New York Post, Thursday, December 3, 2020nypost.comBy suzy weissFloat like a butterfly, sting like a
second-grader.
“My favorite punches are the up-
percut and the hook,” said Ruby
Tucker, a 7-year-old boxer coming
in at 47 pounds, standing at about
4 feet. “I hope to be a professional
boxer one day, like Laila Ali. She
moves forward a lot, and uses one-
twos when she does.”
The pint-size athlete hones her
boxing skills three to four days a
week with her dad and trainer, Ki-
juan Tucker, who hopes to one day
turn his tiny Tyson into a pro.
“I was just a big fan of the sport,”
said Tucker, 36, who noticed his
daughter’s strength and agility at
the age of 3 and decided to start
training her informally after
watching YouTube videos to get a
sense of the best practices. “She
has a natural, effortless form.”
A typical training day starts like
this: Ruby wakes up at 6:30 a.m.
and eats a healthy breakfast of
toast, fruit and juice — “There’s
no soda in her diet, and we try and
limit the candy,” said Tucker.
Then, she’s off to spar with her
dad for about an hour and 15 min-
utes in a park near the family’s
home in South Brunswick, NJ. “We
work on footwork, head move-
ment, defense and jabs. We love
throwing jabs,” said the proud fa-ther of one. After a half-hour or so
of cool-down time, it’s off to vir-
tual elementary school.
Inspired by his work with his
daughter, Tucker recently founded
Zilla Boxing Club, a youth boxing
gym. Over the summer, he started
training other local kids in the
park, and then made the move to
secure a brick-and-mortar facilityin Elizabeth, NJ, which is set to
open later this month. Packages
range from $30 per week to a $100
monthly membership, which cov-
ers small group classes.
Tucker said he hopes recent ex-
hibition fights like Mike Tyson
versus Roy Jones Jr., plus a “resur-
gence in combat sports” like MMA
and UFC fighting, will get kidspumped about boxing. He also an-
ticipates that after months of be-
ing cooped up during the pan-
demic, parents will be eager to
sign up their tots for activities that
will help them release pent-up en-
ergy.
Ruby said she’s got her peers in
her corner. “My friends think it’s
really cool that I box, and I teach
them moves.”
The featherweight is committed
to her sport. She studies videos of
her idols, who include wel-
terweight champion Errol
Spence Jr., Muhammad
Ali, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
and Manny Pacquiao. Al-
ways looking to improve,
she’s currently focused
on footwork, which her
dad described as “her
Achilles’ heel.” “When
she learned to walk, she
walked on her toes,”
said Tucker, who
added that she had to
wear braces to help
with the problem.
Now, with the help
of a weekly private
dance class, she shuffles,
slides and pivots with
ease in the videos her
dad posts to social
media, to some
31,000 followers.
Ruby has her own ac-
count, too, and has
nearly 10,000 fans.
Since the tough-guy
sport involves a lot of
gear, the Tuckers have had
to amass youth-size versions
of gloves, mouthpieces, hand
wraps, head guards, striking
sticks, pads and heavy bags to
properly train. Still, sparring part-
ners in Ruby’s category are hard to
come by for now. According to
USA Boxing’s official rules, kids
can start in the PeeWee division at
age 8, so Ruby can’t box competi-
tively until after her next birthday.
But the senior Tucker isn’t wor-
ried about titles just yet. He’s fo-
cused on fitness and fun, and said
the rough-and-tumble pastime has
plenty to offer beyond belts. “Box-
ing encompasses everything about
life; you get knocked down, you get
back up,” said Tucker. “The corner is
your family, and the ring is life, and
you have to face your opponent.”
And he said the violence of the
sport at its highest levels just comes
with the territory. “Look, we’re not
baking cookies,” said Tucker. “We
watch the matches, and they can be
brutal, but I present it as a sport,
just like football is.”
He says he’s not worried about
raising an aggressor, either, and
argues that boxing is as much a
mental practice as a physical one.
“I’m training my daughter to al-
ways talk her way through con-
flicts,” said Tucker. “But if a bully
backs you into a corner, you stand
tall and do what you have to do.”
But for Ruby, boxing is still all
about family bonding.
“I like spending time with my
dad,” she said.7-year-old boxer packs
pint-sized punches
Courtesy Kijuan Joneskid gloves:
New Jersey feather-
weight Ruby Tucker
learned to box from
dad Kijuan, who
wants local youths
to practice self-
defense and to
learn the discipline
that comes with
boxing. He’s open-
ing a gym for kids
in Elizabeth, NJ.her idols, who include wel-
terweight champion Errol
Spence Jr., Muhammad
Ali, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
and Manny Pacquiao. Al-
ways looking to improve,
she’s currently focused
on footwork, which her
dad described as “her
Achilles’ heel.” “When
she learned to walk, she
walked on her toes,”
said Tucker, who
added that she had to
wear braces to help
with the problem.
Now, with the help
of a weekly private
dance class, she shuffles,
slides and pivots with
ease in the videos her
dad posts to social
media, to some
31,000 followers.
Ruby has her own ac-
count, too, and has
nearly 10,000 fans.
Since the tough-guy
sport involves a lot of
gear, the Tuckers have had
to amass youth-size versions
of gloves, mouthpieces, hand
wraps, head guards, striking
sticks, pads and heavy bags toof a weekly private
dance class, she shuffles,Two people were shot in
the city Tuesday — one dur-
ing a drive-by incident in
Queens and the other in a
possible botched drug deal in
Manhattan, according to po-
lice sources.
Most recently, a 24-year-
old man was hit in the leg at
150th Street and 71st Avenue
in Kew Gardens Hills at
around 9 p.m., police said.
The shooters, inside a
white Jeep, got into a brief
dispute with the victim be-
fore opening fire, according
to cops.
He was taken to NewYork
Presbyterian-Queens with
non-life-threatening injuries.
About 45 minutes earlier, a
20-year-old man was shot
once in the buttocks on West
42nd Street near Ninth Ave-
nue, cops said.
He was taken to Bellevue
Hospital in stable condition.
The shooting appears to be
connected to a drug transac-
tion gone wrong, police sour-
ces said.
The alleged gunman, last
seen heading south near
West 33rd Street and Seventh
Avenue, has dark-colored
dreadlocked hair, cops said.
He was wearing a black
jacket, blue jeans and black
sneakers. Tina Moore
and Amanda Woods
Tuesday
shoot
toll at 2
City officials in San Fran-
cisco want to ban all tobacco
smoking inside apartments,
citing concerns about sec-
ondhand smoke. But lighting
up a joint inside? That’s still
allowed.
The Board of Supervisors
voted 10-1 Tuesday to ap-
prove the ordinance making
San Francisco the largest city
in the country to ban tobacco
smoking inside apartments,
the San Francisco Chronicle
reported.
The original proposal
sought to ban residents from
smoking marijuana in their
apartments, but supervisors
voted to exclude marijuana
after cannabis activists said
the law would take away their
only legal place to smoke.
The bill requires a second
vote next week and the
mayor’s OK. AP
‘Smoke pot,
not tobaccy’