There is a wall at this gym, along the side, by the water fountain, and there are people who stand against it.

They are not working out. They are not waiting for a bag. They have their arms folded and they watch. Mostly they watch whoever is having the worst day.

Sandy Beaches was on the heavy bag for her ninth round this morning. She came in in September barely able to finish one. She has fallen down in this gym more than anyone I know, and she has gotten up every single time, slowly, sometimes on the second try, and gone back to the bag. That is the whole sport, as far as I'm concerned. You go down. You get up. Nobody does it for you.

The wall watched her. The wall always watches her.

I want to be careful here, because watching is not a crime. Everybody watches. You watch to learn, you watch because it's beautiful, you watch because somebody you love is in the ring. That's not what I mean. I mean staring. I mean standing a safe distance from someone who is pulling themselves up off the mat by whatever they've got, and feeling nothing about it. No sympathy. Not even pity, which would at least be something. Just the look, which says: let's see.

That is gutlessness. Not being afraid; everybody here is afraid. Gutlessness is risking nothing and grading the people who risk everything.

I asked one of them once, between rounds, whether he wanted to hold the pads. He said he was good. He has been good for two years. He has never been hit, and he has never hit anything, and he has opinions about everyone's footwork.

Sandy finished the round. She sat down on the floor, and I brought her water, and she said, "Ten tomorrow."

The wall did not clap. The wall never claps. It just goes home and comes back the next day to watch again.

I have used that word thousands of times in the last six years. I have not needed another one.

The wall at the gym is strangers. The ones that cost me were not strangers. They were close enough to catch me, and every time I came to another cliff, they watched me go over. I said the same thing to them every day. You did wrong, and you can change it. Every single day I sit here, you can change it. But that would take guts, wouldn't it?

I did not ask for much. A thousand dollars today buys so much over the next ten years. Five hundred. Two hundred. A hundred, if it pays for the doctor's appointment. What a little now does later is, in some sense, unquantifiable. They kept the hundred. It cost me years.

Here is what it was really about. They have their own problems, and I pointed them out. Point out a man's problems from the floor and he will tell you they are yours, that you are projecting, that the reason you are down there is on you. Then he goes home to his house, and you stay down there.

That is gutless. I called it that every time.

Come off the wall. Hold a pad. Or go home. But don't stand there and stare at someone getting up.