Describing herself as “five-foot-two on a good day” Shauna Lewis doesn’t exactly present a threatening presence, but put her in the boxing ring and watch out.
Known for her strong jab and right hook, she bounces and weaves with the best of them.
“There is something about being a little girl and punching someone in the face that has a satisfying ring to it,” Lewis said. “The first time you make a good connection, fist to face, you almost want to stand back and admire your work. It feels good to feel a good crack.”
The featherweight has been training since last November. She was working at her job — where she acts as bartender, waitress and bouncer — at the Blarney Stone South, when customer David Bownes told her about Sweet Science Red Deer, a boxing club where he coaches. He was looking for someone to spar with some of the other women he works with and saw Lewis as the perfect candidate.
“I’m very Irish. I never take any crap from anybody, I make that clear,” said Lewis, 29. But she had never been in a fight before starting to train with Bownes.
In the past she has framed houses and done roller derby.
“I don’t think I’m happy unless I’m hitting something,” Lewis said. “In the ring it is so intimidating and so exhilarating at the same time. You don’t know what to feel so you don’t feel anything.”
Her daughter Skyleigh, 10, and son Jovyn, seven, get a kick out of their mother being able to box. Skyleigh will hold the pads for her mother at home and has told her mother that she wants to be her corner girl in the future.
Lewis will be heading to Edmonton for the Pink Gloves event on Thursday, which will raise money for breast cancer research.
She will be joined by two other Red Deer boxers, Kate Diks and Amanda Melnychuk.
All three boxers look a bit like Greek sculptures, with their muscles looking like they’ve been cut from marble. They come by them honestly. Leading up to the competition, each woman heads to Pure Fitness for a training session twice a day, six days a week, along with whatever extra workouts they can fit in.
Diks grew up doing kickboxing in her teenage years, but then got out of it and she had her children Daxon, 7, and Jayvan, 5. The 31-year-old realized she needed to get involved with a sport she loved again and took up boxing last December.
She said when she gets in the ring she feels at peace. “The safest place to be is in the ring,” Diks said.
Left-handed, she offers a particular challenge to most boxers who are right-handed, with her surprising right hook.
Although she loves boxing, her career choice is of a much more nurturing nature — she working at a middle school with teenagers who have behaviour problems and as a proprietor of a teenager with special needs.
Melnychuk, 31, started training as a boxer a year and a half ago because she saw it as a fitness challenge. She said it’s all a matter of finding that extra bit of energy at the end of a bout and staying mentally together, otherwise “you’re going to get hit.”
“There is something about when you step in a ring, it’s not just about facing the girl, but facing your fears in general,” Melnychuk said. “Another aspect of it is sucking it up. I’m going to go and do this. I have the knowledge and the stamina to do it.”
Some of her biggest fans are her three children, Donaya, 7, Tylen, 5, and Shawn, 3, who see the Pure Fitness gym where she trains as their second home. Her daughter already takes taekwondo and her two sons both have boxing gloves.
The only challenge for Melnychuk is that because she’s a nurse, she has a hard time seeing someone down and bleeding without wanting to bandage them up during a fight.
During a training session on Monday, coach Bownes started them out skipping, then working with the medicine ball before doing drills, using the punch pads and sparring.
He said women are often easier to train than men. “They haven’t been brought up fighting. They rely more on skill and technique and they rely on you and trust you,” Bownes said. “Guys already think they know what they are doing.”
Bownes first did a little coaching on the side in 1990, getting his certification in the mid-1990s. In his day job he works as a senior operator with the malting plant in Alix.
“I like the sport and the technique and science behind it,” he said.
sobrien@www.reddeeradvocate.com