Moving With Caution

Ieisha and I sparred last night for the first time in weeks. She naturally hits hard, and remembering the beating I took the last time, I proceeded carefully. Occasionally, I have bursts of energy while at the gym. Last night was one of those times. I felt light on my feet as I bounced around the canvas during the first round. I was chasing Ieisha around the ring too much, however. She turned away from me at one point as she was moving away. I landed an illegal punch -- by accident -- on her lower back.

One of her left hooks nearly took me out. For a moment, I thought I was going to collapse onto the canvas. After taking a few deep breaths, I kept going. Ieisha also got me good with a hard body punch to the stomach.

Alan told me that I would get a couple of good punches in, then I would back up. Since Ieisha is good at fighting on the outside, my actions would make it easy for her to clock me. I also have a bad habit of closing my eyes when a punch comes towards me. I've been trying to break that habit for eight years now.

It was a quiet night in the gym. Carlos and Justin, E and Markel, Jamil, and Ralphie were in attendance. Everything was copacetic until the end of the evening. A guy rushed into the gym, going on about how another guy was harassing him. He wanted help. "I ain't trying to get caught up in nothing," he kept saying. The second guy shows up, demanding that the first guy return a pair of shorts he lent him to wear. The two of them had been playing basketball in one of the other gyms.

The first guy insisted that the shorts were a gift. Despite of Alan offering the guy sweatpants that were laying around on the clothes rack in the gym, the first guy wouldn't back down. The second guy was talking about beating the first guy down. The first guy barked about the second guy and others always picking on him. As the argument continued, I got the feeling that the first guy wasn't wrapped too tight. Ralphie also tried to be a voice of reason, but it was a no go. Finally, Alan threw his hands up and hustled both guys out of the boxing gym. BK also made sure they got out of the building. BK was muttering under his breath about their attitudes.

My question is this: why did the first guy tried to get other people caught up in his drama? In my opinion, it was a petty dispute, certainly not worth going to war over. Alan and I encountered the second guy and a few of his friends when we got to Alan's car. Alan basically asked them something along the lines of, "is that really worth fighting about?" The second guy's friends seemed ambivalent, but the second guy was still hot about the whole thing. "I'll see that guy again," he grumbled. Alan and I shook our heads and headed home.