Despite the busyness of his training camp for his upcoming fight, I was personally invited out to train with Coach Kristain Hernandez at his boxing club, Hernandez Boxing. He's scheduled to fight May 29th, the day after I leave the Philippines.
At his boxing club out in Makati he's been training with Coach Victor, the coach to WBO NABF Super Flyweight Champion, Aston Palicte. Aston was there too today.
I was under the impression that I'd be just using his club facility but as soon as I started to pull out my gear he asked me for my handwraps. He then wrapped my hands and told me to follow him over to the agility ladder where he then put me through a warmup. Together we warmed up and then he told me to step into the ring.
Coach Victor stepped into the ring to do pad work with me.
So much for just doing my own thing. I was now doing pad work with the very coach of a champion... Wow. He had handpads similar to mine -- super round and super small, but the way that he held the pads so close to his chin and flipped them only when he wanted them hit was a bit intimidating and so very intense. It was like being at the town fair, playing that little groundhog game where you have to bop the groundhog on the head when it pops its' head out of the circle. My senses were on high alert and I really had to focus in on his movements.
After pad work with Coach Vincent, Coach Kristian then took me over to another area of the boxing club to continue pad work with me but this time focusing on defence and introducing me to a great mind/hand exercise he later wrote down on a paper for me to take home and work on at my boxing club.
It was totally unexpected, me being trained by both Coach Vincent and Coach Kristian, but it was pretty awesome. I picked up a lot of excellent tips and left with some extra things to bring to my next training to work on and expand upon. After my workout with them, I then unwrapped my hands and watched in awe as Aston stepped into the ring to do pad work with Coach Vincent. The sound his punches made hitting the handpads was so loud and so crisp. I was impressed.
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