Monday Ups and Downs

At the beginning of the evening, I was feeling a little down.  The overall odd feelings had begun not long after I woke up Monday morning.  I had a strange dream involving not being able to get my locker open at the gym.  The combination I was using to open the lock was similar to the one I used on the locker I had in high school. I was the only one left in the gym, and I panicked that I wasn't going to be able to get my stuff out.  Alan was in the dream, but he had disappeared from the gym, and half of the lights were off.  The appearance of the gym was different which added to strangeness of the dream.  There were a group of thuggish looking guys hanging around the back door of the gym that led to an alley.  A buddy from high school named Riley was among that group of guys.  In reality, Riley has been dead for over a decade now.  I have no idea what that dream meant.

A general feeling of irritation began sometime during mid-morning at work, and continued on throughout the day.  Even before menopause began, I would often have days where I was irritated, but couldn't pinpoint the exact thing that set me off.  I still wasn't in a great mood when I got to the gym.  But exercise is good medicine for chasing away bad feelings.  By the time Sarah and I sparred, after I had done shadow boxing and hitting the heavy bag, I felt better.

Sarah agreed to sparring only if we went light.  She said that she was still hurting from the last time we were in the in the ring.  Before the first bell rang, I told Alan that she and I would take it easy.  "That's what you say," he grinned.  "Would I go back on my word?" I said through my mouthpiece.  "Well, you know, when the leather starts to fly, anything can happen," Alan said, still grinning.  But I did make a conscious effort not to put great force on any of the punches I threw.  Sarah noted that I was doing a lot of bobbing and weaving.  Since we were not going all out, that gave me time to think about how to avoid her punches.  I went under a lot of the jabs and hooks that she threw, then came back up with my own hooks, both to the head and the body.  

Jacob sparred with Alan, as Professor, Ray and myself gave Jacob tips on how to stay alive in the ring.  We were helping out Jacob so much that Alan exclaimed, "What? No one's cheering for me?"  Later, Alan asked me if he had been moving his head enough.  "It seemed that Jacob was popping me in the head a lot," he said.  "You were moving your head, but Jacob did catch you good several times," I answered.

I was really throwing hooks on the double end bag when I heard Professor say to Marcus, "See?  She knows exactly where that bag is.  She is really using her hips to execute those punches."  Marcus was watching me, and I smiled at him.  Ray said, "Well, women know how to use their hips."  Professor agreed, saying, "Yeah, man, they know how to move", and all the guys laughed, and so did I.