The Summer Fifteen

This photo of my nieces (my late younger sister's daughters) is from a couple of years ago when they visited me at Loyola Park.  Today is Jalissa's birthday; she's the one on the left.  Her sister Erica is on the right.

A guy came to LaFollette's boxing gym yesterday with his quiet, nine year old son.  The 12 year old and under class is full, but since the the dad was so sincere about wanting his son to take boxing, I took his son in.  The dad is also willing to be a volunteer in the gym.  But then he added, "I have two other kids who really are interested in doing this, too."  Now I have a whopping 15 -- count 'em -- 15 kids in that class.

I had planned to take on some extra kids anyway because of summer.  But I have to shut the door on any more participants for my own sanity.  It is likely that not all of them will keep showing up on a regular basis after the first week or so.  Having five extra kids in the class is somewhat like insurance padding for the ones whom will drop out.  It's an experiment that I'm only going to do for this upcoming session.  I'm not going to add extra participants in any of the youth classes for the fall, winter, and spring sessions.

The routine for that class is going to have to be adjusted because the younger kids only have an hour to train from here on in.  The shorter time will likely work better because I can really have the kids focus on one or two skills each class meeting.  The hour does not allow for any playing around, however.  Kids who don't focus will find the class time is over before having learned much.

Time keeps slipping away as the July boxing show approaches.  Shanita and Julius did not show up to the gym yesterday, and neither did Kishaun.  There's only about two weeks and a half available for training before the show.  Kishaun's dad used to box, so I'm hoping there's some training going on at home.  Shanita plays basketball, but that's not boxing, and Julius is probably not doing any exercise at all.

I'll be working extra hours when the summer session begins.  I wish the extra hours involved boxing.  Extra hands are needed to help with the summer camp activities.  Summer camp is yet another situation where how well it goes depends on the attitudes of the kids involved.