Taupo boxing Gym benefits from Taupo District Council Community Grant

A Taupō boxing gym that teaches life lessons, skills and fitness as well as its core sport has been given a boost to help it buy new equipment.

Having successfully applied for Taupō District Council community sports grant earlier this year, Nuki’s Boxing Gym, which caters for children and adults from ages five upwards, will use the funds to buy new boxing gear that will better suit younger boxers and offer more diverse training options for elite boxers.

Founder as Taupō Boxing Gym in 1978, the facility was renamed Nuki’s Boxing Gym Incorporated

after the death of head coach and mentor Rodney ‘Nuki’ Johnson to commemorate his services to boxing.

The club has grown in recent years, with about 30 members attending each training session. It caters to all ages, from young kids aged five to nine, to adults making the switch from rugby or league and going into the New Zealand amateur boxing circuit.

One of its most successful current boxers is Jayden Ball, who recently won the heavyweight division and best fight of the tournament trophy at the Challenge Maco Nena Tournament in Tahiti.

Advising that the gym teaches valuable life lessons along with the necessary skills and fitness that go into boxing, coach Powell Marshall explains “the kids that come here, they all grow up and learn things that don’t come easy, like staying in the gym. They have to train with purpose.

“I see shy kids come out of that [shyness] and start to speak up, the tough kids that might be bullies turn around to become humble people with nothing to prove. I see girls and young women grow their inner confidence.

“Everyone that walks in takes something good away the day that they leave – if they leave.

“The gym is about being a safe sporting option for our rangatahi to take on and maybe pick up a couple of life skills. It’s about learning boxing as an art, keeping it about the art of boxing and not just a fight.”

Image credit: Facebook.