Sergio Martinez D12 Kermit Cintron

Junior middleweight
Sergio Martinez D12 Kermit Cintron
Retains an interim junior middleweight title
Scores: 113-113 (twice), 116-110 Martinez
Records: Martinez, 44-1-2, 24 KOs; Cintron, 30-2-1, 27 KOs

Ladies, gents and Fight Freaks, we have our first serious candidate for robbery of the year. This was no draw. Martinez easily beat Cintron, and he did it twice. The 33-year-old from Argentina first deserved a knockout at the end of the seventh round, which was horrifically overturned by referee Frank Santore in an egregious error, and then he deserved a clear decision against Cintron, a former welterweight titleholder moving up in weight. Between them, Martinez and Cintron had only lost to Antonio Margarito -- Martinez getting stopped by him in 2000 and Cintron getting knocked out by him in 2005 and 2008. Facing each other, they figured to make a good fight, but it turned out to be a bit disappointing and was mired in bad officiating all around.



First, Santore blew the call on the cut Cintron suffered over his left eye early in the fight, ruling it was from a punch when HBO's replay showed it was clearly produced by an accidental head butt. Then, at the end of the seventh, Martinez seemed to score a knockout. He drilled Cintron with a clean left hand, Cintron wobbled backward and went down. With Cintron on his knees, Santore counted, reached 10, waved his arms and declared the fight over. Cintron argued, claiming he was hit by a head butt and Santore bought the nonsense after a delay. The video replays clearly showed there was nothing other than Martinez's left hand nailing Cintron. Amazingly, after a 2½-minute break between rounds to clear the ring, the fight resumed. It became more spirited because Martinez was clearly ticked off to have been robbed of a clean knockout.



HBO's announcers continually talked about the knockout and presented video replays from various angles, but there was not one replay that showed Cintron was clearly off the floor before Santore reached 10. Besides, once a ref says "10," that's it, the fight is over. Look at this as if it were an NFL game and a coach challenged a ruling. In the NFL, without a definitive replay showing otherwise, the ruling on the field stands. Same deal here as there was no definitive evidence that Cintron was up and Santore had ended the fight. Period.



Still, the fight continued and Martinez was outboxing Cintron, 29, who could do little but follow him around the ring. Clearly, he never had a lesson from anyone about trying to cut off the ring. In the 12th round, Santore docked Martinez for hitting behind the head in a ticky-tack call because it was not on purpose, not damaging and he hadn't given him a previous hard warning. That point deduction cost Martinez the fight. This was a highway robbery in every way -- from the knockout that was overturned to the weak point deduction to the horrible scoring.



Martinez, who, as interim titleholder, is the mandatory challenger for Vernon Forrest, deserves his title shot immediately. Cintron showed very little in the fight and promoter Lou DiBella, who also promotes Martinez and was therefore not in his usual volcanic state over the decision, said Cintron would return to the welterweight division, where he could wind up facing Miguel Cotto this summer if Cotto wins his vacant title bout with Michael Jennings on Saturday

How Audrey Hepburn Ruined My Day

103. 20. Those two numbers have haunted my every waking moment for the past three days. Even though I have a known weakness for numbers - body fat percentage! max reps! weight! calories! IP addresses! (xkcd, I love you!) - the tenacity of these two little numbers in my mind has surprised even me. Every spare moment this weekend when my brain has not been occupied, all I can think is 103. 20. 103. 20. Their power over me is tied to a third number: 5' 6.75"

That's right. My height. I'm nearly 5' 7" which may possibly be the one number I have always been quite happy with. I have never wished to be shorter and thanks to a weird complex I have where I always think I'm taller than everyone, 6 1/2 foot-tall men included, my height has always been a happy number for me. Good thing too since it's not like it's something one can really do much about.

My height also puts me in good company. Kate Moss is 5' 6.5". Angelina Jolie is 5' 7". Jackie Kennedy was 5'7". And Audrey Hepburn, one of my favorite actresses and style icons, is my height exactly. (Well, she was anyhow. For those of you who missed the memo, she's dead now. She died a few months before her 65th birthday of cancer.) Why do I care about other women's heights? Because it gives me the information I need to compare myself. Sigh.

103 was Audrey Hepburn's weight. 20 inches was the size of her waist. I found this out courtesy of one of the magazines I read that is supposed to promote health (in fact it even has the word "health" in its title so it must be true!). This same article also called Princess Di "normal" with a waist of "26" at her largest" and Kate Winslet "large" with a 28" waist. But seeing as I do not share the coloring nor stylistic predilections of the tragic Di or the beleagured Kate, back to Audrey. It is said that all throughout her life and illustrious career, she made it a point to never exceed 103 pounds. And according to all sources, aside from her two pregnancies, she never did.

