Sparring and Making Matches

I was glad to hear from Rick at Scottsdale Park that Julius has a fight for the July 2nd boxing show.  Julius is the fourth kid for whom I've been able to get matched up.  But Julius hasn't been in the gym for days.  His sister Shanita came in for the teens' class (she was the only one who showed up for that), and I told her to let her brother know that he has to come in and train.

Things got wild in the class for the kids 12 years and younger during sparring.  Jordan was ready to mix it up, and I was glad that Kishaun came in.  A couple of days ago, I put Jordan with LaKendrick, and things didn't go so well.  LaKendrick is small, and Jordan overwhelmed him.  I figured Kishaun would be a better match.  Jordan came out of his corner throwing hard punches and so did Kishaun.

I told both of them to slow it down and take it easy.  But Jordan doesn't know how to pull his punches.  Kishaun got hit with a hard left, and it was on.  Every time Jordan dropped his hands, Kishaun got his fist in Jordan's face.  It wasn't long before Jordan's face was flushed and his eyes were red.  "Do you want to continue?" I asked.  Jordan shook his head no.  I made a mental note to run some drills with Jordan to teach him to keep his hands up.

Mya faced off with LaKendrick.  I thought it would be a good matchup because both of them are the same age, and approximately the same height and weight.  LaKendrick was moving all over the ring, only stopping to tag Mya.  Mya was not protecting her face properly, nor was she moving much.  While I was giving out directions to both, their respective dads were also giving them advice.

LaKendrick popped Mya once too often, and she started crying.  I was about to stop it then, but Mya's dad pushed her to continue on.  The little girl kept crying and just stopped throwing punches after awhile.  LaKendrick never let up.  "She doesn't want to fight anymore," I said, and I called the girl out of the ring. LaKendrick tried to give her a fist bump afterwards, but Mya just glared at the boy.

Ashley had a better time fending off LaKendrick, basically because she's taller than he.  I advised LaKendrick to go for Ashley's middle instead of always swinging for her head.

Later, in the adult class, Ben sparred with his sister, Alex.  Ben had sparred with his wife, Mel, the other day, and just like with her, he didn't want to hit his sister hard.  Alex threw some haymakers here and there, but she got her brother in the chin and in the mid-section with some well-placed hits.

Marty, the coach at Simons Park, left a message for me, but I wasn't able to return it due to the activity going on in the gym.  I'll catch up with him tomorrow; perhaps he has some good news regarding having matches for some of the other kids and teens.