Broken

I'm Irish.  Like many good, old, drunken Irish men walking home from a pub I have a fighting spirit.  We feel like God made us just a little tougher than the rest of the world.  After taking a women's self defense class I walked around for weeks hoping to get mugged by gunpoint because I was sure that after one lesson in gun disarming I was good to go.  :)  I didn't say I was smart.  I'm stubborn, feisty and know how to throw a punch (just ask a few Hooters girls from Tallahassee).   I was sure boxing would come easily to me.

And then I got hit in the face.

OMG that hurts.

For me, at this point in training,  it goes a little something like this in an instant....

"Whoa!  #$%&!  Did that just happen?  You better watch out.  I'm going to get you back.  Am I bleeding?  They'd tell me, right?  How much time is left in the round?  I'm really tired.  This is not fun.  Why does 2 minutes feel so long?  Why am I doing this?"  As you can see, it is very distracting.  

Another Haymaker's blogger quoted Mike Tyson as saying "Everyone has a plan...until they get punched in the face."  If you've never taken a punch to the face, you should try it sometime (call me!).  It is pretty crazy.  I wonder if you ever get used to it.  

My first training sessions at Fitness Advantage Medfield were very humbling.  I got hit in the face over and over again.  I was so focused on throwing punches that I could not defend myself.  All of my instincts were screaming to kick her and get her to the ground, but yet I wasn't even allowed to change my stance.  This is a sport, not a bar fight, and I have a lot to learn.  I was stuck there with my left foot in front of my right not knowing how to help myself so I just kept punching...and kept getting hit.

I think this is the "we're breaking you down" phase of my training.  Well, Sione and Kathy, I've put my Irish pride aside.  Consider me humbled and broken.  I'm ready to be molded into the fighter you need me to be to compete because Fitness Advantage has a winning record that I'm not about to break.