X Doesn't Mark The Spot

X didn't darken the door of my gym today.  Maybe he thought long and hard about me telling him that I wasn't about to jeopardize my job by bending the rules for him and his kid.  I don't dig entitlement attitudes.  But I have a feeling that chapter isn't over yet.  I'm just glad that my boss knows what's up with X so that I now have some backup.  I remember that X's son said something about being in baseball.  I'm trying to figure out how X thought his son was going to be able to do two sports at once.

TJ and Earl showed up nearly a half and hour late.  Jermaine kept pointing it out until I gave him a "shut up" look.  The excuse I was given by the cousins was that they had to do their homework and that a relative dropped them off late.  "I understand that things happen, but y'all can't continue to make a habit of this.  That's especially going to be true when this class is cut down to an hour this summer," I told them.  But then, those two may not be in the class next session.  Earl had spoken of playing baseball, and TJ was talking about swimming class.

Jermaine continues to be sloppy.  I lost count of how many times I told him to stay in his stance while using the heavy bag and while shadowboxing.  There's no sense of focus with that kid.  While I held the punch mitts for him, he couldn't seem to tell his right hand from his left.  Earl was standing on the apron of the ring, and Jermaine had a side conversation with him during the round.  "Uh, you can't talk to people while in the ring," I told the boy.  I also made him take off a pair of sunglasses he was wearing.  "Is it sunny in here?" I asked sarcastically.

Moments later, Jermaine was going on about how he was being distracted.  TJ, Earl, and Suave were laughing and throwing the medicine ball around.  Jermaine felt he couldn't concentrate because of it.  "During the boxing shows, people in the audience are going to be yelling out all types of things.  Jermaine, you are going to have to learn to block it out," I told him.  The kid kept dropping his hands during punch mitt practice.  I got tired of reminding him to keep his hands up, so I cuffed his right ear with a mitt.  It's a tactic that a lot of coaches use to get a boxer's attention.  I remember Alan doing that to me once at Loyola Park.  "Ow!" Jermaine protested.  "And that is exactly what the person you will face in a regular fight will do if you keep dropping your hands," I pointed out.

Xavier came in, and I held the punch mitts for him.  No sign of anyone else in the teen class, unfortunately.  No adults showed up for the last class, so I updated the bulletin board that has the workout order on it.  I timed the parts of the workout so it covers an hour, even though currently, the class is still 75 minutes.  When the kids start goofing around after telling me, "I've already done everything on the board," I'll just tell them to do floor exercises until class is over.  The idea is, they need to keep training for the entire time.