'Rock steady' approach helps build business
Wikipedia defines boxing as "a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves, throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring."
Ask Daniel Cirino about Rock Steady Boxing, though, and you'll find that his Naperville business has very little to do with traditional boxing - except that the physical movements boxers learn apparently can help steady the impact of Parkinson's disease.
Although there is a health connection, keep in mind that I don't write medical columns. This is a story about how Cirino discovered a potential marketplace and business need while on a trip to Indianapolis, and the help he received from a long-established relationship with the Small Business Development Center at Waubonsee College, Aurora.
In 2006, when the Cirino-SBDC connection began, Harriet Parker managed the Waubonsee SBDC - as she does now, with state-related funding issues recently solved.
It was May 2006 that "My wife and I walked into Harriet's office at the SBDC in Aurora," Cirino says. The two were looking for funding to open a youth hockey training facility.
"She sat us down and said, 'This is what you do if you want financing,'" Cirino recalls. "I had no idea what a business plan was, but I know now.
"Harriet helped me put my business plan together."
Cirino "is not a business person," Parker laughs today, "but his wife (Laura) was very involved. Daniel knows when he needs help, and he has turned to us in our adviser role on an ongoing basis."
That relationship - an entrepreneur who knows when assistance is needed and an SBDC manager with resources - is how effective SBDC programs work.
While in Indianapolis last summer to officiate at a weightlifting competition, Cirino learned that an Army buddy had Parkinson's - and began thinking that the space he had for that one-time hockey training center would be ideal for a Rock Steady Boxing business.
According to information on the Mayo Clinic website, Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. Indianapolis-based Rock Steady Boxing is a nonprofit established to, hopefully, help people with Parkinson's improve their quality of life through a noncontact, boxing movement related fitness program.
Published research indicates that movement-oriented activities, such as Cirino and the other dozen or so RSB facilities in the suburbs offer, helps.
"It's 2-3 hours a week of high intensity exercise" Cirino, a registered nurse, says. For example, recent hourlong class activities included "punching" a heavy boxing bag, then a speed bag and then a double-ended boxing bag, followed by participants kicking a soccer ball to each other and walking a 16-ft. balance beam (that is 8 in. off the floor).
Although circuit training, which is high-intensity endurance training, is currently his primary business, Cirino's intent is to build the Rock Steady Boxing business for those battling Parkinson's.
Cirino's RSB opened in December with 15 participants. "I want 35 by July 4 and 75 by the end of the year," he says.
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