Amy's Last Night

About thirteen people showed up at the gym for the start of the Summer session.  I think that's the largest amount of people that have signed up for that particular session in a long time.  When Alan came in, he commented that I was the only familiar face among the crowd.  I was for a moment until Amy, Sarah, and Franco came in.  Franco hadn't been there in some time, and he had his brother Tony with him.  Taheerah, who hadn't been there in about two years, signed up again.  I saw another familiar name on the list, Sara, whom I had knocked out awhile back during a sparring session.  But Sara did not come in that evening.  Also, Marcus came in.  "If all the regulars had come in tonight, this place would have been very packed," Alan said.

Neither Sarah nor her sister Amy were going to spar.  It wouldn't look good for either of them to have bruises or black eyes as they had to look good for Amy's wedding photos.  It was Amy's last time in the gym as her nuptials are approaching very soon.  Her husband-to-be is Canadian, and she will be moving to his country after the ceremony.  She and her sister did something very nice.  They gave both Alan and I coach's jackets as gifts.  The name of the gym is on the back of them, and on the front is "Coach".  They are very sharp!  I had been thinking about getting a coach's jacket for the longest, so that gift was very appreciated.  I will include a picture of my jacket in a later post.  I will miss seeing Amy at the gym.

Alan and I thought it would a good idea to show the new people what sparring looks like.  He wore Kevin's old headgear, and I used my own.  It was three hard rounds.  Alan popped me dead in the face during one round when both my hands were down.  My left eye took a beating when another punch came in.  I caught him several times with right hooks, and managed to get one left hook in to Alan's head.  Then I got him in the side with more right hooks.  Alan banged me with an overhand right once, and I took a blow to the body that took some of the wind out of me.  We were in the corner during another moment, and Alan was pelting me with blows until I thought to spin out of the corner.  I fell twice, slipping once, and the other fall due to a body punch.  The first time Alan tried to help me up off of the canvas took some doing.  Then I realized that I needed to help him by making more of an effort to push myself up.  It wasn't easy to do because my knees didn't want to do the work.

Later in the evening, Alan grinned that the "two old people" sparred to show people how it's done, yet we were "huffing and puffing", which was true.  I told Alan we both were probably going to need Epsom salt and rubbing alcohol later on.

Hopefully, Kenny will come in on Wednesday.  One of the new guys (the guy in the foreground of the above photo), whose name escapes me at the moment, has Thai boxing experience.  He was working the bags pretty well.  Kenny and the guy are about the same weight, so it'll be a good match up.

Amanda (in the above photo) was wearing a shirt that advertised a south suburban boxing club.  I think she was the only new woman who showed up with a pair of her own gloves.  She also appeared to be the only one among the new women in the session who has some experience with the sport.

In this photo, Alan gives some advice to Pedro, another new person.  Some of the names of the other new people are Matt and John.  Eventually, I will remember names of everybody.

I was telling Alan that I read about a fight between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen in the 1940's.  Benny and Allen had a running gag going on their respective radio shows that involved the two men hurling insults at each other.  They were so good at "playing the dozens" that audiences thought the guys were enemies for real, but in real life, they were friends.  But the "feud" demanded a climax, so the comedians had a real boxing match that was done for the benefit of Army War Relief.  It lasted three rounds and was declared a draw.  Benny said in his biography, "I do not think that either Fred Allen or myself had the strength or technical skill to knock out a bee, even a common ordinary worker bee."

The Little Woman vs. The Coach

Ralphie, Carlos and Jamil were in attendance Wednesday evening.  Alan told me to get suited up for sparring.  I assumed I would be sparring either Carlos or Ralphie, who were mixing it up in the ring at that moment.  The both of them came out when the bell rang, and took off their gear.  "So who am I going to spar?" I thought.  I turned around to see Alan putting on a pair of gloves.

