Boxing Sean

Had my first night of boxing lessons tonight. Yeah, its pretty crazy, by I was told by Callum a while back that it would probably be really good for my epee (since I told him epee reminded me a lot of boxing) and for my overall fitness. Whoa! Was he right. I was pretty excited already when we wrapped our hands. I still have a long way to go with polo horse wraps, but I have the boxing hand wraps down. After the first 3 minute interval, in which our instructor - Qadir - simply had us doing some footwork, I was sweating buckets. Then we added pivots, then left jab, then the one-two...all at three minute intervals. My jabs started pretty slow, but once I got the hang of it, it started looking and feeling much better. I think we did 10 of these intervals or so.

Next, we had some cardio exercises. Gloves with punching bag, gloves with hand paddles, jump rope and the fast bag. I was first up at the punching bag...sweating barrels this time, but man...did it feel good to jump around and hit that bag. Did even better when Qadir held the hand paddles for me to hit. Felt GREAT! Jump rope...is jump rope, did pretty well compared to the rest of the class, guess pentathlon training paid off. Then it was the fast bag...the bag - about the size of a balloon - the image we all think of when someone practices boxing. We kept at a pretty slow rythem, but I picked it up pretty quickly. It was definitely all about rythem though, lose that and the bag flies all over the place.

There is no doubt in my mind that boxing will get me fit pretty quick, the physical and cardio stamina is beyond other sports that I've done...even rowing, just in a different way. I'm VERY sure that it will help my epee.