Keep Your Side Show for Intermission, I'm Fighting to Fight... Thursday, December 9

Someone once told me “Beware of a desperate man, he has nothing to lose but a man on top has everything to lose”.

I am feeling like that ‘desperate man’ in that I know I’m not expected to win this fight. I already knew of my opponent’s impressive record but I didn’t know more than just the statistics were going against me. Today I got wind of the full extent of what I’m up against at training, it’s more than just statistics and it was hard to digest.

When I arrived at boxing tonight Junior Mint asked me how I was feeling and I answered by saying “I feel like poop.” Last night I had puked on the front of my shirt, tossed and turned in yet another tummy-grumbling sleepless night, and then today I walked around craving water like a fat kid craves chocolate and my body felt so heavy. My mind wanted to train but my body was screaming for me to let it rest. I headed into training despite my body being officially pushed to unchartered waters with training. I felt exhausted before I even started, so when Junior Mint told me to gear up for sparring I was like,
“Are you kidding me?! You know I might puke right?”

Turns out he wasn’t joking and this unexpected sparring session was with the Cheonan Bulldog.

I did my skipping, did numerous rounds of shadow boxing, did my rounds of pad work in the ring with Junior Mint, then he told me to do more shadow boxing while the Cheonan Bulldog warmed-up.

And as if my body wasn’t already screaming “Make it stop!!!”, in walked Q – my ex-boyfriend. Great, like I needed any more stress on my already sore shoulders. So there I was, fully exhausted and totally stressed, and now expected to do six rounds of sparring with the Cheonan Bulldog, my male teammate, with my ex standing watching me like a hawk.

No pressure... right?!

Despite having cut off my ties with The Ring in Busan, I still have plenty of Busan in my blood, so when the round bell went and the Cheonan Bulldog went to touch his gloves with mine I went in and threw him a good right hook. It totally caught him off guard. The Busan in me also meant I pulled out other dirty moves, like pinning his gloves against my chest when he comes in close and then using my free hand to give him some shots.

By the time we finished I was beyond exhausted and definitely frustrated with having to compete with my own exhausted body. My mind was there but my body was definitely giving me a struggle. I felt like I was fighting myself to fight. I felt slow in the ring and my arms felt like a thousand pounds but I tried to really push myself.

Despite the club being packed with other people training and lining the ring to watch me spar, no one said anything to me after my sparring session and that left me fuming. I didn’t expect them to throw me props or compliments but it would have been nice to have at least someone provide some kind of encouragement. I’m seriously putting my body through hell with struggling to drop the weight, juggling my tutoring and the insane twice-a-day endless training, in addition to desperately missing my husband. I feel like I’m doing this all on my own so it would have been nice at that moment to have someone have my back.

It made me so mad. They give each other props and can put on quite a show when doing pad work and all but that’s all worth $#it when it comes to really boxing. Sure, put me in the ring with a full belly of food and not all dehydrated and I too can give you a good show. Unlike them though, I actually step in the ring for real fights. That's the difference between them and me.

I left the club pretty bitter about it all actually and I wanted nothing less than to tell them “if you think you can do better than you get in the ring next Saturday and fight”. Oh, what’s that… THEY CAN’T, that’s right. Continue standing ringside. I’ll be in the ring, thanks.

“Don’t let them know they got the best of you” Snickers once told me so with that I waited till I left the club to let out my frustration. I choked down the tears until I reached Ggum Guum and then I yelled out at the top of my lungs.

“PACZEK!!!”

[I should note here that that’s the only Polish word my parents taught Snickers that he remembers. It actually means donut but we use it whenever we really want to swear. I’m not one for swearing so this word comes in pretty handy as a replacement.]

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Who is a hero in your life?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
-- Christopher Reeve