Steely and prone to a wry chuckle, 14-year-old Arnold Baird has his eye on the prize.
"I want to go pro, definitely," he says, whaling on a boxing bag.
The Arrernte teen has been boxing for three years. In some ways, it was inevitable that he found the sport.
"When I was young I used to fight a lot," Baird said.
"I was with the wrong crowd and stuff and felt like I had to prove myself."
At his father's suggestion he took up boxing and eventually found his way to Arrernte Boxing Academy.
"It gave me discipline — I came to training," Baird said.
"It got me out of a lot of that stuff, because I was busy, you know? I could say I had training."
The gym's head coach, Jason Lord, is a retired boxing champion and was not so different from Baird when he was growing up.
Boxing also put him on the right path.
"All the trouble and all the crap that I got up to, boxing was always there," Lord previously told the ABC.
'A kind of therapy'
Alice Springs has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately.
The Prime Minister visited to the outback community last week to unveil changes to alcohol policy in a bid to curb its crime rate.
But members of the community say positive programs like Lord's could play a major part in addressing the town's soaring property crime issues — much of which involves young people who the coach could have been.
"Boxing has a natural way of helping people out," Lord said.
"There's a lot of kids that tend to fall through the cracks.
"We help keep them above water, to stay in school — it's a holistic approach."
Founded four years ago and run entirely on a volunteer basis, the gym's coaches also work as mentors, building relationships with the young people who step through the academy's door.
"Kids just want love, they want to feel safe," Lord said.
"It's about giving them a place that they feel safe, and that's what we do here. We listen to them. It's a kind of therapy.
"A lot of out mentors have backgrounds like these kids, and chat to them about snapping out of it."
'Tough love'
Teacher by day and mentor by night, Nick Shehadie said the discipline required for boxing could set young people up for good outcomes.
"When the kids come they're treated with love and care," he said.
"There's some tough love with boxing too, but the kids learn respect, for themselves and the community, discipline, learning not to make, I guess, rash decisions, as we're seeing."
The gym also holds classes for women, families and after school programs.
It also works directly with a local First Nations school and not-for-profit social enterprise, Saltbush, which supports bail accommodation for young people caught up with the law.
Lord said some of these young people were "the ring leaders for what's happening on the streets" but at the gym, they were like "any other kids".
"They love it here," he said.
"We are building them up to be leaders for the community."
Lord has seen dozens of young people join the gym and turn their lives around.
'Not just boxing'
Yipirinya School, which has a strong relationship with the gym, teaches in five Indigenous languages and works to create a culturally safe environment for First Nations students.
Principal Gavin Morris said he had "absolutely" seen it change young people for the better.
"Improved attendance, improved behaviour, improved resilience and coping strategies — it's not just boxing that these guys do," he said.
"Those coaches understand the local community context. They understand the complexities of the backgrounds our kids come from — the strengths, the barriers and the limitations."
Mr Morris said the gym's "strengths-based" and community-led approach was part of its success.
Over the past two years the gym received about $5,000 from the Northern Territory government, but Lord said consistent funding would make a big difference to the program.
Lord said he "loved" doing the work and would continue to do so as a volunteer.
But he said the lack of funding made challenging to keep mentors coming back day after day as volunteers.
