Gearing Up For The Boxing Show

Alan took this picture of Sarah practicing her hooks on the larger of the two heavy bags in the gym.  Earlier, she was asking Alan about which way the fist should be when throwing hooks.  Some have their fist parallel to the floor with their pinky finger down and thumb on top.  Others hold their fist with their palm face down so their knuckles connect full on.  Alan showed her both ways. 

There wasn't a lot of people in the gym Wednesday evening, but most of us who were there got busy sparring.  First up was Gene vs. Andres.  Alan kept admonishing Gene to keep his right hand up.  Andres took advantage of the fact that Gene's right hand was down a lot. 

Andre (in the red headgear) stepped inside the squared circle with Andres next.  Andre is smaller and quicker than Andres, so he was able to evade the bigger man's punches most of the time.  But as shown in the photo above, Andres did catch Andre off guard a few times. 

During their last round, Andres hit Andre with something -- I didn't exactly see what punch it was -- but it stopped Andre for a moment.  Andre's nose began to bleed.  The timer bell was on yellow, and Alan told Andre that he might as well come out of the ring.  Andre was ready to finish the round, but then the timer bell went to red, and that was the end of that.  "It happens in boxing," Andre said when Andres apologized.

I think I had just thrown a right hook at Andres in this shot.  He avoided it, as well as the left hooks I kept trying to get in.  Andres wasn't throwing many punches back while we sparred.  Alan noticed it, too, and he told him to throw some back at me. 

This was one of many moments where I had Andres against the ropes.  Alan kept saying "Dig in!" but I usually throw so many, then I back up to give the other person a chance to get off the ropes and breathe.  I always remember a Laila Ali fight where she was raining down punches on an opponent, and then she stepped back to give the other person a chance to answer the punches.  But when the other boxer didn't, Ali got a look on her face that said, "Oh, well.  I gave you a chance," and she rushed back in to continue battering the woman with punches. 

Take a good look, folks.  This is the last time a picture of Igor will appear on this blog unless he just happens to be in a shot I took of someone or something else in the gym.  Alan took the pictures of Andres and I in the ring.  Igor was on his way out of the door, and he stopped to say good night to Alan.  Regardless of the fact that he saw that Alan was trying to pay attention to what Andres and I were doing, and the fact that Alan had my camera in his hand, Igor kept up his usual nonsense babbling.  He convinced Alan to take a picture of him.  Imagine my annoyance when I uploaded the pictures later to see this shot.  later.  I'll delete the picture permanently from my camera.

Igor told Alan that he's going to spar for 12 rounds on Monday.  Seeing how Igor hasn't really sparred one round to completion, not even when Steve was the coach of the gym, I highly doubt the possibility of that happening.  While I'm still on the subject, you know another thing that irritates me about Igor?  He'll see someone shadow boxing in the mirror, then step right in front of them to look at himself in the mirror like the other person's not even there.  The next time he does that to me, I'm going to snap, "I wear glasses for a reason, Igor.  What's your excuse?"  Or better yet, I'll use an expression that kids used to say when I was in grade school.  If one kid was blocking another from seeing something, like the blackboard, for example, one kid would say, "Hey!  Your daddy's not a glassmaker!"

On Tuesday, while I was on my way home from work, I ran into Matthieu.  Yesterday, I saw Renee, who told me that she wasn't able to complete the summer session due to a lot going on at work.  But she's signed up for the fall session, and she plans to come in before then to get back into the swing of things. 

Gene appears game to fight at Loyola's boxing show later this month, and Sarah appears to be on board, too.  I wondered aloud what would happen if neither Sarah or I had opponents at the show.  Would we fight each other?  Alan told me that it could be a possibility.  I've seen many boxing shows where boxers from the same field house fought each other.  Years ago, during a Garfield Park boxing show, two sisters who trained there fought each other in a match.  People in the audience who knew the teenage girls were related questioned the wisdom of George, the coach over there, for making that match.  However, a park district boxing show has to fill two hours with eight to ten fights, so the matchmakers have to do what they have to do to fill the card.