Zest for Life Working out alongside gym members and Jones’ private clients, the boys get to know successful adults who sometimes step up as academy sponsors and volunteer drivers. Beyond gym workouts, there are organized activities for the Beastie boys: a book club, financial literacy workshops, neighborhood cleanups. On Monday nights everyone gathers for a weekly Zoom meeting, where the boys share their successes and failures, aspirations and worries. They also connect daily through an open chat, where they can count on receiving unconditional support anytime. There’s no application process for academy membership. It all happens informally, by word of mouth. Most of the boys come by bus from places like East L.A., Compton, South Central and Watts. If they need a ride, Jones will send an Uber or pick them up himself. “One way or another,” he says, “I make sure they get to me.” Jones used to only take underprivileged youths, but rich kids, he has found, can be just as troubled as poor ones. Some of the newer boys are well-off South Bay locals. “It has nothing to do with financial status,” Jones explains. “Sometimes kids just aren’t willing to listen to their parents. I try to be that extra voice, that extra discipline, that extra push.” The mother of a “privileged” Beastie boy recently called Jones to gush about “the huge turnaround” she’d witnessed in her son academically, mentally and physically. Another newbie, a 9-yearold from the inner city, recently lost his brother to gang violence.
Cedric Jones has many dreams and aspirations but always puts mentoring young boys in need of guidance as his top priority. 40 | Pulse Magazine Winter 2023
“He’s a great kid, but he was definitely on his way down the wrong road,” Jones says. “The gym is the perfect place for him. He gets to punch the bags and let all that frustration out.” If that isn’t enough, Jones lets boys gut-punch him until their arms give out. “I want them to learn to burn off that extra energy. I tell them, ‘Don’t go drink and smoke and do crazy things. Come to the gym with me.’” Cedric grew up in Macon, Georgia, the son of a minister and a nurse. A “theatre kid” since age 7, he attended a performing arts academy in Atlanta and earned an associate degree in dance before moving to L.A. With only $5,000 in his pocket and no job in sight, he soon ran out of rent money. Jones lived on the street for more than a year. Random acts of kindness by complete strangers made all the difference. An older woman, who turned out to be an executive with a temp agency, got him a construction job, then a retail job and eventually full-time employment in the call center of Beachbody, where he worked for eight years. On the side, he was boxing. Two pro boxers he met while living on the street had offered to train Jones for free. His dancer’s physique and iron discipline—at no point did Jones fall prey to alcohol or substance abuse—allowed him to excel in the sport. He boxed in more than 120 amateur bouts and qualified at the Olympic trials in the light-heavyweight category before pulling the brakes on his boxing career. “I wasn’t committed to it,” he explains. “My dream was to be an actor.” Boxing continued to open doors, however. Jones started auditioning for roles in movies and landed a small part in the 2015 boxing film Southpaw. He’s had several other movie roles, including in the new Will Smith drama Emancipation. In 2014, Jones opened his Beastie gym in Manhattan Beach. Around the same time, he established the BMoved Foundation—the formal name of his nonprofit. Although he currently trains only boys, Jones believes his 14-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, shows the most raw talent. “My daughter is a beast. She’s probably a better boxer than all of them.” Jones plans to open the Beastie Academy to girls once he recruits a strong female leader. He also wants to lease a separate facility for the academy, underwritten by grants for which he currently has no time to write proposals.