The bell rang, we moved around for a few seconds, then I asked him, "Where's your headgear?"  "Eh, I don't need it; I'm okay," Alan replied.  I hit him in the back a few times, which is an illegal thing to do.  But he would turn just as I was aiming for his mid-section.  For a moment during the second round we did, I made the mistake of being more focused on being tired instead of on Alan.  He got in an uppercut that stunned and knocked me a little off balance.  There was a second when I thought I was going to collapse to the canvas.  "You okay?" Alan asked.  I shook my head "yes" and kept going.

I backed Alan up aginst the ropes and gave him a right to the chin.  I didn't think I put a lot of power on that punch.  Later, Alan told me, "You hit very hard.  You could have taken out that fire fighter."  Ralphie said in amazement, "That other woman Hillari fought was a fire fighter?"  I still go over in my head what went wrong during both matches I had with Meg.  If only I could have pinned her against the ropes, if only I could have gotten some hooks off, if only, if only.

Earlier that day, I was telling Pastor Roger about the Christmas forty-six years ago when my late dad brought me a baseball and a laser gun.  I was two years old then.  My mother was not amused.  "Walter, don't you see that she's a girl?" Ma pointed out.  I don't remember exactly what Dad's response was.  I do know that he had expected another son (my oldest brother had passed away the year before I was born).  "Boxing. . .I bet your dad didn't see that coming," Pastor Roger commented. No, most likely he didn't.  I do have to give Dad credit that he didn't discourage me from the sport when he found out.  But I have no doubt that he thought it was unusual for me to be involved in it.

Spiderman and Gloves

"Just the little man I wanted to see," I said to Justin when he came in with his dad.  I presented him with the Spiderman action figure I found within a bag of toys that had been donated to my church the other day.  He played with it for part of the evening.  Justin showed it off to his dad, too.  "Did you say thank you?" Carlos asked him.  "Thank you!" Justin told me.

Carlos and I sparred, and I got caught with a jab to the face.  I was able to get him with several well-placed left and right hooks.  We only did one round, and I was beyond pooped out. 

While putting on gloves before I got into the ring with Carlos, I noticed the bag gloves did not have extra covering that comes down over the velco strap.  "Ah, that's one way to tell the difference between the bag gloves and the training gloves," I thought.  It also occurred to me that it has taken me several years to figure that out.  Yes, I can be a little slow on the draw, and that was long before I started taking hits to the head in boxing gyms.  Bag gloves are designed to go on and off easily.  Twelve ounce to twenty ounce gloves are common for training purposes.

Eight ounce and ten ounce gloves are used more for competition.  However, different sized boxers and boxers in different weight classes need different sizes of gloves. There are still not a lot of variety available for women who box.  Hopefully, as the sport grows more among females, there will be more gloves to choose from.

I invited Pastor and Virginia to come to the gym on any Monday, since they won't be able to go to my match in December.  Hopefully, when they do come in, I'll be sparring with someone so they can see me in action. 

Elvin and Chris sparred last night, and Elvin caught Chris with a huge punch to the face.  Chris fell back into the corner, and I saw that he tried to shake the cobwebs out of his brain.  "I saw where he got you with an uppercut while you were in the corner, too," I told Chris afterwards.  "An uppercut?  I couldn't tell. All of the punches felt the same to me," he said. 

Protect The Hands

Ieisha asked me about sparring last night, and I turned it down. My left hand is still sore. Perhaps next week, it'll be okay to punch again. I just want to make sure. A boxer's hands are their most important weapons. If they're not functional, then getting into the ring is not a good idea.

Punch in style with women's boxing gloves by Everlast.

Carlos sparred with Leon. While they were in the ring, Carlos' son Justin was recording the action with a little Nintendo gizmo. I didn't know such a thing existed; see, I learn something new every day. Leon popped Carlos good while he was up against the ropes. At the end of a round, Carlos was kneeling in a corner.

There another new guy in class who's name I haven't learned yet. He sparred with Ieisha instead of me. She was getting the best of him early in the game. A few left jabs got him square in the face. But then, the tide changed. Ieisha got tired, and her opponent had better wind. He backed her into the corners more than once. "He was trying to knock me out," she said afterwards.

