February 24th

Average day. More sparring at Vanda and a bit of bad news.

Diet
Breakfast: Oatmeal, nuts and a bit of sugar
Mid-morning: Tuna, ricecake, apple, boiled egg
Lunch: Chilli with rice and steamed veg
Mid-afternoon: Tuna, ricecake, apple
Pre-workout: Oat bar
Post-workout: Chocolate milk
Dinner: couple of chicken nuggets with low-fat mayo. Just wasn’t hungry

Good day really. Remember that the nuggets are only 6% or so because they’re healthier oven versions!

Exercise
Warmup: Skipping. Not sure how long we did this for, seemed like about 6 minutes. Foot hurt a little.
Parry/Jab Work: In twos, one attacks and the other defends with parries and blocks. I tried to do what Alexis was telling me and kept my arms lower and more relaxed. Worked well when I was attacking but made parrying slightly harder.
Heavy bag: Various exercises in sets of 1 minute. Jabs, rights, quick punchouts.
Sparring: As before, 2 rounds of 2 minutes with a longish break in between. I fought Chris and Steve.

Did below average at the sparring, I’d give myself about a 4/10. I did manage to step in and land some good combinations, but I also got hit often, and I’m still not defending very well against flurries.

I wasn’t helped by the fact that my head-guard didn’t fit properly, so whenever I got hit on the side of the head, even on my guard, it shifted by a few inches. This meant I had to back away as quickly as possible, half stop and readjust it; didn’t fancy taking another hit with my ear screwed into a ball and the chin guard up by my nose. I’ll buy my own headguard next time I’m at the gym, could save me some pain.

As before, its hard to judge from inside the ring, so I’ll list some of the comments I got from the guys watching (paraphrased)

1. I was all attack and no defence – Fair comment I think, I was trying to stay aggressive and come forward as often as possible to try to land combinations. In doing so I sometimes forgot the parry/counterpunch side of things. I’ll remember this for next time.

2. When I moved in it was slow and obvious – Again, I take the point. I was getting frequently getting counterpunched on the way in, even if I often managed to avoid taking the full force of the hit. The guy who told me this recommended mixing things up more; coming in throwing 2 punches one time, trying 4 punches another time, or just moving in, throwing a quick jab and moving out. Variation is important.

3. Guard was weak against central punches – This was from Steve, who said that I wasn’t doing a good job of blocking punches aimed between my gloves, eg. right at my nose. I know this is true since he got me like that a fair few times. I need to either parry or move out of the way.

4. Too many single punches – This was from our trainer Andy. He’s spot on, but I’m working on it. I think that often I’m jabbing too frequently, instead of just holding back, waiting for an opportunity and landing 2-4 quick hits. Its hard to line up a combination like that if you’re throwing jab after jab after jab, which I have a tendency to do.

5. Pulling my hand back after my jab was too slow – Very good point, and I really need to work on this. In point 2 above, I was moving in behind my jab and getting counterpunched with right hands. If I can get my left hand back quicker I can block that punch and hopefully be move effective and take less damage.

If that all sounds negative, I got some positive comments as well, but only constructive feedback like the above is going to make me a better fighter, so I welcome any criticism I can get. There’s no point trying to figure out everything on your own when you’ve got 18 pairs of eyes watching and analysing every second of your fight.

Only other things to note are that I was less nervous going into the ring today; I was really apprehensive on Monday, but I think that’s only natural and by April 10th it’ll just be exciting to step through the ropes.

Nick from Vanda spoke to me after the session and explained that I have to take up full membership of the gym in order to have personal training sessions. That’s a blow from my point of view, but I see where they’re coming from and at the end of the day it’s their gym and they make the rules. I’ll just have to work harder at home.

Injuries are pretty minimal; my foot hurts slightly, and my nose might hurt a little tomorrow, but that’s about it. I’ll miss the next 2 gym sessions because I’m on holiday, and I think the rest might do me more good than training, been exhausted recently.

45 days to go…