Let's get real. 103 pounds (a BMI of 16.2) is a positively ridiculous number for someone of our height. Kate Moss, the Waif of all Waifs, is reported to weigh 114 pounds (BMI 17.9). Angelina Jolie, if you believe the tabloids, is near 110 (BMI 17.2). All are considered underweight to the point of it being a health risk. At my very sickest with my eating disorder, I never got as low as Audrey Hepburn maintained for her entire adult life. For me to get to 103 would require calorie restriction and exercise the like of which I dare not even imagine.

A 20-inch waist is also similarly extraordinary. One of my thighs is bigger than her waist. The only women that I know of that can even approximate that number are Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara) and Dita Von Teese, both of whom use highly restrictive corsets to achieve 18" for the former and 16" for the latter. Audrey's waist was 20 inches even in a bikini. (For the record, it is reported that Dita's uncorseted waist is a mere 21".)

I know all this and yet I still pine for a 20 inch waist. Why would I do this? I am healthy - exceedingly healthy if you want to talk those kinds of numbers (you should see the blood pressure reading on this baby!) - so why aren't I happy with that? It's because deep down I yearn, like most women I think, to not just be functional but also to be beautiful. And I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but for this beholder, Audrey Hepburn has always reigned supreme.

Part of my problem with this is that for everything that Audrey was known for in her life, being eating disordered was never one of them. She maintained an impossibly tiny figure without making herself ill. Good genetics, I suppose. And I imagine she was very careful with how she ate - there are certainly no records of her being a glutton. But here's where the crazy voices kick in: Why does she get to be so thin and beautiful when for me that weight would earn me a one-way ticket to the mental health ward? Why doesn't she look sunken-eyed and gaunt in any of her pictures? I lose 10 pounds and I have bones sticking out in all sorts of wrong places. And where did she put all of her internal organs? In her pocketbook?

I am embarrassed to say how much these numbers bother me. I have spent the last two days looking up corsets online and wondering if I could wear one under my gym tank tops without the Gym Buddies noticing (not likely) and still be able to breathe enough to do my cardio (extremely unlikely). I have been wondering if I ought to take out all oblique exercises just in case my crazy strong ab muscles are actually making my waist bigger - an assertion that Jillian Michaels uses in her book Making the Cut as her reason why she never does them - despite the fact that it would give me an unstable and unbalanced core.



There is a reason that comparisons are odious. Certainly I am stronger than Audrey, she being no fan of sport or exercise aside from dancing in her youth. And other than coloring (and height!), we share precious little with which to draw a comparison. So you would think that I could stop obsessing. But I can't. I have admired her for so long that to learn that the reality of looking like her is so far out of my reach as to be a logistical impossibility feels terribly sad to me. A loss, even.

What do I do? How do I let go of the numbers? Has anyone mastered the art of not comparing? Seriously, somebody save me from myself (and also Women's Health magazine).

An Open Letter to Rihanna: What It's Like Taking Your Boyfriend To Court

Just a quick note for those of you that are interested. My blog on the Huffington Post "An Open Letter to Rihanna: What it's like taking your boyfriend to court" is generating a lot of good discussion (intermixed between a handful of asinine and jerky comments). Late yesterday, Jezebel picked it up and the wonderful Megan Carpentier added her story to mine, writing a very powerful post about what it's like to be a female victim in our justice system. The comments there are a gold mine. It's not fitness related but it's definitely a worthwhile read. Thanks again for all your love & support! Have a great weekend!

Why is Meditation So Hard?

See? It's so easy even hamsters can do it.

Raise your hands if you have meditated this month. At all. I'm serious. I want to see hands, people. Now, how many of you have meditated every day? For all of you that lack the ability to manipulate the space-time continuum, I am not raising my hand. Sigh. I know. What is it about meditation that is so &%*$&#$ hard?!?

I think the problem is that it is too easy.

See, all of my previous Experiments have required real effort to do them. I had to go places, schedule classes, read books, get equipment, print workouts, e-mail (read: pester) various experts and talk things over ad nauseum with the Gym Buddies. Sometimes I even had to convert kilograms to pounds. You know a workout is serious business if it requires math. But with meditation it's so simple - just sitting quietly and consciously for 15 minutes a day - that I push it aside to make room for the more complicated things.

