Empowering Women Through Boxing & Wellness
Find out more about our "Release Therapy" Program
Who We Are at Black Girls Box
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Coach Maria Merritt
Dr. Cynthia Williams
Dr. Cynthia Williams
Maria Merritt is a certified USA Boxing coach and founder of AFighter4Life Boxing & Fitness in Atlanta. She offers private training, competitive coaching, and therapeutic boxing classes for individuals with Parkinson's disease Coach Maria Merritt focuses on helping clients build strength, resilience, and purpose both in and out of the r
Maria Merritt is a certified USA Boxing coach and founder of AFighter4Life Boxing & Fitness in Atlanta. She offers private training, competitive coaching, and therapeutic boxing classes for individuals with Parkinson's disease Coach Maria Merritt focuses on helping clients build strength, resilience, and purpose both in and out of the ringMaria Merritt is an active staple in the Atlanta fitness and boxing community. She has partnered with local institutions and organizations, including leading empowerment boxing classes for AUC students (Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College) alongside champion boxer Claressa Shields. She is also closely associated with metro-Atlanta initiatives like the PD Gladiators Fitness Network, utilizing goal-oriented coordination to help fight the progression of Parkinson's
Dr. Cynthia Williams
Dr. Cynthia Williams
Dr. Cynthia Williams
Dr. Cynthia Williams is the heart and soul behind Love From Afar Grief Recovery Agency, as well as the Christopher Allen Williams Foundation and Parents Against Distracted Driving (P.A.D.D.). With a profound personal history of loss following the tragic death of her eldest son, Christopher, in 2006, Dr. Cynthia has transformed her grief
Dr. Cynthia Williams is the heart and soul behind Love From Afar Grief Recovery Agency, as well as the Christopher Allen Williams Foundation and Parents Against Distracted Driving (P.A.D.D.). With a profound personal history of loss following the tragic death of her eldest son, Christopher, in 2006, Dr. Cynthia has transformed her grief into a powerful force for good. She is a two-time author, with titles including "Concrete Soil" and "After My Daddy Left," which delve into overcoming grief and childhood trauma, respectively. Her work is driven by a passion to provide others with the tools needed for healing and resilience.
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Who We Are
Dr. Cynthia Williams
Who We Are
Black Girls Box was founded on the priniciples of teaching women of color, boxing as a form a therapy to create a space where women can release trauma.
A cross-sectional analysis published in The Lancet Psychiatry examined exercise habits and mental health data from 1.2 million Americans collected across three separate years. Among all t
Black Girls Box was founded on the priniciples of teaching women of color, boxing as a form a therapy to create a space where women can release trauma.
A cross-sectional analysis published in The Lancet Psychiatry examined exercise habits and mental health data from 1.2 million Americans collected across three separate years. Among all the exercise types studied, boxing stood out. People who trained in boxing reported a mental health burden that was 20.1% lower than people who didn’t exercise at all.
That number deserves a second look. Not jogging. Not cycling. Not yoga. Boxing delivered one of the strongest associations with improved mental well-being of any exercise type in the study.
what is release therapy?
“Release therapy” feels powerful because it gives language to something many people experience but can’t explain: the difference between understanding emotion and actually releasing it from the body.
So many people live from the neck up — analyzing, suppressing, enduring, staying composed — while the body quietly carries fear, grief, rage, shame, heartbreak, and survival.
For many women, especially Black women, there’s deep conditioning to contain everything:
be strong,
be quiet,
be agreeable,
don’t unravel,
don’t take up space.
Boxing disrupted that containment.
Not through destruction — through expression.
The punches.
The breath.
The sound.
The movement.
The exhaustion afterward.
Instead of silently absorbing stress, your body finally had somewhere for it to go.
That’s why the vocalization mattered so deeply. Making sound while exerting force requires permission:
permission to be heard,
permission to take up space,
permission to stop compressing yourself.
Because anxiety is not always just thought.
Sometimes it’s trapped activation in the nervous system with nowhere to go.
Boxing gave it somewhere to go.
And beyond fitness, it became nervous system training:
how to breathe under pressure,
move instead of freeze,
stay grounded while overwhelmed,
recover after impact,
trust your body again.