PLANET CHOCKO – art/music/movies/beyond

Hardy was a documentary film that debuted at DOC NYC which screened at Bow Tie’s Chelsea Cinemas. I limited myself to seeing 3 films at the Festival this year due to time constraints and monetary reasons. Suffice to say I picked 3 topics/subjects that I enjoy very much. The first film was on street art – Banksy Does New York. The 2nd film was on punk music – Salad Days: The birth of punk in the Nation’s Capital, and last but not least a film on boxing – Hardy!

(L-Director/Natasha Verma,R-Heather Hardy at DOC NYC)

Hardy was a documentary that told the story of female boxer – Heather Hardy – born & bred in blue collar full of city of new york workers (sanitation,NYPD,FDNY) Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn not very far from Coney Island,Brighton Beach, & the Manhattan Beach areas. Born to a 3rd generation Irish american family all raised on Gerritsen Beach, Hardy had a funny line in the movie when she said that she could spit anywhere on Gerritsen Beach and she would hit 3 of her cousins before the spit would hit the ground! The film started out with Heather jogging across the Brooklyn Bridge into the arms of the world famous Gleason’s Gym in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. Her first boxing trainer at Gleason’s was WBO woman’s champion Alicia Ashley until Alicia’s trainer – her brother Devon Cormack took the reigns of Hardy’s hardships in/out of the ring. You can see Hardy’s passion, dedication, & drive in her eyes with boxing. Something just clicked in Heather when she had her first amateur bout which made her want to make this a fulltime profession. Maybe it was the intense competition between two people in the ring – part of it was the independence – some of it was the energy of the crowd, and a lot of it was the feeling she felt when she was able to slowly chop her opponent down between the ropes. She had big dreams of being the female version of Mike Tyson. Um, that’s a pretty bold statement! Let’s crawl before we shadowbox!

(Heather Hardy at DOC NYC)

Director Natasha Verma shadowed Heather with her training, boxing career, and personal life during the filming. We soon found out that though the main draw of the doc was about a female boxer, the underlying story was really about a woman trying to find herself, find her soul. She had a tough life growing up and has had a traumatic experience in her adolescence that she still struggles with to this day. Hardy wanted more than to be just a housewife or house mom taking care of her child. She noted that there’s nothing wrong with staying at home but it was obvious that she had bigger dreams for herself. After she separated from her husband – the drive in finding this something else would explode in her!

(Director/Natasha Verma)

I really liked the character, the story, and the vibe of the subject matter at hand. Besides the boxing which I adore very much – it was the interactions that Heather had with her family, her daughter, sister, and trainer (turned boyfriend) that opened up her heart and vulnerabilities fpr everyone to see, not to mention the stress & struggles of a woman trying to get booked for a fight in a male dominated arena. The documentary reveals that many if not all boxing promoters require all boxers (maybe just the woman?) to sell a certain amount of tickets for that particular boxing event which you can imagine would influence the decision of that said promoter to put that fighter in the undercard or not. That sounds pretty darn crooked if you ask me! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with the cut throat boxing business. I found the dynamics of the relationship between Heather Hardy and her trainer to have so many layers of potential troubled waters that it made me fascinated. I mean dating your mentor/trainer who was so much older than yourself – adoring and falling in love with this person but also finding yourself being disciplined by the same man – it just sounds so damn hard to do. It really comes down to being able to separate the business from the personal and THIS business – professional boxing is not just any old storefront. So yeah, the relationship between student and trainer and in the big picture – the big boss fight promoter in this case Lou Dibella Entertainment really drew me into the film. The main objective for Heather was to get signed to a full time contract with Dibella as she goes through a few undercard fights with him to see how she does. Did I also mention that Hurricane Sandy on October 29th, 2012 would turn Gerritsen beach into one big recovery effort like many shore towns up and down New York & New Jersey.

(Boxing promoter – Lou Dibella)

After the screening Lou Dibella, Natasha Verma (director), and Heather Hardy were in attendance for a brief Q/A! See below video of the Q/A that we took at the event!

Heather’s next fight is at BB King’s Blues Club with Broadway Boxing/Lou Dibella Entertainment’s undercard on December 3rd! See the movie to see how she made out with Dibella Entertainment! http://dbe1.com/popular-female-boxer-heather-hardy-subject-of-the-new-documentary-hardy-added-to-dibella-entertainments-next-broadway-boxing-event/

Do you want to take private/semi-private boxing or kickboxing classes with Heather Hardy? Go here for more info > http://www.heathertheheathardy.net/Schedule—Classes.html

Hardy the Documentary looks like it will be screening at the 2014 Shadow Box Film Festival in NYC coming in December – lookout for it!