Sean Nero

World box­ing cham­pi­on Ria Ram­nar­ine yes­ter­day ex­plained at length how im­prac­ti­cal is was for any­one to try to live up to the ex­pec­ta­tions of all with whom they come in­to con­tact.

She did, how­ev­er, move to im­press up­on her teen au­di­ence the need to de­vel­op self-es­teem and char­ac­ter, bound­ed by dis­ci­pline and ded­i­ca­tion in or­der to achieve in life.

Speak­ing on the top­ic Down, But Not Out at the Sec­ondary Schools Lead­er­ship Sym­po­sium ti­tled No Pain, No Gain held at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in St Ann's Port-of-Spain, she said, "If each one of you has a dif­fer­ent ex­pec­ta­tion of me with­in the next five min­utes, how am I go­ing to live up to each and every­one's ex­pec­ta­tion? You have to know your self-worth. That's the on­ly way you can mo­ti­vate your­self. There is no greater mo­ti­va­tor than you. And for me, per­son­al­ly, that's one of the great­est tools I have in al­ways ris­ing back to the oc­ca­sion."

Mak­ing a case for fe­male ath­letes pur­su­ing a ca­reer in con­tact sports, Ram­nar­ine said she's been dropped in many fights and that her but­tocks and back hit the can­vas a cou­ple times. She even dropped to her knees, but be­cause of her re­solve not once did she stay down.

"I've al­ways risen back up. You al­ways have to take the eight-count and rise back up. If the ref­er­ee de­cides to count you out, you can't ar­gue. But in your heart you must know you gave every­thing, plus some more. It should nev­er be that you held back some­thing," she said.

"The track and field guys will leave it all out on the track. You don't take any­thing back to the train­ing room with you. What you are keep­ing back could have been the de­cid­ing fac­tor in whether you won or you lost. Think about it! You have ten sec­onds to go in a com­pe­ti­tion and your arms are burn­ing...they are tired...they are on fire. Your legs can't move. If you just push for that five more sec­onds, that might be the de­cid­ing fac­tor. You might be down on points and knock the per­son down and they might not be able to get up. So, it re­al­ly comes down to who wants it more," Ram­nar­ine said.

She made it clear, how­ev­er, that the lev­el of con­vic­tion of which she spoke doesn't come easy, but rather, with ex­pe­ri­ence, hard work, and all-round sup­port.

"Peo­ple think box­ing is a one-man, one-woman sport. At the end of the day it's one woman in the ring, but lis­ten, if you don't have a team to pre­pare you to get in­to that ring, I'm sor­ry...it's very un­like­ly you are go­ing to be suc­cess­ful. It's very un­like­ly you are go­ing to rise back up to the oc­ca­sion. You re­al­ly have to show your fight­ing spir­it when the re­sults isn't go­ing your way. That's when it re­al­ly shows who you are, that war­rior in­side," said Ram­nar­ine.

She added, "Any­one can move on from a vic­to­ry. Peo­ple see you mov­ing on from vic­to­ry to vic­to­ry and your con­fi­dence builds; you are on a high. And yes, you can keep mov­ing on, but what about when you lose?

"How many of us can move on from a de­feat? How many of us can pick our­selves back up and move on? I've known a lot of box­ers (and) their first fight in the ring they lost. We nev­er heard from them again.

"They were like the more tal­ent­ed ones. I'm speak­ing lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Then, there are the ones who lost their first fight–and, you know what? To­day, they are world cham­pi­ons. They ex­pe­ri­enced what it was like be­ing down very ear­ly, and they learned how to get up."