Like The First Time... Thursday, December 22

If a guy getting all worked up for nothing means he gets "blue balls" than getting a boxer all worked up for a fight that's yet to be scheduled or even promised leads to a similar frustration. You can tell when Snickers is reaching his frustration breaking point when he starts egging on various fights, fights outside of the ring and totally not connected or held in the boxing club. My frustration shows it's head via randomly taking days off boxing and upping my running.It's totally frustrating training so bloody hard and not being scheduled a fight. Personally, for me I need a fight to keep me focused. I love boxing but the idea of a fight possibility is what drives me to continually train so hard and push it with eating clean. If there's no fight for a certain period of time than why continue to be so strict with myself?!

I'm very much a goal oriented person. The persuit of a fight being a much needed goal -- a focal point. So it came with much relief today when Junior Mint called me and said he just scheduled me a fight. Usually he calls me to ask me first but I've been busting my fight at boxing, pulling in extra hours helping train others in addition to doing all my boxercise classes, so he knew I needed a fight.

The UP Boxing Club fight line up:
January 15 -- The Heavy Hitter
January 29 -- Cheonan Bulldog
February 5 -- The Grizzly Bear [me]
February 26 -- The Korean Hulk [Snickers]

All we need now is a fight for Black Skinny and then we'd have a fight for everyone on our pro team. Tonight there were three of us on the fight line up list training. We trained together and we trained hard.

I love the anticipation of a fight -- the hard training, crazy dieting, doing extra road work (long distance runs and HIIT runs), and all the hype that comes with it. Most importantly though, it gives my hard training purpose.

I'm so done with 2011. It wasn't a good year for me or for UP Boxing Club with regards to staying in the boxing community spotlight. I'm convinced 2012 is going to be our year -- our year to put Cheonan strongly on the map and to really show Korea what UP Boxing Club is all about.

I'm pumped.

... "Like the first time" is our club's motto and tonight we definitely portrayed this to a T. With the windows cranked open and our breath visable in the cold, chilly air, we trained hard and we trained long. Packing the new year with several fights for UP was exactly what we needed to remind us to keep the love of boxing fresh, alive and strong... "Like the first time".