The Funky Gym

Alan had to go out of town on business, so he wasn't in the gym Wednesday night.  As soon as Jilberto opened up the gym door for myself, Oscar and Jesus, the mix of blood, sweat, and hot air rushed into my nose.  Phew!  I've been noticing the "funk" in the gym too often these days.  I didn't even bother turning on the second fan or fussing with opening the ancient windows.  The second fan, which is built into a window in the back of the gym, does nothing to blow air out, and no breezes ever seem to come in through the windows.

Kenny worked with several on the punch mitts, including Jacob (shown on the right in the photo above).  Kenny really gives some great pointers on how to throw punches and when. 

Before I had gone to the gym, I hoped there wouldn't be any incidents, major or minor.  Unfortunately, too many times when the coach is absent, something negative jumps off.  Fortunately, it was an easy, quiet night.  Leon came in briefly, talked to Colonel for awhile, then left, probably because no sparring was going to happen.  I spotted one of the many teenage boys that haunt the basketball courts peering into the gym, but he didn't come in for a closer look. 

The old boxing poster above features a picture of John Collins, a former professional boxer who is now a coach.  His niece, Erin, used to attend the gym, and she once had a fight at the Sabre Room, out in Hickory Hills.  I started thinking about all the people who have attended the gym since I've been going there,  I wonder what happened to most of them.  Lan has crossed my mind lately.  Outside of myself, she was the only other woman who was very consistent about coming to the gym.  Most of the other women who have come through last a session on average, then they're gone.  She was in the military, and that was why she stopped coming to the gym -- she was eventually stationed at a base outside of the state.  Jilberto would often ask me if I knew if she had been deployed overseas.  Steve, the former coach, tried to keep in contact, but the last email address he had for her bounced back. 

I pulled some pages out of my locker that I had copied out of The Gleason's Gym Total Boxing Workout for Women a few years ago.  The pages were of different combinations, so I decided to practice those.  I really like the jab-jab-left uppercut-right combo, so I worked on that for a few rounds.  I was awkward doing the jab-step-left hook-right cross combo.  I kept goofing up on the step part.  I did combinations on the bags too in an effort to check myself from just throwing one punch then stepping back all the time.

Alan told me on Monday that I catch too many jabs with my face, as opposed to blocking them with my hand.  It's true.  I do know how to tap incoming jabs down, but for some reason I don't do it.  I practiced a little blocking while shadow boxing in Rogers Park Baptist Church's gym yesterday. It was as hot in the church's gym as it gets in Loyola Park boxing gym, but I had to get a workout in.  Pastor came in and imitated some of the moves I was doing.  It looked as if he was attempting to dance (which he can't do, poor thing) instead of shadow boxing.  Aaron, the custodian, peeked in, saw me and smiled.  "I gotta play some Christian death metal music for you that I have on my iPod.  That could be used as workout music," he said.  I'd heard of death metal, but was surprised at the fact that there are Christian death metal bands.  He played some for me today.  I'm not into death metal, Christian or otherwise, but that could easily be blasted out of radio speakers at a gym, and it would work. 

Paulette told me that she saw the videos of me sparring.  "It looked like you kept backing up, when you could have been more aggressive," she said.  That's not the first time I've been told that.  I'm beginning to think that my backing up is a holdover from grade school when I was always having to back away (and not usually successfully) from some other kid's wild punches.