Determined to make meditation work, at first I tried to remedy this problem by making meditation more complicated. I decided to read books and research papers about it, ask questions of Zen masters and explore different types of meditation. All of which I faithfully did... instead of meditating.

Obviously this wasn't working. I decided to bring in the big guns. Sensei Don told me at the beginning of my Karate Experiment that meditation was a big part of Karate; that eventually you get so good at Karate you can meditate while killing people. Those may not have been his exact words but you get the idea. So at my last lesson I asked him about how to meditate Karate style. Of course I asked this at the end of a long, sweaty class when it was late and everyone was tired, not to mention sitting on their heels which meant that our legs were also falling asleep.

"Well, it's called Zazen meditation," he politely started. "And it's complicated, so I don't really have time to go into tonight."

Complicated? Requires explanation? Fancy name? I was thrilled! I raced home and fired up Google to check out this special form of meditation. Here is what I learned: "The aim of zazen is just sitting."

Um, what?

Well if you want to be techinical about it, "The aim of zazen is just sitting and opening the hand of thought." Okay then.

Zazen meditation has three levels. The beginning level is concentration. This is where most guided meditations start you. You focus on counting breaths or visualizing a peaceful scene or if you are heavily into musical theater, a pink mist flowing in and out of you. The next level up is introspection. You turn your focus inward in acknowledging - but not dwelling on - your feelings past, present and future. Want to know what the top level is? Just sitting. Being able to just sit without any other contrivance. Apparently this is very difficult to do. I believe them.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows one thing about me: I am very bad at sitting. Very very bad. For instance, I don't watch TV or movies. I haven't seen a television show or movie, other than the rare BBC or PBS documentary, in over two years. Most people assume that I avoid television because I am some kind of cultural ascetic. The truth is that I just can't sit still through them. (Unless it's Law and Order: SVU and then I'm glued to the screen. And then I'm glued to my husband all night while I have nightmares. He's actually banned me from watching that program, ever.)

All I can think about while sitting in a movie theater is all the other things I could be doing and how contrived the plot is and I wonder if I could knit in the dark, I mean they say that Helen Keller could knit so it must be possible and I would love a new soft sweater and WHEN IS THIS SHOW GOING TO BE OVER ALREADY I HAVE KNITTING TO DO! If people force me to watch a movie ('cause my friends are totally the type to sit on me and tape my eyelids open, aren't yours?), I make the best use of my time and fall asleep. I can't help it, I've always been this way! In college I had a serious reputation as a movie-induced narcoleptic.

It's not that I'm ADHD. I can focus like a laser on things that interest me but for some reason I focus better when I'm moving.

So. Meditation. I am convinced that it is an important, nay vital, skill for me to learn. About a week ago, when I realized that I was failing my own Experiment, I decided to just make it a priority. I would have to schedule it. At first it felt onerous. Why am I just sitting here? I could be... blogging about sitting here! But I did it anyhow.

And then yesterday happened. I won't go into all the details but it was a rotten awful day. Bad news from many fronts, obnoxious children (mine, of course) and frustration on every level. My normal coping technique when things go very badly is to go workout. But I had already used up all my gym hours in the morning and my husband wasn't home and the weather was too cold to go outside. I couldn't exercise. I felt the panic start rising - my stomach clenched, I felt nauseous and my heart raced.

I locked myself in my room (Mommy's in time out! Go eat cookies or something!), said a quick prayer and then meditated. At first it was a real struggle. I actually cried with the effort of calming myself down (anyone who has had a panic attack knows exactly what I'm talking about). My thoughts were such a cacaphony that I tasted blood before I realized I'd just chewed a hole in my lip. But then all my practice started to kick in. Since I'm only at the beginning level of meditation, I focused on breathing deeply in and out while picturing a serene lake nearby where I grew up. I just sat there and breathed.

My effort was rewarded with an overwhelming sense of calm and peace. A couple of times I opened my eyes but the feelings threatened to overwhelm me again and so I returned to my zen state until at last I could open my eyes and continue to feel safe. And that's really what it was - a deep, sure feeling of safety. My panic was gone, my calm restored and none of my children were beaten. I didn't even need to eat half a bag of chocolate chips like I normally do when I'm feeling that frazzled! Success on every front!

I'm officially a convert. Meditation is a powerful tool. Hopefully I can remember this and stick with it. It's not about being perfect at it or even knowing everything about it. It's just about doing it.

So how is your meditation practice going? Anyone else experience anything good? Anyone else catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror and fall over laughing?? It's not to late to jump in on this month's Experiment!

Should Men and Women Compete in Separate Triathlons?

