A New Crowd For The Fall

The gym at Loyola Park was busy yesterday.  Half of the new people showed up, and the place would have been very crowded if everybody had come in.  I missed the first day of the fall session at Loyola because it began in the middle of the previous week as opposed to the beginning of the week.

In this photo, Kevin puts on a pair of bag gloves.  "Didn't I meet you on the street a few weeks ago?" he asked.  On my way home from work one night, Kevin noticed that I was carrying my boxing bag.  He asked if I boxed, and he stated he had an interest in it.  I told him about Loyola Park, and lo and behold, he signed up for the class.

Gabs and Emily, two new women in the class, were glad to see me there.  "It's nice to have a woman's touch in here," Gabs said.  I told the usual horror stories about Alan and I sparring in the past.  Alan overheard me and grinned.  I showed Gabs and Emily how to use the double-end bag.

Robert, another newbie, decided to spar with Alan.  It appeared -- although I may be wrong -- that Robert had never been in a fist fight at all.  Alan was popping him in the side and in the head many times.  Robert was very hesitant about throwing punches, and I kept telling him not to turn his back on nor his head away from Alan.  "I do well at getting my behind kicked," Robert told me later.

As for LaFollette Park, I know I'm going to have to soothe some feelings and egos when I open up the gym.  Jaymerson seemed to have gotten over his bad time in sparring later on last week, but this is a new week.  I know he's going to want to get revenge on KeVonte, but I can't allow him to spar with him or any of the other kids.  One solution may be for me to spar with Jaymerson if the boy starts having fits about being denied that activity.  But that may not be satisfying to him.  Kewan was boo-hoo'ing last week after sparring, too, so let's see if he shows up again this week.  I believe that Kewan could do fairly well, but he's got to listen and stop trying to bring pro wrestling into boxing.  In fact, most of the boys in the youth class need to do that.