Hayden Berry

Senior Hayden Berry spars against a teammate at Los Gatos Boxing.

Senior Hayden Berry turned to boxing in hopes of losing weight after the pandemic. Now, having involved himself in the activity for two years, Berry trains at Los Gatos Boxing for three hours almost every day with the goal of moving beyond gym workouts and eventually becoming an amateur boxer.

“It’s this primal feeling you get when you’re hard sparring,” Berry said. “You’re fighting another human and you’re doing everything in your power to get the better of someone. It’s very thrilling to me.”

Despite living with cerebral palsy since birth, a motor neuron disease that affects Berry’s right foot and hand, Berry has adapted his boxing style to deal with the condition with help from his coaches. 

Specifically, Berry has spastic right hemiplegia, causing muscle stiffness and movement difficulties on the right side of his body due to damage on the left side of his brain. Due to this, Berry was unable to throw his right hand up until around eight months ago, but Berry says it doesn’t impact him as much anymore due to the surgeries he’s undergone. 

Though his doctors feared boxing would cause an injury, especially due to his cerebral palsy, he was only able to recently pass his physical exam for competitive boxing. 

“I just put in more work, so I’m able to be at [everyone else’s] level or better,” Berry said. “The hardest part of training is also the most fun: sparring. For me, there’s nothing else like sparring that I have done in my life.”

Berry spends multiple hours in the gym each day, either practicing from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on weekends or 4-7:30 p.m on weekdays. He starts out by arriving at  the gym a couple hours before his amateur boxing team class to have a private one-on-one session with one of his coaches. There, he focuses on conditioning or specific drills like throwing combinations.

During his private or group lessons, he mainly focuses on practicing jab and straight combinations, then conditioning workouts like planks, crunches and situps. After his class, he continues training by running or practicing techniques on a boxing bag. 

Currently, he boxes recreationally, but he looks forward to competing as an amateur boxer in around a month, depending on when his coach thinks he’ll be ready; when that happens, he will sign up through USA Boxing to compete with people of his level, where age is not a factor. 

After high school, Berry hopes to attend Santa Clara University and eventually join the school’s intramural boxing team. 

“Overall, boxing is a really taxing sport, but I’m up for the challenges,” Berry said. “I love [boxing] so much; it has really made me much happier and a better person.”