Jason Gets A Workout

Martin, Alicia, Professor, and Jason were in the gym.  Igor was there briefly (thankfully).  Igor's patience seems to be growing smaller.  Alan was a little late.  We were waiting by the gym door when Igor directed the usual inane questions about Alan's whereabouts to Martin and Alicia.  "You keep asking the same questions each time," I said in a voice mocking Igor's.  "If Alan wasn't going to be here, he would have called me, and then I might not have been here."  Igor walked away, and I thought he decided to wait up by the front counter.  Alan came in about two minutes later, but Igor did not return.  It was the third time Igor decided to leave instead of waiting a little longer for Alan to show up.

Professor came in a little later, but Andres didn't.  Alan called Andres who let him know his next fight at the Chicago Golden Gloves will be on Thursday.  So what I wrote in the last post about Andres being in the finals wasn't correct.  Andres has a semi-final fight he has to win before advancing on to the finals.  Alan was worried because the last two guys Andres fought were about his height and size, but the next set of guys in the super heavyweight category will probably be bigger.  I heard Alan tell Andres during the call to do some running as part of his workout.

Professor had promised to work with Jason the last time he was in the gym, and he made good on his promise.  First, Professor held pads for Jason.  He noticed that Jason was not watching when punches were coming back at him.  "I'm gonna solve that," Professor said, and he asked me if he could use the cage headgear that's in my locker.

Professor gave Jason the cage headgear to wear, and he chose some headgear for himself.  I kept hearing Jason giving out a bunch of excuses, including, "I don't have a mouthpiece."  "You don't need it.  I promise that I'm not going to hit you hard," Professor said.  Jason's remarks indicated that he wasn't too sure about that.  They did some very light sparring, but Jason was flinching a lot, and still not keeping his eye on incoming punches.  The sparring ended quickly, and Professor made Jason do burpees.  Jason was struggling after only doing a few.  Professor gently but firmly kept pressing Jason to do more.  Then Professor had Jason running up and down the stairs leading up to the second floor just outside the gym entrance.  Jason was huffing and puffing.  Professor correctly pointed out Jason needs to work on having stamina.

The gym seemed kind of dull today. The winter session, which is coming to an end, had a lot of people disappear early on, cutting down on the energy that usually fills the room.  Not a lot of people usually sign up for the spring session, so attendance may not go up for the near future.  The upside of that will be more personal attention for Andres if he wins his next fight at the Gloves, and is able to come into the gym more hours to train.