A New One On Me

The other day found Rocky and I trying to convince Kishaun to shadowbox.  "It just doesn't feel right," Kishaun said.  "What doesn't feel right?" I asked.  "I don't have anyone in front of me," Kishaun answered.  "It doesn't matter!" Rocky said in frustration.

We still don't have mirrors in the gym, and I doubt there will be any in there anytime soon.  But I explained to Kishaun that shadowboxing is part of boxing training, and it has to be done.  I had never heard "it doesn't feel right" being used as a reason not to shadowbox before.

Rocky took a a seat and grumbled about Kishaun wasting time in the gym.  I was irritated, too, because Kishaun seems to give his all during football practice, but acts lazy in the boxing gym.  "Use your imagination!" Rocky snapped when Kishaun repeated again about shadowboxing being hard because of the lack of having a live person in front of him.  Eventually, Kishaun did do a couple of rounds of shadowboxing, but more should have been done.

Derrick won't be going to Seward Park's boxing show next week because his dad believes he needs to work on head movement and the left jab more.  I'm in agreement with Derrick's dad.  BJ's dad wants him to wait a couple of months before taking a fight.  I agree with that, too.  Tyrone is fairly new, and not ready to take on a fight yet.  Neither is Andre.  Nassir and Little Jordan show up to train on and off, and don't follow instructions when they do.  Little Jordan's sister, Jordana, seldom attends the gym.  Dorian and Trejan don't show up consistently nor train hard enough.  LaKendrick hasn't been in the gym for over a week.  Ashley wants to fight, but doesn't want to spar.  Mya doesn't want to spar or fight.  Guadalupe, Big Jordan, and Tandi seem to have disappeared, and Shanita and Julius quit.

That leaves Kishaun, who's dividing his time between boxing and football, and Carmelius.  The gym is going to be closed for two days due to a gospel fest that I just recently learned about (and I have to be there to monitor the people going in and out).  None of the kids can afford to lose training time in the middle of the park district boxing season, but there's nothing I can do about that.  We'll just have to step up training next week for the couple of days before the boxing show takes place.

Five Rounds Of The Night

It's Gabe vs. John (the other one, not John the teacher) during sparring at Loyola Park.

I did five rounds of sparring: three with Kelly, and two with Katie.  Kelly is not much taller than I, but she stayed on her toes and moved around a lot more than I did.  It was only during the third round with her that I remembered to move my head.  After going a little too hard with my right hook, I heard Alan telling me, "Easy, Hillari!"

Katie's long arms were hard to get around, and she kept the jab in my face.  I got in hooks to the body, but like Kelly, she kept moving around, too.  I could back Kelly up into the corners sometimes, but I couldn't do that to Katie.  My knees were not doing so well during the last round with Katie.  I plodded along until the bell rang to end it.

John also sparred with Rafael, who is from Austria.  I missed seeing a hard punch that John gave Rafael, but I saw the result.  Rafael was bleeding all over one of the gym's towels.  He went to the washroom to clean up, and when he returned, he gave John a high five.  Alan was praising John about how he opened up on Rafael.

Geniece opened up on a guy named Richard.  I could tell Richard wasn't hitting her very hard.  But she didn't hold back on him.  A couple of times, Richard stepped back and shook his head to clear it after Geniece rocked him.

Today, I finally brought a scale for the gym at LaFollette.  I'm going to hide it for a minute in the storage room.  Some of the kids treated the other scale (which belongs to Ken, who trains people in the fitness center) like a toy.  They kept wanting to get on it every time they were at the gym, which is unnecessary.  I also ordered cones so the kids can work on their footwork.  An agility ladder would have been better, but the floor in the gym is uneven, so a ladder wouldn't sit properly.  Alan suggested that I also get milk crates so the kids can jump over them in order to work on their footwork.  I also got a pair of one pound weights; I'll buy a few more pair before summer ends.  Those are for shadow boxing.  Unfortunately, I can't buy everything I want for the gym out of my own pocket, but I can purchase a few things to help the fighters out.

Running In The Church

I pulled the speed jump rope out of my gym back this morning when I got to Rogers Park Baptist Church.  But then I thought that I really didn't want to jump rope.  Both knees were bothering me, the right one more than the left.  But I had to do something to get my heart rate up.  "Why not jog?" I thought.

My personal training timer is always set to three-minute rounds just like in the gym at Loyola Park.  I thought I was going to have to stop to catch my breath as I ran around the church gym, but I didn't have to do that.   My knees were still tender, but the pain was not unbearable.  After a second round of jogging, I figured I could go for a third.  "If I do four, 15 minutes will have gone by.  Fifteen minutes is a mile," I thought.  When the end of the forth round came, I was feeling okay.  My stamina seems to be slowly going up.

I was smelling like a big dog, too.  On Thursdays, I just brush my teeth, put on the clothes I'll workout in, grab my gym bag and go straight to church.  I bring a change of clothes to put on after I take a shower upstairs.  When Pastor Roger came into the gym briefly to check on the tables that will be needed for a potluck this upcoming Sunday, I was hoping he wouldn't get too close to me to pick up the scent. 

There are no mirrors in the gym, so I can't accurately check my form while I'm shadow boxing.  I had a half a mind to shadow box in the mirror that's in the choir room, but I thought against it.  There's not really enough room to move around, and I didn't want to transport the radio back and forth. 

I just noticed today that the boombox has a tape player on it. . .another example of how slow I can be on the uptake sometimes.  I had been playing a tape on the way to church, so I took it out of my Walkman (yes, I still have one of those) and popped it into the boombox.  I was in the middle of jogging when the song, "I'm A Ho" by Whodini, a popular 1980's rap group came on.  "Whoops!  Can't play that in church!" I thought.  The round ended a few seconds into the song, and I quickly fast-forwarded the tape to something else. 

Sometimes it feels that my regular exercise is getting easier.  Or maybe that's something I just tell myself to keep doing it.  After all, it's not always a matter of wanting to do it, or even feeling like doing it most of the time.  It's under the category of needing to do it, and not just because of possible fights on my horizon.  I have health conditions that are helped greatly because of regular exercise. 

It also helps that I love boxing, and often imagine myself beating down an opponent while I shadow box.