Athletic in build and kitted out in mismatched sports gear, Andre Odom appears no different from the other amateur boxers warming up for Afewee Boxing Club’s 7am ‘Box Blast’ class.
Gloves on, Andre bounces lightly on the balls of his feet, firing punches into the battered bag.
He grunts through rounds of skipping, then moves into pad work, slipping and weaving as the class’s coach, Dennis Banton, calls out the next move.
When the session at Brixton Recreation Centre ends an hour later, Andre reaches for a pair of dark glasses resting beside his kit bag – and unfolds a white cane.
The moment takes Banton back to the first day Andre walked through the club’s doors.
“Sara, one of the committee members, and I were doing some pad work when she saw him at the front door,” recalls Banton.
“She came back and said, ‘This is Andre. He wants to learn to box. There’s just one problem: he’s blind.'”
“We’ll give it a try,” he told Andre.
A week later, Andre, 41, from Clapham, returned to the club, which fittingly takes its name from the Jamaican patois ‘a fi wi’, meaning ‘for us’.
Arriving 15 minutes before the end of class for his first one-to-one session, the pair began by mastering the basics: how to stand like a boxer, move like a boxer, punch like a boxer.
Look like a boxer.
Andre, who is registered as severely sight impaired (blind), can only make out the shadow or outline of shapes and objects that are very close to him.
With little room for demonstration, Andre relied on Banton’s verbal cues and commands for learning foot drills, balance, movement patterns and timing.
“It’s what got me feeling comfortable,” Andre says. “Dennis was always encouraging me and trying to trying to take me to the next level.”
And despite it being a different coaching style for Banton, this did not stop Andre from progressing rapidly.
Within a matter of weeks, Banton was guiding Andre through pad work combinations, putting him through heavy bag drills and refining his defensive technique.
But it wasn’t just Andre’s technical ability which stood out to Banton.
“I saw confidence in Andre,” Banton says.
“There are a lot of people who are not in his position but are afraid to even step into a boxing gym. He tried everything – he had no fears about doing anything.”
Body sparring was no exception, with Andre making his way into the ring just a few months after joining the club.
Each round begins with a gentle tap on Andre’s gloves – a small but important signal that his opponent is ready.
What happens next is down to each fighter.
“It’s mostly just about me using my acute senses, looking out for the movement of the shadows that may be in front of me, using my own intuition, timing, and all the things that Dennis has taught me,” Andre explains.
“I just put it all together.”
But outside of the ring, Andre often faces a very different kind of challenge: other people’s assumptions.
“When I tell people I do boxing, I get questions such as: ‘What, do you do actual boxing? Or, you don’t actually hit anyone, do you?’” Andre says.
“I don’t mind it. It makes me want to do it even more to show that it is possible.”
That attitude was shaped long before Andre discovered boxing.
In December 2022, after a year of tests and scans, Andre was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumour.
Following major surgery to remove part of the cancer, Andre spent two weeks recovering in hospital where he was told his sight was unlikely to return.
“Where’s my life going to go from here?” Andre, who then worked as a youth facilitator and victim support worker, remembers asking himself.
“There are so many things I haven’t done, so many places I haven’t visited yet, so many experiences I haven’t had. I haven’t really achieved everything I wanted to by this point and now I’ve lost my vision.”
However, once discharged, Andre began to find opportunity in the loss he had suffered.
“I looked at it as if I’d been given a second chance at life and I thought, ‘Why not do the things that maybe weren’t that important to you before, but will really benefit your life now?’”
Just three months after the operation, Andre took up Wing Chun, a Southern Chinese martial art and form of Kung Fu centred on close-quarters self-defence.
By the time summer approached, Andre was regularly working out at the gym, attending yoga and spin classes, and working toward his red belt in Wing Chun.
Eager for another sporting venture, Andre added boxing to his fitness regime at the beginning of 2025 and has since discovered more than just the sport’s physical benefits.
“It has taught me to be patient and not just look for instant gratification because when you first start learning a new skill or a new activity, you’re not going to be very good at it,” Andre says.
“Results usually come with patience and consistency.”
In many ways, it is a lesson Andre knows well having spent the last 4 years adjusting to a reality he could never have imagined.
“I’ve had to learn a whole new way of life,” Andre says, likening the experience of losing his sight to “becoming a child again”.
A combination of intensive rehabilitation, white cane training, braille and technology classes has allowed Andre to rebuild an independent life, one in which his condition neither limits nor defines him.
“When I’m doing sports with sighted people, it makes me feel like I’m just part of the community,” Andre says.
“I’m not just living life as a visually impaired person. I’m doing all the things that I want to do, that sighted people do, and I’m doing it to a certain standard.”
For Andre, Afewee Boxing Club has been integral to that experience.
“They’ve never made me feel any different,” Andre says.
“All of the members have included me into the group – there is a real community feel here.”
Founded in 1997 by Steadman Scott BEM and Tony Goldring, Afewee Training Centre began as a grassroots football project providing local young people with access to sport.
After the 2011 London riots, the organisation expanded its work into boxing, with classes beginning in 2014.
Today, Afewee is an affiliated amateur boxing club and multi-sport charity, supporting people from recreational to elite level, including Premier League footballer Nathaniel Clyne and Team GB boxer and Elite National Champion Vivien Parsons.
“People have been with us for years and a lot of them say it’s because we’re not set up to be a commercial gym,” said Bobby Miltiadous, head coach and manager at Afewee Boxing Club.
“We are a community gym, and there’s a purpose.”
Miltiadous, who is also an England Boxing national coach, believes this ethos has been key to Andre’s development.
“I’ve seen Andre’s confidence slowly grow over the last year because Dennis and the other members have helped create the right environment and that has to be there for anyone to thrive,” Miltiadous says.
“I’m just so glad that he is still here, he’s happy and he feels like has a place at Afewee.”
Andre has no plans to slow down in his fitness journey, having recently taken up blind tennis and blind football.
And regardless of what assumptions others may have about his life, Andre remains optimistic about what lies ahead.
“I’ve said to people, life is still pretty decent, believe it or not,” Andre says.
“I’m more fit and active than I’ve been before, I’ve taken up new activities and hobbies I’ve never done before. I’ve traveled to places that I hadn’t previously. I’m learning new skills and meeting new people. The world is still my oyster.
Featured Image Credit: Tiah Shepherd
Join the discussion