 Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town, which is a little bit different from a lot of what we usually do, but same host, I'm James Milan, and I am going to be talking today on the cusp of April, which is a Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month, and I am talking to Todd Parris. Todd is a boxing instructor of Note in the Area who has been, in fact, working through a program called Rocksteady with Parkinson's patients for years and years, and we want to hear all about that experience. So that's why we're here today. Todd, first of all, thanks for joining us. I appreciate the invitation. Thanks. It's something, as I mentioned to you before we went on air, it's something that I've been curious about for a long time, and so really glad to have this opportunity to find out more. Let's start with just, let me ask you. I mentioned you've been doing Rocksteady for a number of years. How long exactly and what, you know, propelled you to, you know, to work with that particular population? So I've been doing Rocksteady for a little over five years. I heard of it from, there was a piece on 60 Minutes that my fiance had seen and found it on YouTube and showed it to me, and I'm like, this is, it just fit with kind of where I wanted to take the type of training that I do. I came, it's, I came into boxing sort of accidentally. I originally, like all through college, I was, I did martial arts, considered myself a martial artist. Boxing was always of interest, but, you know, just the tough guys did boxing and I wasn't a tough guy. So just, I always kind of looked at boxing and admired it from afar. Then I had cancer, had a tumor in my leg, had it removed, kicking was just kind of not going to happen for a very, very long time. And I missed, I was doing tai chi yoga, but I missed that thing. So I decided I'd try boxing, I'd give it a shot, and I completely fell head over heels for it, loved every second of it, and bringing it back to the Rocksteady. All the people that I work with in Rocksteady, they have Parkinson's. We kind of, there's a kindred spirit in that we all came to boxing, never, ever thinking we would come to boxing. And just, you know, you get, one day you get this horrible bit of news and it changes everything. And so we all sort of have that shared experience. And I thought this is going to, this is what I want to do. This is just, just, I didn't know much about it, but knew that's what I wanted to do. So as soon as you kind of figured that out or that hit you, I imagine you need to then undergo, I assume, some kind of training or certification or something like that to work with a particular population such as Parkinson's sufferers. So what we did was, it was great because Alice, my fiance, got me the training as a Christmas gift. So I was trying to, I saw the piece and I'm like, I got to do this. And I tried signing up on everything sold out. Can't get it. It's like, really? So that it turned out that they got it for me. I was so excited. Went to the, so the training took place in Indianapolis. So, you know, flew out to, flew out there. It was a long weekend course. I think it was, memory serves me correct. It was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it's an in-depth training where they have lack of a better terminology. There's like four levels for Parkinson's boxers. So you start off, the class you start off learning about everything there is to know about Parkinson that you can know being a boxing trader. So you have that sort of training and then you do a live session with people who are level one. So level one are folks that have Parkinson's, slight tremors, just symptoms that you wouldn't necessarily know that they had Parkinson's. Even know it, right, right. They know it. Those who are close to them know it. Other people they run across don't necessarily. Exactly. So as the training goes on, you work with the boxers and then you work within the classroom setting and then you work with other boxers, classroom setting. And the more in-depth the training went, the more intense the actual trainings would go. Like I've never had a lot of experience working with people in wheelchairs. So that was really interesting. Parts of it were terrifying, but it was really interesting at the same time. And then just that's sort of how that whole long weekend went. It was really, it was a great thing. But we did it face-to-face learning classroom style. Mm-hmm. And you were saying that when you first looked into it, the classes were sold out and making me think, okay, there's a bunch of people interested on the instructional end in getting this training and working with this population. Does that mean, how many folks were there for that weekend of training in Indianapolis? We had, our group was, I'll have to find, if I can find the graduation photo, like we had a big group, all the rock steady groups that you could see if you look on their website, the Rock Steady Boxing website. And I think they have their Facebook page and they'll have different graduation classes. And you can see in the beginning, fairly small, and then they get bigger and bigger. Then it's just like it spills over. We had, I'm terrible with numbers. I don't know exactly how many people were there, but it was a good size group. Mm-hmm. That's great. And yeah, I mean, I'm glad that you mentioned, because we should clarify that Rock Steady is a program that not only are you involved with, but as people might be able to tell since you went to Indianapolis for the training, this is a national program with a lot of branches all over the country. Yeah, they're everywhere, which is great. Like when I first got certified, they were in a lot of places, and now they're just, they're everywhere. And it's great. