A few weeks ago I wrote a blog called “I want to get punched in the face.” Let me just say now that, “I take it back.” I do not want to get punched in the face. Getting punched in the face hurts. It is not fun.
I’ve been going to about two boxing classes a week for the last few weeks, and it has been fun. I love hitting the bags. I love going through the combinations. Until Wednesday night, I even loved sparring. Guys have been really cool about taking it easy on me. I’ve sparred with a couple of different guys, and we’ve traded some light punches, worked on some combinations and counters, but nothing real hard. After each round I am wiped out. Even though I know we’re not really fighting, there is something about sparring that turns up the adrenaline.
I said a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to get punched in the face. Most of my sparring didn’t include very many punches to the face. There were a couple, but none that were very hard. Then came the shot I took last Wednesday night. I made a few mistakes.
1. I was sparring with someone I didn’t know. Big mistake. The guys I had sparred with before were guys that I watched for three weeks before I stepped in with them. This guy was a new guy (at least to me). I watched him spar once, and he seemed like he was punching kind of hard, but I didn’t think much of it. The guys I spar with punch each other hard, then turn it down a notch to fight the new guy.
2. I didn’ t wear headgear. But I never wear the headgear. It doesn’t fit (big surprise). I think this guy interpreted my unadorned head as a sign of toughness instead of what it really meant – a sign of big-headedness.
3. I let him punch me in the face. We were sparring. He was dancing around a lot. Every once in awhile he would take some weird dipping punch at my stomach that meant nothing. I was getting bored. I decided to scrap with him a little. Then he punched me in the face. It hurt. We kept going. It’s not like he knocked me out. I wasn’t cut (though there was a distinct mark on my cheek the next morning). I wasn’t injured. It just hurt, and I decided that I had been terribly wrong before.
In conclusion: I no longer want to get punched in the face. I tried it. It sucks. I will probably continue boxing. I will probably keep sparring, just not with young kids that want to prove something against the Fat Pastor.
