Get Out and Grind — a teen and young-adult clinic recently held in Norristown — taught participants to channel aggression into the boxing ring rather than have it spill over into the streets. FOX 29 News answered the bell in reporting on the peacekeeping initiative.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office hosted the three-day program.

The organized curriculum uses boxing as a less violent means of resolving discrepancies. Through the program’s educational component, the sport also becomes a pathway to values of discipline, self-control, and fitness.

The Norristown clinic included an instructor from Gunz Down, Glovez Up, the national organization advocating the sport as a means of keeping rising tempers cool.

Dwayne Fletcher, of Gunz Down, Glovez Up, ran the Norristown instruction. His credibility in this role came from first-hand experience, which he shared with participants.

“I’ve been a victim of gun violence,” he told his students. “I’ve been locked up many times.”

But he then revealed where his turn toward nonlethal conflict resolution got him: “I beat recidivism.”

He said the best outcomes result from discussion and cooperation. But in the instances where they prove ineffective, a gloves-on confrontation is much preferable to an armed one.

“We want to settle beefs, and that’s all it’s about,” Fletcher said.

More on Norristown’s Get Out and Grind program is at FOX 29 News.