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, obviously, you know, those with Parkinson's are everywhere, so it's great that this program is finding its way, kind of wending out its tentacles out all over the country to get to, folks. Because I have to imagine that this is, you know, that, well, let me ask you, rather than me imagining, I'll ask you. Is there kind of science behind the idea that boxing is particularly a nice discipline or a good thing to take on for many Parkinson's, many of those with Parkinson's? Yeah, first, it's a great question. The big thing that I always get asked is how does boxing help with Parkinson's? So the way that it all began was there was a gentleman with Parkinson's and a friend of his said, you should try boxing. So he had met a trainer, a woman named Christy Rose Fulmer, who was actually a professional boxer at one point. And he was just doing it to get in shape. You know, he had Parkinson's, wanted some exercise. As he was doing the exercises, he started noticing some of the symptoms were going away. So his tremors got better, balance got better. Just so many, he could type again. There were so many different things that started to just improve for him. So one of the things which I always, when I meet with someone new in my first, I guess, my first selling point on how Rocksteady works is what one of the things that Parkinson's does is you get a stooped and everything sort of becomes T-rex like your arm shrink up. And that's just your movement. Just there's a shuffle and you're sort of everything is everything kind of gets contracted with boxing. So you've got someone like this boxing. You want that back a little bit straightened and you want long movements. You want bigger movements. So the idea of going from, you know, small and tight into big motions, that is it's a therapy that helps with the symptom of that balance. If you, you know, any boxing trainer will tell you they never want their fighter in a position where that fight is going to fall down. Just it's a bad thing to happen with Parkinson's patients. You don't want them to fall down. So there's certain modalities of movement that we go over to help them with that. So a boxer, if they're in their stance, left foot forward, right foot back, moving to one's left, you use your forward foot. So that would be the left foot. I always tell my folks, if you're in the grocery store and you're reaching up for a box of cereal, you don't want to have your back foot crossed behind. That's going to that's just a recipe for falling. So it's all these movements. So if you see people in the grocery store moving around like they're fighting, it's probably because they took my class. Well, I think I mean, it's just a wonderful explanation. And I'm so happy that you chose to do this interview standing up. You were saying you're a fidgety person, but that does allow you to show us the movements that you're talking about. Really give us a sense of of what the correlation is between the things that Parkinson's, you know, those who suffer from Parkinson's are dealing with in their bodies and the things that you would naturally do as a boxing instructor and concentrate on stuff like balance, stuff like length, etc. That, you know, makes it very clear for me how this how there's a real symbiosis here. That's great. There's also there's, you know, there's so those are the two basic, the real easy kind of physical parts. There's also the intangibles about fighters overcome. And it's the same thing in our rock steady boxing classes, you know, hitting a bag or shadow box, you get tired and to just keep pushing through that tire net to overcome that obstacle helps not only with fighting or with fighters, but it also helps in your daily, especially with Parkinson's patients when you get to a certain point during the day where the medications start to wear off and you start to slow down. And it's just the ability to fight through those moments and to get to the other side of those. So we, you know, we practice that in the gym and that way they can practice that in their home or wherever they wind up there in the day. Yeah, excellent. I mean, showing again, not only is there kind of these are these physical just kind of congruencies and, you know, things that work, you know, particularly well on the physical level, but also you're saying, hey, boxers build themselves to be mentally tough as as as much as possible. And how can not not help anybody who's suffering from a debilitating condition of almost any sort, but certainly for Parkinson's folks, like you said, tiring throughout the day, being able to draw on that on that kind of that wellspring of mental fortitude that that, you know, you build up through through boxing and through, you know, frankly, through pain and and overcoming, like you said, again, crystal clear now that you mentioned it, but not necessarily as obvious before we start thinking about it and talking to an expert. I'm curious just to go back briefly not to the to that training weekend itself, necessarily in Indianapolis, but the fact that you mentioned that there were four different categories and you talked about or levels and talked about the most benign. How, you know, how serious are the issues of the folks and you mentioned working with people with wheelchair in wheelchairs? How serious are the, you know, the physical debilities of the of those who are your most, you know, your your highest level folks that you work with? They they range, you know, you we get folks who again for folks that you can't really tell they have Parkinson's aside from their families. If you saw them in the grocery store, you wouldn't know anywhere from those two people who I remember I