It was a long day today.
It was a long but good day today.
Correction... It was a long but fabulous day today.
After months upon months of talking on the phone and KakaoTalk messaging each other about business and boxing, we finally got to meet up with our much loved Busan champion couple. Today marked the husband's last fight but, as we were quick to find out, it was also her last fight. I guess when you've reached the top and have no place really to go then why not?! I mean, you could stay there and defend your title but there's always going to be that younger pup waiting and wanting to take you down. I can totally understand why the want to stop while they're ahead and at the top. They've both have had amazing runs with their boxing career, him more then him in my eyes. He travelled much more with his boxing and the proof of his experiences and awesome boxing opportunities are definitely evident when you look at his pictures on online Facebook friends whom he's met during his career. He just came back from a lengthy stay in Thailand.
I asked her, Hee Jung, why they were both retiring but I didn't really get a clear answer. I'm thinking that their kids have something to do with their decision. They have two adorable little boys who eat, sleep and live in the boxing club with them. They're of school age now so with them getting older means more responsibilities and more places to rush them off to, like hagwon and piano lessons. Having kids changes everything and perhaps it also changed their boxing careers, I don't know. What I do know though is that they're done with their own boxing careers. They ended at the top, good for them.
One interesting point I noticed during their fights was that they gave each other a lot of distance. When he was in the ring fighting, she was off warming up for her fight and getting in the zone. And when it was her turn to fight, he had finished his fight but he let her do her thing. Instead of yelling out shots and talking to her in between rounds, he simply acted kind of like a towel boy -- offering her water and wiping her down. Smart move, I thought, they're both there for each other but not to the point where they're in each other's face. They both are trained by one coach as supposed to training each other or with each other and I think that's pretty interesting and super smart. Snickers is my coach and while most probably assume that's super convenient and all great, well, they really have no idea. They have absolutely no idea just how much of a strain that puts on our relationship. I mean, to humble yourself in front of the very person you want to be proud of you is a lot to accept let alone struggle to digest and live by. Most days training with Snickers means me sucking up my pride and just shutting up. My level of pride is pretty high so looking like I don't know how to do something or trying to learn something new is very hard for me and it's all that harder for me to let him see me in such a position. And after a rough day of training, I can't exactly vent to him -- Pyen Chi usually poses as a pillow for me to bury my face in and de-stress. Taking on Snickers as my coach has been one of the hardest things I have ever done but what am I going to do?! Train at a different club? Hire a different coach to come train me at Hulk's? Exactly, I can't. This is Cheonan, our boxing community here is a very tightly-knit community where there aren't extra coaches walking around and half of the other boxing clubs are owned and operated by friends of mine.
Snickers is my coach and now two of my friends are officially retired from boxing.
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