Cappy kotz biography

At Cappy’s Boxing Gym in Seattle’s Central District, owner and trainer Cappy Kotz operates with this core belief: “In life, as it is in the ring.”

Not that he’s advocating punching the daylights out of people on the street, especially in these already tense times.

But working with both aspiring boxers and stressed-out 9-to-5ers needing an emotional release and fitness advice has taught him that the way people respond to adversity inside the ring is basically how they respond to challenges outside it.

Just as scared pugilists cave in before a formidable opponent delivers a crushing blow, people in daily life tend to scrunch their shoulders and curve their torsos inward, almost inviting a TKO from fate.

Kotz, 54, has made it his mission to use boxing techniques, posture correction and muscle-maxing physical-fitness regimens as tools for overhauling people’s gut reactions, to seize the gloved upper hand from the bare-knuckled clutches of intimidation.

“Once you can feel it, you can slowly replace it with a different body alignment,” Kotz says of our often rash physical reaction to conflict, after that initial frozen moment of horror.

Most of us choose either fight or flight.

Kotz says there is a third option. “You learn to just stand there — to stand in the face of things and react differently.”

At Cappy’s, you learn to train the eye of the tiger inward and wage battle with what he calls our “personal matches,” the inner conflicts that wreak havoc with our life decisions and, as a consequence, make matters worse.

“That process actually teaches you how to be a more effective person,” he says.

“Boxing isn’t really about getting hit,” Kotz says, bobbing left and right, tapping his Amber Boxer gloves together for punctuation. Nor is boxing necessarily about hitting.

“It’s about learning how not to get hit,” he says with Zen-like eloquence.

Between offense and defense, Kotz insists, lies the countervailing force of poised self-awareness.

Tyrone Beason is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was a Seattle Times columnist and Pacific NW magazine reporter.