Working to knock out Parkinson’s disease, one punch at a time
A group of older men greeted each other in the OC Fit Sky Park gym in Irvine on Tuesday morning.
Music from a playlist by the rapper Nas blared out of the speakers. The men readied themselves as they sat on the benches, smiling as they saw another from their ranks walk through the gym doors.
After some warm-ups, their one-hour non-contact boxing class had begun.
Some of the participants are women, and some of the instructors are too, including head coach Peggy Calcagnie and Donna Clervi. They both encouraged and challenged the fighters, along with Marlon Ealy, who’s a retired amateur boxer.
Ealy yelled out combinations — “Double jab, straight!” — and the boxers obeyed. It built up to getting them to throw 10 punches in quick succession.
“They’re all pretty astute boxers,” class participant Jim Obergfell of Coto de Caza, 82, said with a smile after the class. “If one of these women hit me with a right, I’d be dead. I’d be dead with Marlon before he even got to me.”
Obergfell, who was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2020, shouldn’t underestimate his own toughness. He and his fellow seniors are participating in the local version of Rock Steady Boxing, a national organization designed to help those with Parkinson’s through a boxing and fitness-based curriculum.
Clervi incorporates Rock Steady Boxing into the work with her nonprofit, the Donna Clervi Foundation, which she created in 2021 to help bring into existence a holistic Parkinson’s Development Center in Orange County.
“The purpose of the foundation is to open a place like this,” Clervi said. “It’s a gym for them to come to, where we can provide them not only exercise but places for our support groups, continuing education, vocalization. We can provide a lot of the programs that they need.”
Clervi said she’s close to signing a lease for a building space in Mission Viejo, which she hopes Parkinson’s Development Center can move into by the end of the year.
She’s been strength training and boxing with Ealy for a decade and started doing Rock Steady Boxing with him shortly before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
“He had heard about it, and he asked me to look into it,” Clervi said. “I was an executive in the healthcare field for years. He asked me to look into it, asked my opinion. The minute I saw it, I started to cry. I told him I wanted to be a part of it.”
Isolation struck during COVID-19, so Clervi brought the gym to a park near her Dove Canyon home.
“It took us an hour and a half to set up a gym in the park for five people,” she said. “I had freestanding bags, I brought weights, I brought chairs. I brought everything for them, and we grew within a year from five to 20 people. Then the gyms reopened, and Marlon and I continued to grow the business.”
A weekly schedule for her Parkinson’s fighters consists of two to three boxing classes, plus strength training. On Fridays, one-on-one sessions are offered, where the Parkinson’s patients work on things like balance, walking, posture and cognition.
Speech language pathologist Renee LaVelle also works with them, once a week. A study released earlier this year found that more than 90% of those with Parkinson’s experience difficulties with speech, including slurring, mumbling and stuttering.
Rebecca Lassen of Mission Viejo said the classes have helped her keep up her fitness since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s in June 2023. She’s even pushing for Saturday classes, as she fights back against her disease.
“When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it was a natural thing to want to continue to exercise,” said Lassen, 73. “Donna offered this safer space for all of us. It’s been great, and we’ve connected now as friends over the same illness, so to speak. I like every aspect of it. It’s so much fun.”
Obergfell was one of the original handful of boxers from the park in Dove Canyon. He said he had never boxed before that summer, but four years later, he’s still here.
“I’m glad I got involved,” he said. “It really is good for the body, good for the soul, good for the mind. Good for a lot of things.”
Clervi, a certified Parkinson’s fitness coach, feels that she’s created a community through her foundation, which also offers a care partners support group every other Monday.
A picnic earlier this month drew more than 75 people. A holiday fundraising brunch will come in December at the Dove Canyon Golf Club.
The foundation charges a monthly rate to participants but also offers scholarships to those who can’t afford that rate.
Clervi said the men and women with Parkinson’s have touched her heart.
“This is a safe, happy, enriching, encouraging environment,” she said. “When you’re diagnosed with something where there’s no cure, you have choices. You can go home, put the covers over your head, pretend it’s not happening and die. Or, you can do what these people do and say, ‘I am going to make the best of the remaining days of my life, and I’m going to have fun doing it.’”
For more information about the Donna Clervi Foundation, email info@thedonnaclervifoundation.org.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
