This is an extract from a feature published in the latest issue of Iceland Review (no. 44.04), coming out this week.

Written by Daniel Heimpel. Photos by Páll Stefánsson.

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”  --  Ernest Hemingway

“Okay Daniel, in the ring,” Fabio commands.

I slide under the rope and stand in the middle of the ring.

“David,” Fabio yells. And the guy, who has been hitting the speed bag so steadily, jumping rope so nicely, steps in. He’s taller than me, but not by much. He’s younger than me – maybe 18 – and his arms look strong.

“David,” Fabio says. “If he [me] lands some hard punches, hold back your temper. And Daniel, listen to what I say, but don’t stop fighting unless I tell you to.”

***

Two months ago, I was in New York, mid-way through a week’s layover on my way to Iceland for the summer.

“Hello,” I wrote in an email to Fabio Quaradeghini, the head coach at Iceland’s premier boxing gym. The night before, I had spent the evening out with friends. “I’m going to box the champion of Iceland,” I told them, beer in hand. In a nation of 300,000, where boxing was banned for the past fifty years, how hard could it be?

“I weigh about 183 pounds right now,” I wrote to the coach. “I figure I can drop down to 175 lbs. The idea would be to fight the best fighter in my weight class in Iceland and try to survive.”

A day later, Quaradeghini responded.

“I would warn you though that two months is not a lot of time. Unless you are in already very good shape you will find it hard to compete,” he writes. Quaradeghini’s boxing gym, Hnefaleikafélag Reykjavíkur, won eight titles out of 12 in the last nationwide boxing tournament.

And, with this warning, it began. I was on my way to becoming the Champion of Iceland.

WEEK 1

“Spretta!” Ari Ársaelsson, 33, yells at us. It means “run,” and my new trainer’s bark is emphatic. So up I sprint; up the steep 50-foot, grass-covered embankment for the fifth time. My lungs are burning, and I come down fast.

“Have you been training?” Dagur Páll Ammendrup asks me. Ammendrup, 26, has been boxing in Iceland since the sport was re-legalized in 2002. We are standing next to a dumpster, behind the immense Hagkaup, a grocery store abutting the gym.

“Not really. Just been in New York and London.” I downplay the flattering comment and tip an imaginary bottle to my lips. I figure that references to alcohol are always good with Norsemen, along with thunderbolts, sails, big hammers, burning monks, etc.

“That sounds good,” a 12-year-old kid, who ran with us, chimes in. Iceland’s renewed interest in boxing has brought all types of contenders to the young sport: kids, women, and an enormous blonde man with arms like bridge cables.

“Now back to the yim!” Ari yells in English for my benefit. All 12 of us run under the 7 p.m. sun. I’m sweating wonderfully. Back inside, yellow-haired, red-faced Ari makes us stand in front of heavy bags. “Punch 100 times as fast as you can and then 35 like you’re killing the guy,” he yells.

I punched until my arms are so weak that I couldn’t have broken a snail’s shell.

 “Why was boxing banned?” I asked him between breaths.

“Because it was dangerous,” Ari says.

“Yeah, they all got doctors to say it was too dangerous… so they stopped it,” the 12 year old says from under his helmet of yellow-white hair.

Before the ban, stories circulated of boxers mashing innocents’ faces in drunken stupors. When lawmakers stopped boxing in 1953, they went all the way. Icelanders couldn’t even own boxing gloves.
 
***

David and I touch gloves. I walk in towards him. When I move I feel like Frankenstein. I don’t change my angle. I walk forward, all my power coming from my arms. No strategy; just the hope that I’ll catch my opponent slipping, knock him down, lift my hands and victory. That’s what Fabio wants to get out of me.

My right hand is a little low. Whop – whop. My head is ringing. I lumber forward and throw some punches. Whop – whop. I swing. Whop – whop. I pull back and try to assess the situation. Whop – whop – whop – whop. I’m reeling. I push him back. His head shakes. I swing. Whop – whop.

I look down, and see the first drop hit the blue mat, big and purple. I feel it now, coming from my nose. I swing, and my right glove glances off his head as he comes in, we hug, and I pull back. Red on his shoulder. Red on my shorts.

“Oh, his cherry was popped,” Fabio says. The five fighters by the ring look at me. I smile. They smile. Blood sputters from my nose and my head is ringing. Fabio has been successful in teaching me an important lesson: you better move your feet, or it’s not going to be pretty.