Fighting With My Knee

 

I went out to eat lunch, which I seldom do these days.  A man and two women were sitting at the table in front of mine.  One of the women and the man asked, "Don't you box?  Haven't we seen you at the boxing shows?"  I was finished eating and was going to settle my bill, so I stopped to talk.  Collette, the woman, said, "I knew I had seen you before!"  She introduced me to Sally, the woman sitting at the end of their table, and she pointed to the man and said, "This is O'Shea."

I thought he looked familiar.  Tom O'Shea is one of the famous O'Shea brothers, all of whom are Chicago boxing legends.  All of them won National Golden Gloves trophies.  Tom went on to be a high school teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.  He also began to train boxers, something he still does via the Matador Boxing Club.   "If anyone uses boxing to bully others, the whole point of boxing is lost.  Young guys who box gain confidence, but they're not out in the streets looking for fights," he told me.  I agreed.  Most of the guys I know who box, especially those who are under 21 years of age, think twice before getting into with somebody.

Sally said she thought it was kind of sad that people do not teach their kids how to fight these days, and discourage kids from defending themselves.  She believes kids that know how to fight help a lot to keep bullying down.  I believe that, too.  I told them that I was one of the kids who was always found in the Principal's office for fighting because I attempted to stop other kids from picking on me.  "Did you have brothers at home who taught you to fight?" she asked.  "I had a younger brother, but both my younger sister and I used to beat up on him.  But we didn't take anyone else picking on him," I answered.  Tom smiled when I told him it wasn't my dad who first taught me how to fight, but my mom, who picked up tips from watching her father teach my uncles how to box.  It was a very pleasant conversation.  I hope to run into them again.

My left knee seemed to be doing better until later in the day.  Today was a cleaning day, and I switched tasks around, putting off the washrooms until the afternoon.  But I was only able to clean the men's and the unisex washrooms.  My knee was slowing me down by that time.  I'll have to clean the women's washroom first thing tomorrow morning.  I decided that I wasn't going to spar when I got to the gym.  It was too bad, because Sarah was game to spar, and Gabriel, Sebastian, Colonel, Emmanuel, and Nathaniel were up for it too.  I could have gotten several rounds in.

In this photo, Gabriel stands in the background, watching and giving tips to his brother Sebastian (in the dark shirt) who was sparring with Nathaniel.  I give Sebastian credit, because when he suits up for sparring, he really protects himself.  In addition to the headgear with a grill across it, he also wears a groin protector.  Most of us in the gym only put on the headgear and a mouthpiece, and that's it.

Nathaniel's been getting hurt every time he spars.  I made a mental note to make sure there's paper towels in the gym after Nathaniel's nose was bloodied up again.  He also another of those I-got-the-wind-knocked-out-of-me hits.  His girlfriend came in just as he and Sebastian started to spar.  She had to be cringing when those incidents happened.

Gabriel and Emmanuel had a wild sparring session.  During one of the rounds, Emmanuel had Gabriel totally pinned up in a corner.  All of the guys, including Colonel, were yelling out instructions to Gabriel as to how to extract himself as Emmanuel kept throwing punches.  It looked as if Emmanuel gave Gabriel a brief chance to move, but when he didn't, Emmanuel went back in for the attack.

Sarah and Gabriel were a good match up because the both of them are long and tall with an extended arm reach.

I've been trying acupressure on my knee.  The results are so-so, but maybe if I keep doing it more often, I'll have better results.