My favorite memory of my first road race:

Man 1: (To buddy, right after I passed them going uphill) Dude, you just got passed by a girl.

Man 2: Yeah, well. So did you, dude.

Man 1: You think we can catch her?

They did not catch me. A fact that made me glow with pride every time I thought about that race afterward. Now, make no mistake - I'm not that fast of a runner. I usually hit in the top 30% but I have never won a race. I do pass some folks, but more often than not I'm the one getting passed. And yet, I did beat those two men that day. I think I giggled.

Part of the behind-the-scenes work for this blog is that I field a lot (a lot) of queries from PR people schilling everything from fitness books to toaster ovens to pinhole glasses. They want me to promote their product/event/insane website. The nice ones give me stuff to try out and give away to you guys. The courteous ones get my name right. But the majority of press releases I read are anonymous, hastily written, often irrelevant blog-o-mercials. They get deleted very quickly. Normally.

But this afternoon I got one that caught my eye. Despite doing everything wrong - the greeting simply read "hi", it was obvious they had no idea what my blog was about other than generic fitness and the "promotion" was entirely self-serving - they got my attention because they had a novel concept. They were pimping the TREK Women's Triathlon Series, in their words, "the first triathlon created by women, run by women and exclusively for women."

My first reaction was why on earth would you want to do that? I don't run races for men - in fact I don't chat with anyone, regardless of their gender, when I'm racing - and yet I certainly don't mind them being there. I've never had a bad experience with a man in an athletic competition of any sort. In addition to motivating me to go faster, they've given me directions to the biffies, talked down my nerves on the bus ride to the starting line, given me high fives and thumbs up, cheered when I crossed the finish line and offered me mole skin for a blister among other niceities. Of course women have helped me tremendously as well.

In every competition I've been in, it just feels like everyone there is an athlete and their gender is irrelevant. Sure, a man always gets the fastest time but that doesn't make me feel badly about my performance. Lots of women beat me too! Men and women are built differently. Men have narrower hips, longer legs and more lung capacity, all boons when it comes to racing. Besides, the anatomical edge is ameliorated by having seperate finishing categories. My gut reaction: Women already rock traditional triathlons so why would we need a separate race?

But then I was talking to my sister on the phone this afternoon (as I do every afternoon - seriously, the only dark spot in my luminescent life is the fact that my siblings live so far away from me!) and her take was the polar opposite. "I can totally see why women would want a women's-only triathlon," she exclaimed.

"But don't you think it's patronizing? I mean it's a Sprint Tri distance (1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike ride, 3.1 mile run) and yet instead of calling it a Sprint Tri, they call it a 'women's tri'? As if women could only be expected to do the shortest competition distance?"

"You're being too sensitive," she said in her best mommy voice. (Side note: when did she get old enough to have a mommy voice and when did I get old enough to recognize it?) "Lots of women are intimidated by triathlons. The distance and the lack of men is just supposed to overcome that hurdle - to get women competing who wouldn't otherwise try it. "

"Hmph."

"Besides, it's all girl power. And I'm all about women banding together. I mean, that's the whole appeal of Curves, right?"

So now I'm asking you guys: Is there an advantage to separating the sexes in athletic competitions such as road races and triathlons? Would you be more likely to compete in an event that was only open to people of your gender? What if someone started advertising a Men's Only Tri? Have you ever had a bad experience with someone of the opposite gender in a race? Do you run faster in a mixed-gender setting? Do you feel like I've suddenly sprung a pop quiz on you and now your palms are sweaty and your mind is blank? I have that effect on people...

A Weight Workout To Make a Grown Man Cry. Or Give Birth.

Some days are easy workout days. Which is fine. I have learned - many times over as I am a remarkably slow learner - that you don't have to hammer yourself on every workout. Last week was one of those weeks where I had blood-sweat-and-tears workouts on six out of six days. (More on that later.) So it was only appropriate that today's workout, a la The Monkey Bar Gym, was giggly, girly and short.

We started out with a lesson on kipping pull-ups. For the uninitiated, kipping pull-ups are used in everything from functional fitness workouts to CrossFit to playground double-dog dares. The gist is that you swing your body back and forth, using your momentum to help get your chin over the bar. They are supposed to be easier than normal start-from-a-dead-hang pull-ups. Which I suppose they would be if I had any coordination.



Kipping pull-ups are my fitness Waterloo - in my previous life as a gymnast, we used to do "kip-ups" as a way to swing into a starting position on the low bar. I loved kip-ups. They were even, dare I say it, easy. Which is probably why I am so frustrated that kipping pull-ups are completely beyond me. Anyhow, I am determined that I shall do a kipping pull-up someday and in the meantime am dragging all the Gym Buddies along on my quest for true pull-up mastery.

