Botti Neung (Lesson 1) - Beware the Overhand Punch

This mornings training -
4km jog
2 rounds shadow boxing
3 rounds sparring boxing
1 round thai pads
1 round focus pads
3 rounds heavy bag
3 rounds shadow boxing with weights
3 sets shoulder presses (max)
3 sets situps (max)

Today Takhoon decided it was time for me to start sparring, which I'll be doing 2-3 times a week now. To 'ease me into it' he put me in the ring against Paul, a 39 year old boxer from England with a lot of boxing experience (I have none, only muay thai). I did mention I hadn't done any sparring before which was met with the typical Thai 'mai pen rai' (no worries). Into the first round and I thought I was doing ok. Paul hit me with a right body shot, left body shot and instinctively my hands dropped which is when he decided to hammer me with a right overhand, right onto my left eye socket. He did it twice more before I worked out where the punches were coming from and how to avoid them.

During the second and third rounds he started to tire and wasn't moving as much so it was pretty much even the rest of the time. I found it strange not being able to kick or knee, and was surprised at how much he dropped his head as with muay thai you'd start copping knees straight away. I managed to get him onto the ropes or stuck in the corner for the rest of the rounds. Accidently (I hope) he also managed to punch me in the balls which ended the second round prematurely.

But despite the problems I was happy with how it went. Getting hit didn't hurt as much as I thought it would despite having a new panda look thanks to a black and bruised eye. I didn't lose my cool when I got hit and I look forward to sparring him again on Friday as he promised me next time we could put on shin pads and use kicks as well.

This Afternoons Training -
2km jog
3 rounds shadow boxing
4 rounds thai pads
5 rounds heavy bag

After that I called it a day as I have a lot of aches and pains, elbow, bruised knees, eye from this morning..but I wasn't the only one. The gym was crowded today, there was still a lot of room but seems a lot of us just didn't feel like going hard today. Even the thais don't train hard 100% of the time. After Brian (USA) and Roberto (Spain) left the gym recently to return home, a new guy from Switzerland arrived today but I don't think he has any muay thai experience so I'm interested to see what he thinks after his first session tomorrow morning.

THE TV IS FIXED!!!! I'm so happy.... .. .