Tonight was my gym’s holiday party. The place was packed with people who came to eat pizza and watch sparring matches and various martial arts demonstrations. I got a call earlier in the afternoon from the gym’s owner Doug asking if I’d like to spar with one of the boxing students. Said the kid weighed around as much as me but was a bit shorter. Sure, let’s do it.

I showed up to the gym pretty early and did my normal Monday workout. Afterwards I drove up to a tavern to get a quick salad before the match. I got back to the gym and couldn’t warm up for some reason. My hands were cold and clammy. Like an idiot I didn’t bring any gloves to warm up on a bag with. I grabbed a couple little bag gloves from the gym’s stash and worked a little bit to warm my arms up.

I still didn’t know who I was sparring with. I kept asking around and people described a kid shorter than me, wearing headphones and a warm up suit. After about 40 minutes I finally spotted him. He was shorter, maybe 5′10 at the very most, but was really well built. He had some sort of skin tight gear on under his trunks. I thought to myself “shit, he’s gonna be strong as hell and definitely ready to dig into my ribs.”

I didn’t introduce myself before the match. Figured I’d just stay on the other side of the room and try to clear the butterflies. There were about 100 people at the gym and most were there to watch the matches. I was a bit nervous of the audience.

Finally it was time to roll and my hands finally warmed up with bloodflow. The bell rang and we headed out there. His jab wasn’t really effective. He wasn’t bringing it near me at all. He had a bad habit of ducking for no reason. I saw this and employed the uppercut late in the first round. The first one I landed left him a little rocked and I took advantage, moving in and letting my hands go.

He landed one good shot to my neck and one to my forehead. Other than that I was definitely on top of it. Any time he charged me I just kept him at bay with my jab… then I’d tee off with combinations. They were ugly, but they sure as shit were landing. I was right about my prediction about his body shots. He landed some really solid shots to my ribs and solar plexus. Luckily none knocked the wind out of me.

Afterwards I went over and introduced myself to Ben and we talked for a bit. His girlfriend asked me how much I weighed. “Bout 170″ “YES! Told you!” Then she asked for a highfive. He thought I weighed around 190 because of how I threw him around with ease the couple times we clinched in the ring. I think I just used leverage well.

Twas a good night. I think I earned a little bit of respect from some of the trainers in there. That was the best part for sure. Well, that and not coming out of a sparring session with any injuries for once.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized.