New Bantamweight Champ?

The VIP Boxing Club in Venice is a testosterone palace. The musky smell of dried sweat lingers, leaden punching bags hang in a row, gloves sit on a bench, still wet from accumulated perspiration, and dark brown spots of dried blood dot the floor of the ring.

It’s a Monday morning and I’m here for my first boxing lesson. I walk into this not feeling intimidated, but more like Alice after being plopped into in Wonderland.

I don’t like boxing. I don’t like watching men pound each other senseless, watching eyes swell to the size of lemons and sweat fly like water off a hot griddle. I’ve never been able to understand the sport’s appeal, other than the fact that it puts people deeply in touch with their basic urges to see men beat the crap out of one another.

Aerobics, running, weightlifting, that’s my style, but I’ve heard that boxing and kick boxing are attracting a female following. It’s curiosity that’s driven me to see if I can actually learn to like doing this sport.

A call to the California Athletic Commission gives me leads on a couple of boxing trainers who have worked with women. I call Iya Khan at VIP, where I learn that the monthly gym fee is $55. Fees for lessons vary among instructors.

I meet Khan at the gym. The inside is painted brilliant yellow, the visual equivalent of smelling salts. The walls are papered with boxing match posters and pictures of famous fighters. Half a dozen men--gym rats and pros--are at the punching bags, sparring in the ring and hitting the speed bag so it makes that satisfyingly rhythmic th-thwacka-th-thwacka-th-thwacka sound. I am the only female.

“I think women make better boxers,” Iya says. He is tall and trim, talks enthusiastically about the sport, says he’s been boxing for 15 years and has trained a number of women. “They’re much more primal about it,” he says. “They come in and they don’t mess around, they throw cleaner punches.”

That’s encouraging, although I wonder how I’ll do when it’s my turn to start hitting. I never got into too many fistfights growing up; and anyway, girls never learn to pummel each other the way boys do. We are the scratch-and-kick gender. My mother never told me, “Well, dear, now that we’ve finished making these sugar cookies, I’ll teach you how to throw a right hook.”

Once in a fit of rage, instead of hauling off and slugging my sister (she’s older and has always been stronger), I took all the clothes out of her closet. I didn’t throw them on the floor. I neatly piled them on her bed. Then, fearing her wrath, I put them back. I redefined the word wimp.

The first day Iya shows me how to do my hand wraps, the muslin strips that pad the knuckles and keep the wrist straight. I’ve already done sidestepping around the ring, 150 jumping jacks, a few minutes of jumping rope and stretching, which are part of every day’s routine.

He teaches me the stance--both knees bent, the weight over the front leg. I also learn how to jab, how to punch straight and a little on how to block.

Iya has me in the ring right away, a strategy he says tackles head-on any free-floating fear. I am too ignorant to be fearful.

Sparring with him, I’m on offense. I jab at his gloves until he tells me to aim for his face. “C’mon,” he says, “hit me. Hit me! I said, HIT ME !” I finally hit him in the arm hard enough for his satisfaction, and he grins and says, “ There you go!”

I find I like punching--that is, punching the punching bag. It’s a great way to alleviate stress, especially if you imagine different people’s faces superimposed on the blue vinyl. “I think everyone should have one of these,” Iya says, and laughs. I am beginning to get this boxing thing.

But on the second day Iya has me sparring with another student named Joel, who is about my height of 5-feet-4. This time I am on defense. Although Iya has told him to throw light punches, they seem hard to me. All I see are distorted images of huge red gloves rushing toward my face and in my head I scream, “Stop hitting me! Please stop hitting me! WHY ARE YOU HITTING ME?!?”

“Keep your head down! Stop blinking!” Iya yells from the side and I try to make my eyes saucer-like, but the instinct to flinch is too great.

Protective gear for my face and head isn’t needed in these early lessons. No one else’s gloves ever touch me. The mild blows come when I’m not blocking correctly and I hit myself with my own glove. I call it the “moron punch.”

Everyday I practice jabs, throwing rights, blocking, throwing a roundhouse, the one-two punch and the one-two-three punch. My arms feel as if I’ve just had a dozen tetanus shots. I am still too tense. I cannot seem to get the stance right. I hop around the ring too much, don’t keep my head down and fail to bring my gloves back in defense position after throwing a punch.

“Bring ‘em back!” Iya yells. “Bring ‘em back ! You’ve always gotta bring ‘em back. Otherwise, someone’ll take advantage of it and hit you like this--Bam!” His arm extends to within millimeters of my face. I get the point.

He has infinite patience as he gives me the same instructions over and over. After a week I begin to feel more at ease with the moves, the routines.

I am even getting used to Iya’s eclectic choice of music that’s constantly in the background: Liza Minnelli, the Police, Hammer, James Brown, Gershwin and Iya’s own compositions (he’s also a jazz musician and singer).

The second week another girl signs up for lessons. Heather is a good deal taller than I am, but Iya says height isn’t a factor, I can compensate by aiming my punches high. Boxing, he says, is all strategy, learning how to control your opponent.

At first it seems weird to be punching at a fellow female. When Heather and I spar and one of us catches a moron punch, the other apologizes. I’m sure Tyson and Ruddock did the same.

It’s something of a relief having another woman to commiserate with, when our arms are so tired it feels like they’re going to fall out of their sockets, or when Iya insists we do our “walking 10,” which consists of doing one push-up, walking a few paces, doing two, walking back and doing three, and so on, up to 10.

Our being female in this bastion of maleness doesn’t seem to faze any of the guys. They accept us into the brotherhood without making any bonehead comments.

In fact, when I tell friends I am learning to box, men are more accepting than women. “Cool,” says one guy I know. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

Women are more hostile.

“You shouldn’t be boxing!” my friend Cathy explodes. “You should be needlepointing and hand-lettering stationery and making dolls, not hitting girls! You have a reputation for enjoying the girlie things in life!”

I do, but can’t a girl needlepoint and box?

I think back to that first day when Iya told me how boxing changes people, how he’s seen the meek become confident and the macho humble. I came in thinking I’d hate every last minute of this brutal, pointless sport. Three weeks later I am enamored of a boxer’s balletic grace, and intrigued with the challenge of trying to fake out my opponent.

As my jabs and punches improve, there’s a sense of accomplishment no other physical activity has ever offered. I wonder if I keep this up, where it can take me. Amateur status? Cauliflower ears?

In my third week, Angela joined the gym. On her second day, we sparred, with me throwing light punches at her. I recognize all too well the look on her face, the one that says, “STOP HITTING ME!” She’ll get used to it soon enough.

This occasional column is Staff Writer Jeannine Stein’s guide to life in L.A.