had one gentleman who was in a wheelchair when he came in. He could get out of the chair, but it was incredibly unsafe and he would just kind of barrel around the gym. He can move by running, but he couldn't walk. So it was dealing with, you know, someone who's wheelchair bound, which is to do a class with, you know, you can be in front of the bag and hitting. I'm trying to think of a way to kind of explain it, where it's not as simple as one is kind of confined to a wheelchair. It's not like you have a broken leg or you're paralyzed. It's you're able like you're able to do some things, but not other things. It's just not simple. So every I remember here in this, it was always a great expression. That you've dealt with someone. If you've dealt with one person with Parkinson's, you've dealt with one person with Parkinson's. They're all so different. So that was my most extreme case. He was in the wheelchair. He could do stuff in the chair, hated being in the chair, wanted to get out, but he could only run. So it was hard working on balance, keeping him by the bag and making sure he was safe and that the other people around him were also safe. So things, they just, there's such a wide range. And how, how does it work? I mean, as you mentioned, working with this guy in the classroom or in a gym, I should say, how, how does it work? Like, do you have to have a, you know, a real limit on how many people are in any class when you're working in a rock study class? Do you have to also, you know, try as best you can to have people who are approximately of the same level or is there, you know, is it very, very difficult to deal with the classroom in which you've got somebody at level one and somebody at level four? Tell us, talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, it's, so what I do for, for my classes is I'll divide up level one and level two and level three and level four. So the level three and level, level four are, it's a little more tricky. I found in my experience, I've never had the cap, the class. It's hard, it's hard to get them to want to come to the class. So there's never a lot. The level one, two, there's always a lot of people who either they catch it early enough or they just, they're of a certain age as well. And they, they want to, they're ready to get some, to get the work. On the other side, it's just, it's harder to get motivated. So I never have to worry about the class size for that. I've had experience with, so they, you know, so it's level three, four, level one, two. Me, not either separate. Yes. So the three, the threes and fours are together. Right. Then ones and twos and together. I've, I've done classes where it's been everybody, you know, anyone from level one to level four. What I find difficult about those, the level one folks, it's hard to see the level four folks. It's kind of hard to see, is that an inevitable future for me? And so I also, my thing is I don't like forcing that upon someone. You know, I know that when I was having a radiation therapy and I see the chemo patients and it's just, you know, it's not a sharks and a jets kind of thing, but you know, everyone was sort of in their own little realm and it's just, it's hard. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think addressing that quite simply, in a lot of ways by dividing one and two and three and four seems, you know, potentially very effective in that way. Because obviously I think I'm, of course, just speculating here, but I would assume by the time if you do get to that it is a progression that you one begins with the first signs and an identification at level one. And, you know, yes, I assume over time for most Parkinson's patients that they end up, you know, getting worse in that way. And so that by the time you get to level three or four, I mean, you have to, either you accept or you don't accept, but it's not your future, it's your present. And by the same token levels one and two, I think you can really kind of keep them that way invigorated and hopefully postponing or, I mean, is there, again, is there much evidence of that, that, you know, people who begin work in boxing at level, you know, in their level one folks, that really there are definitely there are, there are some studies and some reports I find, you know, so which are great and those you can find on the Rocksteady website. They have all that sort of information for me. It's more anecdotal where I had a one of my fighters, a gentleman named John and, you know, nice guy had actually nice form, good, you know, but he was like in his 70s Parkinson's, but a level one, one and a half. I remember a few like after a couple of months, I was sitting at the front desk and John came up and he's like, you know, my hands don't shake as much. And I'm like, John, that's really great to hear. And he's like, yeah, and, and he's just talking to me. And I'm like, you have an accent. And he's like, yeah, I was, I came to this country and I was 17. I'm from Ireland. I never noticed before because I couldn't hear him. Because it's Parkinson's has a thing where it steals your voice away, you get very breathy. And so I've never, I never really heard him talk. And then all of a sudden he's talking freely. And it's just, and he had an accent for me. It's, you know, it's, he started to get better, you know, in his world, you know, his hands weren't shaking as much. He had more energy and he just was happy. And then outside looking in the whole, it was just, it really was a light bulb moment for me of like, okay, this works. Yeah, I could hear him. And just that just, you know, it was just Irish accents are always great. So it was just really, what a great, what a great illustration, like you said, of, of, of progress. Yeah. Because