A Long Six Minutes

It is true that when you are inside the ring, those two or three minutes (whichever time the round is set for) seems like a long, long time. I was sparring with Oksana yesterday. Before we started she said, "Take it easy on me. I've never done this before." I agreed to go light.

When the bell rang, Oksana came out slugging. She's taller than me, so immediately I had to go to fighting on the inside. However, like most people who are taller than I, she has a longer arm reach. I was boxed about the head a lot. If I had moved my head, bobbed and weaved, and slipped a few punches more, I could have avoided the slight headache I had afterwards. That's always been a problem with me about moving enough in the ring.

I was pushing Oksana back at one point, because she was crowding me. For the first time ever, I heard the coach say, "Break!" while I was sparring. That never happened before. Later, Oksana explained that when I kept coming forward, she wasn't sure how to counteract that. Allan told her that she needed to use her jab more to keep me away. "You're taller than she is, so you don't have to throw a lot of punches to keep her back. Just pump the jab," he said.

Oksana told me she punched harder, but yet I kept throwing light punches. "You should have came back at me hard," she said. However, I had promised not to do that beforehand, and a promise is a promise. I have witnessed guys sparring who made similar promises, only to change their minds once the action began.

Allan told me about Leon, who is the big guy who always seems to show up just in time to spar. "I like the guy, but he calls me about getting matches, but doesn't come in to work out," he said. Leon sounded suspiciously like Jordan, and a few other guys in the past who would call Steve with the same line.