A Rare Sparring Session

In this photo, Alan instructs Gene on keeping his hands up and moving at the same time.  He had also told Sarah about surveying a situation -- while in the same position -- and picking her shots.  All of us that were in the gym Wednesday night (Amy, Sarah, Tommy, Gene, Marcus) sparred with each other.

Amy had only sparred once before, and that was with her sister Sarah.  Sarah convinced her to get in the ring to move around with her so she could work on defense.  Turns out that Amy, although she rarely spars, has a good jab. 

The two sisters were in the ring for about two rounds.  Amy stopped and looked down after taking a hit from her sister.  "What happened?  Did you lose a contact lens?" Alan asked.  Amy backed up into a corner and put her head up.  "No, the mouthpiece slipped.  I haven't worn it in awhile," she answered.

Sarah didn't go very hard on Amy, but she did when she I sparred that night.  I did get some hooks in to her head, but very few of them.  Most times, Sarah's long arms would block my short ones before I could reach up to get any in.  One of her punches landed on top of my head, and I backed up.  "If you can't reach her head, then hit the place closest to you, which would be the body," Alan told me. 

When Sarah sparred with Tommy, she took some good shots to the head and face, but she kept right on going.  Alan and I were impressed.  Whoever they put Sarah up against at the upcoming boxing show is going to have another thought coming if they think they're going to give her a hard blow and stop her.  It's not going to happen.

I also sparred with Gene, and he slips punches a lot.  Some well-timed hooks of mine got him a couple of times, but that was it.  The rest of the time, Gene deftly avoided the hooks and most of the body shots I attempted. 

Gene also did well against Marcus, as shown in this photo.  His straight punches were landing cleanly and crisply.  However, Marcus can throw some bombs.  He got Gene with several of them. 

I do have videos of the sparring action, but I will put them in another entry later on.  Luckily, there's no video of me sparring last night; I told Alan that I felt very clumsy.  I have a bad habit of getting out of form.  I'll put my right leg forward when throwing a right punch, when all I'm supposed to do is turn the back foot. While executing some punches, I end up turning all the way around. A lot of times, I'm out of balance, even when I'm practicing on the bags.  There's always something to work and improve on, and balance is another of those things.

There's always entertainment to be had in the gym, and Alan, one of the many comedians on the premises, provided some.  It was reported here in a previous post that Igor has a habit of changing out of his pants in full view of everyone into his boxing shorts.  Alan normally goes out of the room to change into his shorts, but he decided to take a page from Igor.  I'll put it like this: Alan's boxers aren't as ugly as the ones I've seen Igor wearing.  But my late dad still holds the crown for wearing the ugliest boxers I've ever seen in my life.