it was, it was a stealth kind of thing. As you said, for him, it was all about the hands. He could see that that's better. And yeah, etc. But for, for you, you had your own independent corroboration, things are going, well, I can hear this guy. Yeah, that was, that was, that was a really good point for me because it was kind of, it really just solidified like, okay, I'm on the right path. This is the right stuff. And this works. What, you know, you're, you're clearly a font of, of good stories about this and, you know, any number of other things I'm sure are around boxing. But can you share with us, you know, maybe one or two other anecdotes that are, you know, particularly funny, particularly moving things that just have stuck with you from, from working with those with Parkinson's over these last five years? There are, you know, it's so hard to single them out. Like that, that's one of my favorite stories. With the, with the pandemic, it's been, we've been removed. So some of the, the memory seemed fuzzy in terms of some of those face-to-face interactions currently online. It's, it's, it's been, you know, it's been fun. And I missed that, that interaction with the folks. Yeah, I gotta say, you know, we all, here we are, right? We're speaking to you in a way that we wouldn't usually if we, if we had alternatives and that we wouldn't, you know, we would have come to your gym and, you know, been right in that space. And so we're all good and tired of this world, as we know. But I have to imagine that particularly dealing in the field that you do something so visceral and physical and, and right, you know, where you need to be reading the cues right there in front of you, and then that particular population, I can't even imagine trying to migrate that over to the virtual world. It must have, it must be, you said it's fun. I'm sure you've had a positive attitude about it. It's challenging. Gotta be challenging, yeah. So, yeah, I, you know, what I'm sure you're keeping a lot of tabs on, on this, any idea what the prospects are for when you're going to be able to return to real world? We were, we were sort of back at the gym a few months ago before the second sort of shutdown. The plan right now is to go back on April 6th. But there's not a lot of folks that want to go back. So there's maybe about three people that want to go back to the gym and hit bags. Everybody else likes doing the Zoom sessions, wants to stay at home, which I totally get. I don't know how much of that will change now that everyone's getting vaccinated, because they're, you know, they're all bragging about their shots and, which is, it's quite annoying. But the, but everybody, you know, the three people that are really looking, what I do is I'll do the Zoom session from the gym, have the guys in the gym, have the folks at home, so I'm able to, it's, I can do it anywhere. So, but it looks like April 6th will start going back and everyone is welcome to come back that wants to come back. And for you, Todd, personally, I assume that you, that this is part of your, your, you know, professional and maybe even personal life at this point. You clearly are completely engaged and thoroughly committed and seems, sounds like devoted to those who you're working with. Do you see this being something, I mean, you're five years into it now, is this something that you're going to be doing as long as you are coaching boxing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, it's, I, I just, I love it. You know, I fell head over heels in love with boxing when I, when I went to boxing. When I started to teach or coach, it was just, you know, the next evolution of my love affair. Um, this has been just another, another piece of it. You know, it's, I'm trying to think of something in a romantic sense when, you know, you're that special someone, you realize, what she has, she can sing. She has a beautiful voice and it's just something else you love about them. So for me with boxing, this is just another element of this great sport and movement that I fell in love with, it's another thing to yet hold on to in love. And I'm incredibly lucky that this will be something that I can do, you know, up until I'm in my 80s teaching and helping folks with Parkinson's fight Parkinson's. Um, and so I see this as just something I will always, always do and be a part of. Well, I am so glad, really. I was looking forward to this interview and, um, it has, it has been all that I hope good and more really wonderful insight, um, and great way to explain, uh, a lot of what is going on in the world of Rocksteady. Um, I wish you, um, you know, I hope that your grand love affair with boxing, uh, continues and you know, develops even more of those kind of endearing elements to it as Rocksteady is. Um, and obviously you're doing great good for a number of people who deserve it and, um, you know, just carry on. Um, again, here on the cusp of, of April where people will hopefully be thinking a little bit more about this issue, um, and informing themselves, um, I think we've just created another piece, uh, for people to tune into, um, and really get some, some better understanding of, uh, of what these folks are up against and also what they've got going for them with people like you. Thank you so much. Again, thank you. We have been speaking, um, with Todd Parris, who is a boxing instructor for a number of years, but for the last five and way into the future, uh, working with, uh, those with Parkinson's through the program Rocksteady and clearly, uh, to great, um, to great advantage and benefit, uh, for those involved, including Todd himself. Um, this is James Milan. You've been watching talk of the town. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.