My How-To seminar was clicking along nicely until we hit a snag: nobody could even figure out how to do the kipping pull-up prep. Gym Buddy Lisseth tried to help me out by starting out spread-eagled in the squat cage and then jumping up at the bar with both her arms and legs bent. What we got was a hanging, grunting crotch shot. "What are my legs doing?" she screamed. "It's like I'm giving birth!!" (It's true - her knees were up by her ears, just like you see in birthing class... except she was hanging from a bar.) This caused the rest of us - pregnant and non-pregnant alike - to fall on the floor laughing so hard that visions of leaky waterballoons danced in our heads. You've heard of water births. Prepare for the next wave of SuperMamas: air birthing.

I'm afraid that the laughter only intensified when a kind-hearted but equally clueless man came over to help us figure out the kipping pull-up. You think a woman air birthing is awesome? Try a man. Not only did I pee a little but by I cried a bit too.

Since we weren't getting much of a workout - except for our abs, those sure were worked good! - we decided to move to handstand push-ups. Silliness reigned however and after a few half-hearted tries we switched to a plain old 5th-grade handstand contest. Gym Buddy Krista scared us all by falling over backwards, only to redeem herself with a neatly executed tuck-and-roll. We clapped and cheered (and got more of The Look) like we were 10 and the Jonas Brothers had popped in for a round on the ellipticals. Gym Buddy Allison impressed everyone with her snazzy workout socks that we never get to see because for some crazy reason we usually have our shoes on before almost taking out a random elderly woman. Did I mention we were doing our handstands in the alcove at the top of the stairs? Ahem. Gym Buddy Megan, busily gestating, did not do handstands but assured us the fetus was. And for my grand finale, I did an impressive backwards handstand walk... all the way into the closed elevator. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a bruise.

I think our workout today can be summed up by saying half the gym thought we were better than Comedy Central and were thisclose to throwing dollar bills at us while the other half wanted to kill us and are probably blogging about how to hide our bodies as we speak.

How does one redeem oneself from such a workout? By telling you what we did last week. Gym Buddy Shalom - she of the 4 minutes of Bosu ab hell - challenged us to do The Hardest Strength Workout Ever. She got it from one of her classes that she's taking for her Exercise Science degree. It is 33 minutes of pain, people. But we did it. And now I'm challenging you.

The Muscle Endurance Workout
Perform each exercise without stopping for one minute. If you or anyone in your group stops to rest, you must start the minute over. Take a 30-second break between each exercise. Perform the exercises in the order they are written. Weights listed are for women, men need to up theirs accordingly. Try not to weep. Especially when you get to #12. PS> Go potty before you start. Especially if you've birthed children.

1. Lateral raises (8 lbs)
2. Tricep dips with legs extended
3. Hammer curls (10 lbs)
4. Pec deck flys (25 lbs on the machine or 15 lbs in each hand if using free weights)
5. Lat pull downs (40 lbs)
6. Jumping squats
7. Push ups
8. Plyo box jumps (just jump onto a tall step or weight bench. Take off with both feet and land with both feet.)
9. Jumping jacks
10. Jump rope
11. Step ups
12. Bench jumps (place hands on weight bench or high step with both legs on one side. Jump both legs together over the bench to the other side. Immediately jump back. Repeat.)
13. Plank
14. Crunches
15. Mountain climbers
16. Hanging calf raises
17. Split squat jumps
18. Weighted ball twists
19. Pilates one hundred (go the full minute - not just until you count to 100, you wuss.)
20. Tricep hover (also known as the Really Hard Part of chaturanga push-ups)
21. Skull crushers (8 lbs each hand)
22. Barbell bicep curl (20 lbs)

So, who's going to give it a try? Anyone help us out with the kipping pull-ups??

You Guys Are Better Than Therapy and Contest Winners

First, I want to thank everyone who commented yesterday on my Assault: On Causing Pain post. Occasionally I use this blog as a mental clearing ground and I'm always amazed at how smart, thoughtful and - most of all - kind you guys are. There are not many places on the Internet where I could've posted what I did and not gotten lambasted. Everything you guys wrote was spot-on and I am very grateful to you for sharing your advice, support and experience! My therapist thanks you as well:)

So - on to the POM Wonderful winners! The random number generator has selected the following five folks:
Leigh Anne
m
CallieNae
keyalus
Hi! I'm Erin

Drop me an e-mail with your information!