Coaching and Recording

While taking my usual stroll to the gym by way of the lakefront, I ran into Mathieu and Erica.  Both of them assured me their fingers were fine:  Erica had slammed one of her in a car door, and Mathieu hurt his the last time he sparred with big Leon.  Mathieu knew I had a blog, but Erica didn't.  I emailed them copies of pictures I took of them in the gym.

Not only are the ring ropes still in need of repair, but the double end bag was found laying on the floor.  One of the kids probably hit it too hard yesterday and it fell; it happens.  Alan climbed up on a ladder to fix it, but it was still not high enough for most people to use.  It was perfect for me, but outside of Oscar, I'm the only vertically challenged person in the gym.  "They'll have to punch down," Alan said.  But then Jimmy, one of the new people, climbed up to adjust the height again until it was okay.

In the above video is just one round of sparring between lanky guys Jacob and Alan.  They did five rounds in total.  I heard someone behind me, may have been Tommy, commenting, "The old guy looks pretty good in the ring", referring to Alan.  "He must have been boxing for a long time," Nathaniel (another new person) said.  The two men kept going like Energizer Batteries.  I shadow boxed near the ring to watch them during the other four rounds.  In between one of the rounds, I said to some others standing nearby, "Alan does good for a guy of a certain age."  Alan grinned, and said, "Thanks, Hillari", in a joking sarcastic manner.


There were three full rounds between Sarah, who's at least 5 foot 8, and Oscar, who's my height (5 foot 1).  I noticed that when Oscar got in head shots, he reached up to Sarah using angles.  "Ah-ha!  So that's how it's done!" I thought to myself. 

I sparred with Ursula again who asked beforehand, "Are you going to be nice to me?" I pulled as many punches as I could, but the harder ones kept slipping in.  I thought we had done three rounds, until Alan put on a set of gloves -- but put on no headgear -- and stepped inside the squared circle.  "You have to do three rounds," he said.  I was tired out, but managed to make it through that last round, trying to catch Alan as best as I could.  I got him in the face with a right, but that was the only significant punch I made. 

I showed Jimmy how to use the double bag, and showed Ray (not muscular Ray, but a new guy in the gym) how to stand and how to pivot.  Ray told me that he can't hold a baseball bat the normal way.  "One eye is weaker than the other one, so in order to see the ball better, I have to stand the other way," he said.  I hold a baseball bat in the opposite way as well, something that other kids would curse me out about when I was in grade school.  One of my eyes is weaker than the other, too, but I didn't hold the bat the "wrong" way because of that.  It was because I felt I had more power to swing it from that position.