Apple Valley High School's boxing club giving students physical, emotional edge
Something unusual is happening after school at Minnesota's Apple Valley High School.
Students are doing something you're not typically supposed to do: fighting in school. And nonetheless, they're doing it with their teacher, Adam Fleitman, who runs the school's boxing club.
"I'll talk to them like, you know, 'How's your day?' And they're like, 'It's great, fine.' But when they start hitting, you can feel you got a little, little extra behind it," Fleitman said. "What we say is we leave it on the bag. So whatever you have inside, you just leave it on the bag."
And that's exactly why Fleitman started the club.
"I've had kids come up to me and say, 'Fleitman, I need boxing today. Like, I'm just, I'm having a hard day. I need boxing,'" he said. "The message that I try to put forth is this is good for fitness, but also the emotional side of it. And I think a lot of them catch on to that."
Dijahun Maier is a sophomore who's a member of the club.
"First thing when I heard boxing is like coming to school, I was like, whoa, I never saw that before. Like, there's gonna be a boxing club in school, because teachers normally, like, try to push away from that. They don't, like, normally promote that. When I heard of that, I was like, yeah, I most definitely got to join," Maier said. "There was like, a test for science, and then I really didn't do good on it, so I was upset with myself because normally I make sure to do good on tests so I can get a good grade. And I was feeling like upset for the whole day. And then when I heard we had, like, boxing practices, like yeah, I most definitely have to go there to relieve some stress and to get focused."
Maier said the next day, his mind was clear.
"I was ready to move on back in the ring," he said.
Axel Mercil-Bridenstine is also in the club.
"It's helped me, like, relieving a lot of stress, because I'm in like some AP classes, and I'm in a lot of honors classes. So sometimes all that work can be, like, pretty stressful, especially when the AP national exam is coming up," Mercil-Bridenstine said. "Coming to do this, it just takes your mind off everything, and you get to box with some of your friends, and you know you don't have to worry about being judged or anything like that. It's a very inclusive environment."
"There's a lot of things that these kids go through that we have no idea, and I don't try to play therapist, I don't try to solve their problems," Fleitman said. "I just want to give them an opportunity to come up and just kind of let stuff out when they need to."
And in the process, he's creating some heavy hitters.
"Fighting can be a good thing in school, in the right context (laughs)," Fleitman said.
And this context proves when life gives the one-two punch, these kids know how to come back swinging.
