MORE PUNISHMENT

"It turns out that boxing gyms are not the right place to look for assholes" - Martin Kihn, A$$hole

DECEMBER '09
Kettlebells was going well...sort of..
I was crappy and inconsistent and frequently had to run out of the class to puke but at least i was training.
So what was next?
Boxing
Oh, boy..Boxing

Lynn said to me "you need to learn to box, to be pressured, to be able to pick up angles of attack, to cover up and learn to ride with the punches"
That was easy for him to say. I'd seen Lynn boxing. He adopted an entirely devastating blend of Panantukan (Filipino dirty boxing), western boxing and Japanese shoot fighting techniques as taught to him by the legendary Ron Balicki.
There was no point having a stand up fight with Lynn, whatever you threw at him would just get broken.

I enlisted the help of an old friend. A Doctor actually. A doctor who trains cage fighters.
Dr Iain Brownlee (pictured)is one of my closest buddies. We share a common interest in crappy horror movies and takeaway curries that had enjoyably taken up a lot of my Friday nights over the years. But while i nommed all the curries and then went back to a desk job, Iain was a full on, kick ass fight coach.
Iain had a cutting sense of humour. He once jokingly compared me to Peter Griffon (of Family Guy fame) and i had to admit, looking in the mirror, he wasn't far wrong.
Apart from the bad jokes and the cheeky digs Iain was a great coach. He was patient, intelligent and (like Phil my Kettlebell coach) all about the technique.
I was going to learn boxing RIGHT. No throwing me in at the deep end. A great deal of preparation in the fundamental and the groundwork. I was to learn covering, head movement and footwork first. Get used to being hit, defending intelligently and then retaliating.
Awesome, the noble art of defense...