GRAVENHURST — With a broken hand and a broken nose, Amber Konikow had just lost the first fight of her boxing career. But she didn’t stop smiling.
It was a personal lesson in facing adversity that Konikow, a Canadian and provincial boxing champion, shared with students during a motivational speaking session at Gravenhurst Public School last Tuesday, Dec. 6. Konikow spoke to the students about setting life goals, the motivation needed to achieve them, and the importance of not giving up in the face of adversity.
To drive her point home, she showed students a photo of herself after her inaugural bout in Italy nine years ago.
“I’m done my fight, I’m full of blood, sweat, my hand is broken, I’ve got Kleenex shoved in my nose,” she said. “Why do you think I’m smiling? It’s about getting out there and trying.”
A full-time nurse in Sudbury, Konikow picked up the sport at the age of 26 as a way of breaking up the monotony of life in-between shifts. Since first joining a boxing class with a friend, her passion for the sport has earned her the title of Canadian boxing champ in both 2007 and 2008. In November 2008, she also earned a bronze medal while representing Canada at the women’s world boxing championship.
Drawing on her own experiences in training for championship bouts, Konikow encouraged the students to take the first steps necessary in making their dreams come true. “Opportunities, if you’re going to wait for them to happen, they’re not going to happen, you’re going to be waiting for a long time,” she said. “You make your opportunities happen.”
Part of achieving your dreams, she said, lies in garnering experience wherever possible. She encouraged the students to take on competitions, exhibitions and contests in order to perfect and hone their talents.
“You also have to compete, you have to do this stuff to get comfortable, regardless of whether it’s boxing, ice time or if it’s in school and you need to write something,” she said. But Konikow cautioned that the process of setting goals and achieving them must also be realistic. She drew on one personal example where setting an unrealistic goal had some unintended consequences. “I had this brilliant idea that I wanted to compete at 66 kilos, which is 145 pounds, and I had six weeks to drop from 156 to 145 pounds,” she said.
To meet her goal in a short time frame, she jogged in several layers of clothing while also wearing a sauna suit. She ended up nearly passing out on one of her runs. “Being an intensive care nurse you’d figure I’d know better,” she said. “I should have taken six months, I should have been smart about that … you can set any goal, but you have to be realistic, too, when you want to achieve that goal.”
Konikow’s motivational speech was part of a program known as the Wellness Workshop. The workshop is a partnership between the Esteem Team, a program run by the youth non-profit Motivate Canada, the Ministry of Health Promotion’s International Fun and Team Athletics (IFTA) program, and SOGO Active. Through the workshop, students were also told about a number of athletics grants available through SOGO Active.
In addition to meeting Konikow, students also took part in a variety of physical drills designed to monitor their level of physical fitness. Run by the IFTA, the drills included standing long jumps, balance tests, target throwing challenges and speed drills. Their results were recorded by the IFTA as part of a free fitness monitoring service, which will return in three months to have the same students perform the same drills, with the goal of identifying improvements in physical fitness.
IFTA member Scott Haines, who oversaw the drills, said they are designed not to be competitive, but are instead intended to allow the kids to discover what they are capable of in terms of physical activity. “When the kids learn these (drills) they should feel good about participating in sports, and maybe finding a skill they can be good at,” he said. “I want them to see what they can do in sport.”
