A Little Bit and A Lot Of Hits

I neglected to post the above picture that was taken last week.  Jalissa is on the left and Erica is on the right.  Both of them are my nieces, my late younger sister's daughters.  That day was the first day they had ever met each other.  It was the first time I met Erica; I hadn't seen her since she was a baby.  I've mentioned before that my sister gave each of them up for adoption years ago.  This photo was taken not long after they gave Alan a bit of a hard time for giving me a bloody last Monday.  "See, this is why I won't spar with you anymore.  I look like a bully!" Alan said after my nieces gave him the side eye.

Matthew (in the gray shirt) sparred with Tony.  Matthew drops his right hand a lot.  Alan noticed that Matthew was doing that while working on the bags, and he encouraged him to keep his hand up.

Alan sparred with Tyson for two rounds.  The both of them landed some sharp shots on each other, especially to the head.  Alan hoped that Tyson's stamina would slow down after the first round, but Tyson's energy seemed to go up when the bell rang again.  "Tyson's too fast for me," Alan said after the sparring was over.

Tyson had a lot of energy left, so he and I sparred.  "Hellfire Hillari!  Don't hurt me!"  he laughed, using another new nickname for me.  "I won't," I smiled, but I didn't hold back on too many punches.  Tyson moved his head a lot, so I was surprised that I was able to get in a lot of straight punches and hooks.

I tried to back Tyson into corners and against the ropes, but I couldn't quite get him there.  Tyson's energy kept him enough out of harm's way.  After three rounds he said, "Hillari, for a little bit, you hit a lot!"  He told Alan, "She got me in the jaw with one of those hooks."

Colonel and Gabe are in a clinch in the above photo.  They used no headgear because they were running light drills.

Colonel playfully grumbled to me, "I'm 66 years old, and I'm always the oldest motherf----- in every gym I go in!"

I believe the next Chicago Park District boxing show is at Trumbull Park, but we probably won't go to that one.  It's far out south, and it could be tricky to get there because of having to fight rush hour traffic to get out there.  As Alan pointed out, there are plenty of boxing shows between now and early December, so we'll get to more of them.