What has brought you the most joy or strength this year? 

Remus | Te Tai Tokerau

Remus shares how whānau keeps him grounded through the intense, and sometimes lonely, sport of boxing.

“What I love about Kaikohe is the people. We have a lot of mana in Kaikohe. Our people, our ancestors, were warriors.

For me, I’ve always been fighting. Part of that is hard. People, a lot of boxers, go through these little depression eras and that’s because you’re away from your family a lot. You’re pretty much just in your own head a lot of the time. You kind of strive to be the best and all that and have consistency. It’s hard to be a boxer.

I’m going to quote Mike Tyson on that. “It’s the loneliest sport in the world.” And a lot of people don’t make it out of it. But we do it because we love it.

I try to involve my family as much as possible. Both of my brothers are my trainers. My other oldest brother is my manager. My sisters do all my media. My wife, she’s cooking my food, she’s massaging me and all this stuff. I try to involve my family as much as possible. Whānau is everything. I’m trying to kind of put my family in a better position.

They are the most important thing for me. Physically, spiritually, mentally. I can’t really do anything without them.

So just reflecting on this year, something really cool is that others, younger than me, are looking up to me, thinking that I’m going to go far.

I’ll tell you about this time. A fulla, a young boy, come up to me and he goes, ‘oh, you’re Remus eh? I’ve been watching your fights. You’re doing really good.’ And it just really gave me this sense of pride knowing that someone younger is looking up to me.”