She's read it countless times but as Irish boxer Katie Taylor recites Psalm 18 her voice audibly drops an octave and her body language noticeably relaxes.
The psalm is embossed on the robe she wears to enter the ring and she reads it before every one of her fights.
The fiercely religious Taylor is not your prototypical undisputed world boxing champion -- and never has been.
While kids of her age had posters of boy bands stuck on their walls, Taylor had one of Muhammed Ali in her bedroom, while her idea of sibling playtime was imitating legendary boxers Rocky Marciano and Jack Johnson as she played with her brothers.
A long road
Quietly spoken away from the combative nature of her chosen sport, boxing as well as playing soccer provided Taylor with a means to express herself as she grew up.
"You'd bring her home from soccer, then you wouldn't get two words out of her," Mum Bridget remembers.
Katie Taylor with boxing gloves and a belt.
Described by her mother as an "aggressive little character," Taylor fell in love with boxing as soon as she pulled on the gloves at the age of 11.
"The minute I started boxing, it just really took hold of my heart," the 33-year-old Taylor told Becky Anderson for a CNN special show dubbed Katie Taylor: #Undisputed.
"When I was maybe six or seven years of age, me and my brothers used to have the gloves on every weekend and just mess around in the kitchen."
It didn't come as a surprise to Bridget that her daughter took to pugilism, given that her father and her brothers were all boxers.
But in what until recently was predominantly a male-dominated sport in Ireland, getting the opportunity to compete in boxing as a women proved more challenging.
Despite training with boys at her local club, St. Fergal's Boxing Club in Bray, Ireland, Taylor had to remain at home when the boys traveled to competitions.
"I think I was the only female boxer in the country at a time, so I used to have to pretend I was a boy to get in to these competitions," she remembers.
"I used to have my hair up in my headgear and I used to be known as 'Kay Taylor.' So, when I took the headgear off at the end of the fight and everyone realized I was a girl, there was uproar."
Changing perceptions
Growing up on what her mother describes as one of the "worst estates in the country" -- Old Court in Bray, near Dublin -- boxing for Taylor provided a means of escape.
There weren't many women boxing role models to look up to but Deirdre Gogarty -- Ireland's first female professional boxer -- was just that to Taylor
Taylor (L) fights with Yana Zavyalova from Ukraine during the semifinals of the European Amateur boxing in 2007.
The Drogheda native was the internationally recognized world champion who couldn't fight in her own home and had to leave the country in order to fight professionally.
Little did Taylor know it, but her persistence and abilities in the ring were changing people's ideas about women's boxing in Ireland. And coached by her father and training with her two elder brothers, Taylor's perseverance began to pay off.
In 2001, aged just 15, Taylor fought Alanna Audley at the National Stadium in Dublin in what was the first officially sanctioned female boxing match in Ireland.
"I just remember being so excited," remembers Taylor. "I'm actually getting my first official female fight and I don't think I realized how big it, the event, actually was, or the enormity of it.
"To get ready for my first official female fight was a history making fight and women's boxing hasn't looked back since."
It all comes down to this
After that bout, Taylor spent years traveling the world fighting in amateur tournaments -- and often winning them.
She wasn't just useful in a pair of boxing gloves. Taylor was equally talented with her feet -- so much so she played 11 times for Ireland's senior international soccer side including a number of qualifiers for the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup.
But the dream of winning Olympic gold focused her mind on boxing.
"I remember getting invited to a competition in Chicago for the Olympic committee," recalls Taylor, who was told that the fight would determine whether women's boxing would be in the Olympic Games.
"So, it was a huge pressure fight. What a position to be in. Petitioning for women's boxing so that they have a right in the Olympic Games. And thankfully they passed it after that fight and women's boxing is in the Olympic Games now to stay."
Taylor's trophies are on display in her mother's new house -- which is where she stays when she returns to Bray from her new base in Connecticut in the US.
Hanging on hooks beside the shelves that hold her belts are five world championship gold medals, six European gold medals, and five European Union gold medals, but there is one medal in particular that draws attention.
Seated on the top shelf in its own case is the gold medal Taylor won at the 2012 Olympics in London, something she describes as the "pinnacle" of her career. She was also Ireland's flag bearer at the Games.
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