Three Times Dope

"That kid drives me crazy", Steve told me last night. He was referring to Jordan, who managed to tick me off several times that evening. A new guy, Shawn, came to the gym. He had never boxed at all, and he had to start at square one. Steve asked me to work with him, as Steve was working with the other new people who had been there since the session began.

Everything was going fine, until Jordan asked Shawn about his boxing experience. Jordan latches on to the novice boxers like flies on excrement. He doesn't want to spar anyone who has any kind of experience. Jordan jumped in and decided to give advice. He decided in his pea brain that I wasn't telling Shawn the right thing. "You should be teaching him how to stand," he told me. That's what I was doing. Excuse you, I thought.

Jordan interupts again while I was showing Shawn how to throw a jab. He deliberately steps in front of me and tells him, "Listen to me. I have more experience than her." I resisted the urge to snap on him and swallowed my irritation. During the next interruption, he said, "Why is she teaching you?" We've all been young and dumb, but Jordan is a classic textbook example of that. I've long suspected that Jordan has a problem relating to women based on how he interacts with me and the other women in the gym. However, Friday was the last time he's going to disrespect me. I will inform him of that fact the next time he comes into the gym.

Steve told me that a guy who used to come to the gym a long time ago has signed up for it again. "Guess who it is," he said. "Jeff?" I answered. "No, think of someone who was a real character. Jeff wasn't a character," he grinned. "You're right, Jeff wasn't like that. Not like Igor was, anyway," I agreed. "That was a good guess! That's who it is," he smiled.

Igor was going to the gym when I first started there in September of 2002. Igor is Russian, and his English isn't so good. But he would come in and put in a full workout. Igor had to have been in his mid-50's back then. He's probably over sixty years of age now. He used to drive Steve crazy with his questions, but Igor was harmless. I can put up Igor better than I can put up with Jordan right now.

There were no old timers in the gym last night (other than me), which is a rare occurrence. There are two guys whose names I don't know, who have been coming in for a couple of weeks now. Steve had been running drills with them in the ring. Before he left for the evening, Jordan dropped what he believed were pearls of wisdom on the two. Steve acknowledged that everything Jordan says is not exactly wrong. But after Jordan left, he told the two guys, "Take what Jordan says with a grain of salt. He acts as if he has a lot more experience than what he has."

Jordan had told Shawn he's been boxing since he was 17 years old. He's now 21. Yet he can't seem to take hits, which is one reason why Steve is reluctant to let him spar. I've also noticed when he's working with Steve, Jordan doesn't seem to know what the coach is talking about while he's giving him pointers. But he has loads of experience. "What a maroon", as Bugs Bunny would say.