Boxing isn’t just for boys

SLIDESHOW

Jennifer Salinas grew up a scrappy little girl in a close family with a brother and a dozen boy cousins in Bolivia.

She liked to mix it up with them.

“I’ve always liked to fight,” said the 27-year-old Manassas woman whose natural inclination eventually led her to the boxing ring and dreams of a title fight.

In 2001, Salinas worked as a waitress in a restaurant that was next to a boxing center in Grand Rapids, Mich. One day she walked into the gym, and that’s how it all began.

“I always knew I was going to do it,” Salinas said of starting a boxing career.

“It was just a matter of going in to the gym and actually doing it,” said Salinas, who was born in Virginia and raised in Bolivia from age 3 to 15, when she moved to Grand Rapids.

She said people in the gym laughed at her, but she ignored them and carved out a place for herself.

“Once they saw that I had potential, they took me seriously,” said the mother of a 1-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 10-year-old stepdaughter.

After a winning amateur career, Salinas made her professional debut in Michigan in 2003, and was forever hooked on the sport.

“You get in the ring and take a few punches, then you know if that’s what you really want to do,” said the 5-foot-4-inch, 122-pound featherweight with a 10-1 professional record.

“First time I got in the ring, I fell in love with it. I like the physical contact, the sweat, the adrenaline,” she said.

About two years ago, Salinas moved to the Sudley Manor area to be near her mother, brother, grandparents and uncle.

Her family wasn’t thrilled with her decision to box.

“Before I had my kids, they weren’t crazy about it. But they supported me,” she said. “Now that I’m a mother, they really want me to balance it out.”

The balancing act begins at 4:45 a.m. when she gets up to run four or five miles and then works her abdominals with about 600 crunches of varying styles. Then it’s back home to be with the children while her husband is at work.

When her husband returns in the evening, Salinas goes to LA Boxing in Chantilly, where she trains some more before beginning her part-time job as a personal trainer.

“If I’m like 15 minutes off, everything falls apart,” Salinas said of her schedule.

Her evening workout consists of another 600 crunches, six three-minute rounds on the mitts with her trainer, Daniel Attah, an active boxer with a 24-5-1 professional record.

After that, it’s two three-minute rounds on the body bag and two more three-minute rounds on the speed bag, with some jump roping and sparring with Attah thrown in for good measure.

Women fighters fight two-minute rounds, as opposed to three-minute rounds for men.

The length of the rounds doesn’t figure into Salinas’ training. 

“We work out as hard as guys do,” said Salinas, whose one “weakness” is McDonald’s cheeseburgers.

Attah said Salinas has “the total package.”

“She’s very, very talented,” Attah said. “Movement, speed and power, she has everything.”

Salinas said “a lot of questions come in” when people learn she’s a boxer.

The remarks range from mocking to incredulous, and she wonders what people mean when they tell her that she doesn’t look like a boxer.

She’s not sure how a boxer is supposed to look, but her face is in good shape, so maybe that’s it.

“I don’t have black eyes and a broken nose, but that’s because I move a lot. I try not to get hit too much,” said Salinas, who smiles a lot when she talks about boxing.

She gets a little irked at the kidding around when people throw up their hands and pretend they want to fight, but she stays cool.

“I feel like throwing it into their face,” she said. “It takes so much work and some people take it as a joke.”

Salinas saves throwing it into people’s faces for the ring, where she stalks her opponents to feel them out in the first round and goes to work in earnest later on.

She doesn’t mind the anxiety that builds on fight nights — even when she enters the ring, endures the introductions and waits for the bell.

“When you see the refs with their arms out and you know it’s about to go down — you know you’re about to throw punches —  it’s the worst feeling ever,” she said.

But things get better.

“Once the fight starts, I get to loosen up and study my opponent. The second round is always the best. The first round is always the worst,” she said.

While Salinas doesn’t make it easy for opponents to hit her, she still wants them to show their strength so she can gauge their ability. If they do connect, it can help her out.

“When I feel pain, that’s when the lion comes out,” she said.

Salinas said she likes to fight in close because that’s where she’s at her best.

“I really like it when we’re close to each other because I can duck and weave and connect my shots,” she said. “When I fight from a distance, I find it a little harder.”

In 2005, Salinas was set back with a hand injury.

Her two pregnancies kept her out of commission, too.

She said it’s harder every time to come back. At first that surprised her.

“When I started boxing, I thought I was going to be young forever and strong forever,” said Salinas, who was back in the gym two days after each of her pregnancies because she missed boxing so much.

“Do you know what it’s like to go to bed thinking about boxing and wake up thinking about boxing?” she said.

Tate Marshall, Salinas’ boss at LA Boxing, said it’s that dedication that makes Salinas successful in the ring.

It’s also garnering Salinas a following in the area, Marshall said.

“She definitely has appeal. She’s young. She’s athletic. She’s got a great work ethic. People get excited and want to get behind her,” he said.

Marshall met Salinas when she came in to join the gym.

He recognized her talent the minute she started working out and people stopped to watch her.

She was partnered with a man on the body bag who complained about having to workout with a woman.

“I remember the place was packed,” Marshall said. “She got on that bag and out boxed the guy.” 

“Instead of having her as a member, we offered her a job as a trainer,” Marshall said. “It’s the first time we hired a woman as a trainer. Hadn’t really considered it, but you just knew right away that she knew what she was doing.”

Salinas said she’ll keep boxing for a couple of more years, even though the fight game is demanding for women.

Opponents are difficult to come by.

“It’s always been hard in amateur and professional boxing to find female fighters. There’s not that many,” Salinas said.

The shortage of opponents makes travel a constant.

“If it’s not local, it’s get on the plane and fly somewhere,” said Salinas, whose favorite movie is “Million Dollar Baby.”

Salinas said she’ll keep at it for two or three more years and then hang up her gloves and maybe open a gym somewhere.

“After I quit, I want to stay involved with boxing,” she said.

Manassas Bureau Chief Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.