entry 005. creating space // jaileez
The Fighter. Creating Space. 2025
This is Jai. (Short for Jaileez.)
Jai is a fighter.
Fighting is a lot like dancing. It has a pace and a cadence. The movements are synchronized, each fighter moving and reacting to the other like two people sharing a dance floor, moving to the same music. They are both about space. Closing it. Creating it. Both have a rhythm. Both have a feel.
But I don't think fighters are quite like dancers. Dancers react to the rhythm. Fighters create it.
Some people dance. Others fight.
Jai is a fighter.
Speed, Reach, Cover. Creating Space. 2025
Jai is, quite literally, one of the most active people I have ever met. Boxing, cycling, pickleball, Muay Thai, Pilates, golf. You name it, she does it. I always assumed she was just wired that way. Health-focused. Disciplined. Ultra-active by nature.
Then one day I mentioned that the gym and all of her activities must be her third spaces. She was unfamiliar with the term, so after explaining that third spaces are the places and spaces outside of home and work where people build community, pursue a passion, or simply find enjoyment.
Spaces you chose. Spaces that gives something back.
In that moment, I saw that she had never really thought of it in that way.
As our conversation went on, I learned that her relationship with all of these activities wasn't really about health, wellness, or physical aesthetics. Those things came, but they were byproducts. These spaces offered her something harder to name. Structure. Rhythm. A sense of self that she could return to.
Then I noticed something I hadn't expected. Jai would regularly invite people from one space into another. Someone from her boxing circle showing up at pickleball. A cycling friend at Pilates. It seemed to contradict everything she had told me about these places being personal sanctuaries. If they were hers, why share them?
Then it hit me. It was never about the locations.
She was fighting to create space, not just around her, but within herself.
Heavy. Creating Space. 2025
I asked her about it one evening after leaving the boxing gym. She thought for a moment, then said, "It all started when I was cut from my high school volleyball team."
I smiled, a little confused. She smiled back, knowing exactly how that sounded.
She told me that after that moment, she moved on to track. That is where she first found her first space. However, once she left for college and stopped running, she found herself falling out of rhythm. She picked up unhealthy habits. She started bending herself, letting the spaces she occupied tell her who to be. She was reacting instead of creating. Moving to someone else's music.
Jai was dancing.
Finding her way back took time, distance, and intentional space. She threw herself into physical activity. She changed her diet, shifting to a plant-based lifestyle, which, as she put it, for a Filipino is not exactly the path of least resistance. She built communities on her own terms. She found structure that she chose rather than structure that was handed to her. Slowly, she rediscovered her rhythm.
Me v. Me. Creating Space. 2025
She changed her relationship with space. It became less about the places she occupied and more about what she carried into them. I believe she realized that she needed to be more intentional with her space, whether creating it or closing it. It wasn't so much about finding spaces, but becoming one. You take it with you.
Jai became a fighter.
What I've come to understand through watching her is that our relationship with space shapes far more than we realize. The environments we enter, the people we allow close, the activities we give our time to. All of it is either taking something from us or giving something back. The difference is usually intention.
I’ve heard people talk about creating space as a form of protection. And sometimes it is. But often, the thing we are protecting ourselves from is ourselves. That isn't discipline. That's avoidance. That's dancing.
Somehow, Jai figured that out.
Some days come easier than others. Some fights are harder than others. But fighters fight.
That's just what they do.
The Next Round. Creating Space. 2025
Written & Photographed by Terrence True
Shot on Fuji X-T5
