We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jesus Vasquez jr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jesus thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
learn how what you do now?
I learned how to box at a really young age (9), after trying karate and wrestling I realized I need to be pushed further in a more intense sport. My father was very supportive of me trying all these sports, he would go out of his way to find a good gym, buying me shoes etc. At age nine i stepped into my first boxing gym but I didn’t start learning the actually craft of boxing until I had a few years of experience. As a 9 year old kid all I wanted to do is go in there and throw as many punches as I can to win the fight. As a more experienced kid I realized there was sooo much more to boxing than what I had imagined. I started studying the older more experienced guys at my gym and started watching old boxing tapes to learn from the legends. Sooner than later I started to mimic a lot of their moves and perfected them to fit my style. with a lot of practice and a lot of help from my coaches and mentors I learned the sweet science side of boxing.
Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process?
I wouldn’t. I stated at a very young age I wouldn’t speed up the process of learning the craft because I had a lot of time to make mistakes and learn from them without rushing. Everything in life is either learned from a book or from trial and error, but a person must fail and make mistakes before learning anything. knowing that now as a 31 year old prime athlete I would just tell myself to be patient. It comes with experience.
What skills do you think were most essential?
I believe the art of mastering the mind. A lot of people don’t understand that boxing is 99% mental and 1% percent everything else. So, for me growing up I wasn’t always the most confident. Boxing taught me to be mentally strong at a very young age. With that I became a well disciplined, dedicated, hard worker. I later became more confident in my skills and that lead me to believe in myself, every level that I reached I wanted to keep reaching higher and higher until I got to where I am now (a professional). I believe I can do anything I set my mind to.
What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
As an amateur I would get discouraged after a loss. I hated losing, I thought I was done after a loss. I would want to quit. My coaches would always tell me “it’s only an amateur loss and they don’t really count. This is where you wanna lose, to learn” at first I wasn’t having it, but after I had my first loss as an amateur and came back and won! I realized they were right. If I hadn’t loss that fight, I wouldn’t have learned this new move or how to fix a mistake I made in a fight. I then realized, that’s what the amateurs are for. To learn! so I would say definitely having an ego early on definitely stopped me from learning more. Even now at 31, in my prime, 4 nationals titles later & 11-1 professionally! I’m still learning and willing to learn more. Because I let go of this im able to adapt and not defeat myself, i’m a wizard.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Tell the readers about yourself?
I go by Jr or Junes. I’m a profesional fighter out of Colorado. My journey fighting began when I was six years old. Growing up in a rough area (south-central LA) I used to get bullied which eventually led into fights at school and around my block. I got beat up in front of what felt like the entire school. I cried to my dad that I wanted to take karate classes to learn how to be better prepared to defend myself the next time it occurred. He agreed to take me if I promised to only use my karate in case of an emergency and not to get revenge. In karate, I would actually punch/hit the kids for real so the sensei recommended to my dad that I try boxing saying “he would be good”. As soon as my dad took me to a real boxing gym, I immediately fell in love with it. I grew up watching Jean Claude van damme movies like “kickboxer” and “blood sport” so I was infatuated with the combat sports life. I always dreamed of one day becoming a fighter. That’s pretty much where it all started.
What sets you apart from others?
I believe what sets me apart from other, is I’ve always been in my own lane since a youngin, I was always very different from everyone doing what I wanted and not what everyone else was doing. I embarrassed to the fullest being who I was, I didn’t care what anyone thought. Anyone who doesn’t know me would think I’m a reggaetón artist but never a boxer. I’m an artistic guy, I dress like a rockstar, very I’m unpredictable, very mysterious. But I’m also a very hard worker, I’m a perfectionist I’ll stay in the gym until I get it right. I love my craft, I’ll go the extra mile to get the results that I want. That always set me apart from my teammates I remember being the first one in the gym and the last one out. I’m in love with the grind, with the journey.
What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of being a father. That’s my biggest blessing in this world. Second is my boxing, reaching my goal of winning a national title as an amateur and accomplishing my childhood dream of becoming a professional boxer. Im going to work so much harder to keep adding to this list I promise.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I think In the boxing community I’m very misunderstood because I do other things besides boxing and sometimes that bothers people for some reason. What I would tell someone like me who is misunderstood, is really just be true to yourself. People are going to love/hate you regardless so as long as you love yourself and do what you love and want it’s going to benefit you in the long run. No one can define you better than yourself so don’t let them put you in a box, break out of that box and creat a pathway to move how you want to move without being worried of criticism. As humans we weren’t meant to operate in only one way, God made each and everyone of us unique for a reason, we aren’t clones! So go out there and find who you are and what your good at, even if that’s a lot of different things!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Just be yourself, I got on Tik tok in 2020 without a worry about who’s was watching and I was just myself and all of a sudden my videos were getting a lot of views and my followers stated growing, now I’m at 45k followers and still growing! I used to be very careful about what I posted because I was afraid of who was watching and judging. I thought people wouldn’t like me or talk bad about me, but when I let go of that and just stated being myself people started loving me more when they got to know the real me.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://thecoldestwater.com/?ref=realsabroso
- Instagram: Realsabroso
- Facebook: Jesus vasquez jr
- Twitter: Realsabroso
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@sabroso7575
- Other: Tik Tok: Realsabroso
Image Credits
All credits belong to me these are my photos