April 2nd

Just me and Dave tonight. Jason made us go straight into 3 rounds of sparring without a warmup which in hindsight was not such a good idea. Ash turned up a bit later in time for some intensive skills practice then we went straight into half an hour of fitness work with an interesting exercise involving a lorry tyre, skipping, dumbell pressup burpee combos and a lap of the gym.. three times. Just when we thought it was all over we had to go into a pressup position, I'd do 10 then Ash did 10 then Dave did 10. Still holding a pressup position while the others did their stuff, I started a new round with 8, then 6 then 4 then 2. Talk about going through the pain barrier - I forgot it was my turn on one rep and the others, still in pressup position with veins bulging, cursed me. I hate pressups at the best of times.

Found my distance in the ring and it was harder for Dave to hit me, although as I got tired he cornered me and delivered a left hook to the left of my stomach before Jason told him to stick to the jabs. I got a couple of jabs through his often low guard but the energy soon drains away - a sign I've got to improve my stamina and endurance more. Jas said he wouldn't take us to the other gyms for rival sparring if we got tired half way through a round.

Driving home I had such a sore bottom rib on my left side that I thought the pain was in my kidney but it was just my rib cage being compressed by the car seat as I cornered. Yet more ibuprofen cream dulled the pain, but I ache nearly all the time so it becomes easier to forget soreness only to let it serve as a reminder for bad technique. Things still to remember:

- don't jump around before and during jabs. it just wastes energy
- don't be mechanical, it's easy for your opponent to anticipate what's coming
- keep your safe distance!
- don't let your left glove guard down when doing a right punch

Found some excellent training clips on youtube from an silver haired old guy called Don Familton click here. One of the comments underneath said "isn't it great how old people seem to know everything"...