to the United States from Israel with her family when she was 10 (her father, a physician, took a position with a hospital in Chicago). She fell in love with boxing last year when she signed up for classes at a gym in Rochester, N.Y., the city where her family now lives. She noticed that the students who had had actual amateur fights were better motivated than the rest of the class. Intrigued, she talked with the class's instructor, Gloria Peek, who told her she would not let her fight, even in practice, until she had drilled rigorously, did step work and built up her abdominal muscles. Jaffe took the bait, and Peek assisted at her two fights.
"She won't let me get into trouble," said Jaffe confidently.
Cornell physical education instructor Tony Manzi, who conducts boxing workout classes for students, including Jaffe, said that boxing as a workout has been attracting more female students in recent years, but that Jaffe stands out as unusually dedicated among both the male and female students in his classes.
"When one student, a guy, complained: 'I didn't think I'd have to sweat,' Shirlee commented: 'Wrong mind set,'" he related. "Boxing's a reactive sport that taxes you. You're doing defense and offense." But Jaffe "is serious about what she's doing. She moves well and she knows how to throw a punch and do punches in combination. She's able to process information quickly. She's a natural athlete -- you only have to show her once." And perhaps most important, "She has conquered her fears about getting hit and about hitting someone."
How does Jaffe reconcile the desire to enter the field of medicine, a healing profession, with the desire to practice a sport that many consider to be brutal? For one thing, she observed, you need to muster tremendous energy and focus to box and to practice medicine. And possibly the medical profession resembles the ring in other ways too.
"When you go in," she said, "you've got to give 150 percent."
Read about the new fitness workout for CU women.
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