I was thinking that while my late dad did not know how to box, he did know how to fight. There are numerous stories around about Dad putting beat downs on people. Unfortunately, he had a bad temper, and it didn't take much to set him off. A few months before he passed away, he was talking about jumping on someone whom he felt disrespected him. The old man was in the hospital at the time. "All you are going to do is lay in that bed and rest," I told him. His habit of putting his hands on people influenced my boxing to an extent. But, fortunately, I learned a long time ago that always being on war alert is not a good thing.

Promise To Pastor

I came by the church today to do some work on my laptop. It was cheaper than going to the coffee house and having to buy food and drinks in order to sit at one of their tables. "I kept my promise and didn't spar last night," I informed Pastor. "Don't you feel better, energized, happy?" he said with a grin. He went on to say that I needed time to heal.

"You should have told him you just had a headache," Alan told me yesterday. "That's why he admonished you. Or else that you were boxing for God." I didn't think of that one. There are always people who say, no matter what they are doing, "I'm doing it for the Lord!" "We need to get him to come in here," Alan continued. It would be a good idea for Pastor to come in and look around. I know his wife Virginia is concerned with him losing a little weight.

Nicole came in with Julio, but she didn't stay long. She appeared to be tired, and she probably wanted to go home early. Leon showed up during the last ten to fifteen minutes of the evening, and wasn't able to get a workout in. E didn't stay long either; I think his thumb is still bothering him.

Alan noticed my bag gloves and thought they were new. "Oh, no. I've had these for a few years," I told him. There is a little tear on one of the gloves near the wrist. I will have to replace them eventually. I don't have a pair of regular boxing gloves, mainly because the gym has both sparring and bag gloves available. But it might be a good idea to have my own pair.

Punch in style with women's boxing gloves by Everlast.

Gary came in to workout. He and Alan agreed that Raymond would make a good pro boxer. Raymond started training with Barry and Steve a few years ago. He's now a grown man with a full-time job. Raymond comes in to train once in awhile. He can't always do that because he's busy with other things. That's how it is for a lot of the young guys who were once always hanging in the gym. They go to school (like Mort), they move away (like Ike), they have a kid, their jobs keep them busy, etc.

Keys and People

Alan told me some time ago that he asked Mary if I could have a key to open the gym whenever he's running late or not going to be in. I wasn't surprised that Mary told him no. Nate Sr. has been volunteering with the kids in the gym for years, and he's never had a key. I'm not upset about it, because I understand the reasoning behind it. I'm not a Chicago Park District employee.

Also, it's not a good idea to allow everybody to have keys. That's a problem at my church, where there are three congregations, and people are often roaming in and out as they please. The fieldhouse is a public building. Keeping a tight rein on who has access cuts down on maintenance, custodial and security problems.

Barry left me a message that he left the digital scale out. I worried about that because from time to time, things do come up missing from the gym. Alan, after noticing all the gloves weren't matched up, wondered why someone would take one glove and leave the other behind. I don't have the key for the cabinet in the back, or else I would have locked it up. I did put in back in its case and put it behind the cabinet.

Older John, the attorney, came in last night, wondering, "Where is everybody?" Just like on Monday night, the number of people in the gym was small. My best explanation was that it is late spring, and the attendance always drops off after the Golden Gloves are over. Plus, once the weather gets warm, the gym attendance goes down even further. People don't necessarily want to be inside when the weather is nice.

Young John came in. He hadn't been around for awhile, and he inquired about Jim. I don't think I've seen Jim since February. "He trains at other places, then makes his way back here for awhile. Give it a few months, and he'll be back," I told John.

Leon must have given Sadiq a wallop during sparring. I was hitting the heavy bag, and had my back to the ring, so I didn't see the punch. I turned around to see Sadiq frowning at Leon and asking, "What the fuck?" Sadiq wanted to quit the sparring session, but was talked back into finishing the round. Alan warned Leon, like he always has to do, to take it easy.