This is something I found about the gym where I began my teaching career, boxing-wise. I started, myself, when I was 10, riding my bike across town to a gym where some top quality fighters worked out. Of course, they had no time for me, so I stood and watched guys like jimmy montoya and tony cerdan and jack mosley teach guys like Mike weaver, Alberto davila, Alberto and richie sandoval. Shane Mosley wasn't coming to the gym then. I'd take what i learned, go home and practice, then teach it to my sister and the other younger kids on my block.
The Chino gym, in particular, came into my world when i was 13 or 14. My friend wanted to be a fighter; his cousin had come out of the neighborhood described and done well as an amateur boxer (and a pre-law student), so he would take us down there to work out. I was good target practice because I was hard to hit (the shoulder roll is so easy and natural) and didn't know how to close distance and hit back. This I taught myself later on.
In the early 90s, my friend's son wanted to learn how to box, so I started teaching him; I'm good at teaching, and he got good at boxing. We would work out in his Dad's garage; a lot of mitt work as I taught him, lessons I had learned watching others years before, things I'd picked up while haunting gyms since then, and my own twists. Pretty soon I was teaching a handful of kids from his varrio, some miles away. And I started taking them to the chino gym.
mostly because it cost $5 a year to sign a kid up, and you had to buy a mouthpiece. they had their own gloves and handwraps, so we'd go to the gym for the routine and to find sparring. His name isn't in the following, but carlos Becerril was great; a former contender for a world title, he let me teach my guys in his gym. Roger Gonzalez (28-6, 18 kos as we speak) trained there and used to spar with one of my kids. He ran the gym for some time.
At amateur shows there over the years I have had the pleasure of sitting next to Mike weaver and talking boxing for a couple hours; he didn't remember me as the skinny little white kid that had watched him workout 20 years before. Alberto davila has been a life-long hero of mine. I also have many close friends that are Chino Sinners- didn't meet one in the gym.
I met one when i was in7th grade and he was in first. I tutored him in reading and math and his goal was to be a boxing champ and a Sinner. In the late 90s I went to a party for him; he had just been released from prison, a Sinner inggo d standing, and the mantle in his mother's house carried several of his boxing trophies. When i lived in phoenix, several of the Chino homeboys would bring cars out for the lowrider car show and that is a party...
So anyway, here is the article...
http://www.chinoboxingclub.com/clien...20Of%20CBC.pdf
