Children find an outlet for their energy at an Airdrie boxing gym

Gerald Bouchard gives his five-year-old son, Mason, a sip of water between sets.

A young mother and her five-year old son enter the Teofista Elite Boxing Gym in Airdrie one late winter afternoon. The blonde, petite mother is hoping to get some information about classes for her husband.

Walk-ins are a common occurrence for the gym, which expanded its Calgary location to the small, suburban city of about 34,500 in early November 2008. The head coach and manager of the club, 34-year-old Rhys Eckardt, instinctively hands the mother his business card and a brochure.

Meanwhile, the woman’s lively son has made himself at home in the sanctuary for fighters.

The smell of sweat lingers in the musty air. He circles the punching bags and eyes a member taking her frustrations out jab after jab on a black leather Everlast training bag.

He ignores his mother’s requests to go and remains transfixed on the motions of the woman rehearsing combinations—left jab, left jab, right uppercut.

Eckardt, wearing a grey snowboarder-type toque with his dirty blonde hair crammed under, recognizes the look on the little boy’s face. Having grown up watching Rocky movies with avid interest, he knows the fascination boys have with punching things.

“You know,” Eckardt says to the mother, “We actually have boxing classes for kids, too.”

The mother’s face lights up with interest. “Oh really?” she says and presses the coach for details.

Eckardt explains that Teofista Elite in Airdrie and Teofista Boxing Gym in Calgary offer boxing classes for kids called Tiny Tykes. Parents can participate or simply stay and watch their child learn the fundamentals of boxing. Although there is no age requirement, Tiny Tykes participants are usually between five and ten years old.

Eckardt’s own son, two-year-old Caydn, often joins the class for exercises like wall ups, knee ups and frog jumps. “He could do his first burpee at six-months-old,” Eckardt proudly says.

“Kids like to exert energy and there’s no better way to get it all out than boxing,” says Eckardt who has been involved with the Calgary boxing community as an athlete and coach since the early-’90s.

“What a great activity that would be for my husband and son to do together,” the mother says, clearly sold on the program.

She thanks Eckardt for the information and leaves the gym, five-year-old in tow. As she exits, she crosses paths with father and son Gerald and Mason Bouchard on their way in.

Bouchard plops five-year-old Mason’s training bag against a fire engine-red wall, right under a black and white boxing poster that reads: “Some of the greatest fights don’t involve an opponent.”

With the help of his dad, Mason slips off his tiny Calgary Flames shoes and puts on his Nike runners. His dad then hands him the shortest skipping rope from a selection of over a dozen ropes.

Eckardt leaves no room for idle chat. “Your ten minutes of skipping starts now guys,” he calls out to the small class of four—two kids, one dad and one woman. Because the boxing class primarily involves doing exercises in timed intervals, any age or fitness level can participant at the same time.

Gerald Bouchard, who lives with his wife and two boys in Airdrie, registered his son Mason in Tiny Tykes when the boxing gym first opened. His eldest son, eight-year-old Connor is heavily into hockey and he was looking to put Mason in a sport he could call his own.

“Mason loved it from the beginning,” Bouchard says of his feisty five-year-old. “He still doesn’t really know his weeks but he knows Monday, Wednesday and Friday—the days he goes to boxing,” he says with a laugh.

Muhammad Ali holds a watchful eye over Mason Bouchard as he takes pause in the corner.

Mason can skip, do push-ups and throw a jab like no other preschooler this reporter has seen.

“When he first started the boxing classes, he could barely even hold a skipping rope,” says Bouchard who doesn’t participate in the hour-long class but stays to watch his son.

Now, “I can do 65 skips in a row,” Mason boasts. Bouchard later corrects his son’s estimate to about five or six skips…

Eckardt maintains that although boxing can be used for self-defense, his classes are primarily about healthy, active living. Eighty percent of class time is dedicated to cardio exercises like skipping and core exercises like burpees, push-ups and sit-ups. The rest of the class is spent learning proper technique by playing coordination games or hitting the punching bag. It’s very rare to have kids actually fight.

“Nobody is ever pressured into fighting,” Eckardt says.

Bouchard isn’t really concerned about his son fighting—yet. “When he gets older, much older, we’ll have that discussion,” he says. For now, he appreciates the discipline and work ethic boxing is teaching Mason. Like all parents, he’d much rather his son be working out on the mini-punching bag he’s installed for him in the basement than playing virtual boxing on Nintendo Wii.

“He gets pushed and tested when he comes to boxing. And he loves it. He’s the one dragging me out the door on the nights he has boxing class,” Bouchard says.

After ten-minutes of technical work with Eckardt in the ring—mostly throwing punches at the coaches torso—Bouchard helps his son remove his tiny black boxing gloves for cool down exercises. By the end of class, Mason is visibly tired but smiling.

Once the final set of sit-ups are done, Mason takes a big gulp of water from his water bottle. His dad packs up his gym bag and helps Mason switch his Nike runners to his Calgary Flames shoes. “Thanks again,” Bouchard says to Eckhardt on his way to the exit, five-year-old in tow.

As the father and son leave the gym and head home for dinner, they cross paths with a family of four—Stacy and Jayson Shantz and their children eight-year-old Kaylee and 10-year-old Connor—on their way in…