Tuesday - visit fight to Fitness Factory Cymru

After a lot of thinking about what tonight would be like, I was was off the mark. Anticipating a pummeling by well trained giants it turned out the be an excellent session. Either I am getting better about having less butterflies before a fight and just digging in and getting on with it, or I am getting more stupid... About 12 people turned up and after a long warm up that got rid of the pain in my rear, Steve pitched us against two of his best fighters - Jas said one of them was in a commonwealth boxing team. He also made us wear headguards that kept slipping over my eyes.

The two guys we sparred with were totally professional. They could have taken us apart but instead they gave us every opportunity to come onto them - even going onto the ropes, but they were so well covered up it was hard to land many shots. Their work rate was about half that of ours and they just stood back, covered up and watched us.

My weakness was my right hand coming down with my left jab leaving my head exposed. I paid the price and in the third round did what Henry Cooper said “this boxer is doing what is expected from him... bleeding from the nose”. So much blood I had to leave the ring. A journalist was recording some ringside soundbites for a documentary and wanted too interview me. Unbelievably I had an uncontrollable urge to sneeze blood all over his pink microphone cover which he said had never happened in his career.

So the session turned out to be excellent. I managed to remember a strong stance, forgot to cover my head with my right hand when jabbing and learned from the experienced guys how you can cover up, stand back and watch your opponent.

I was limping badly again as my leg muscles shortened and seized up - this is getting really annoying. I can only run at half speed no matter how hard I try, but I’ve found that sitting on a tennis ball that deeply massages the offending muscle is a big help so there’s always one in my car and at my desk now!

Monday after a week off...

I’ve had a week off in Italy and hoped the break would help me to recover from very sore ribs and a damaged muscle in my backside (piriformis), but for most of the week I could not walk without a severe limp let alone even think about putting on my running shoes. Instead of getting better it got worse, particularly at night where it often kept me awake. Received a text message from Jason telling me that the sparring visit to Steve Robinson’s Gym would be on the Tuesday. He’d rearranged the visit on my behalf and I felt nowhere near fit but had to go.

So tonight’s sparring was Richard and me. He thought we’d have a light easy session in preparation for Tuesday and had left his sparring gloves. After Jason’s beating at my last visit over a week ago I felt quite apprehensive about being back in the ring but proceeded to do four 2 minute rounds on good form and Rich did got some great shots in - including giving me a nose bleed. He said I was scary tonight.

My physio friend Floss has stretched out my legs that afternoon and I’d warmed up well so my muscle problem did not bother me until after the session where I was walking like an invalid again. I wondered how I would ever be ready for the visit to Steve’s gym. Jason said that if any of his guys bullied us then he’d pull us out. Great.