Know Your Enemy

Thursday 2nd April 2009

Last night I found out who my opponent is.

Sadly I'm having to be switched teams as well which now means I have to get up on Saturday mornings at stupid o'clock to train - rubbish! Either way I now have a face to my opponent, my nemesis, my archenemy, a rag to my raging bull and, of course, the brand of chocolate bourbon biscuit I must crush. He seems like quite a pleasant bloke but I can't really say I've spoken to him much, even while on the same team, blue team was'nt quite 'gelling'  so I'm sort of ok with the move - apart from the stupid Saturday thing.

So I have two more sessions with Blue then I switch to Red. I'm now slightly distracted by watching my now 'enemy' and trying to figure out his strengths and weaknesses. Being not quite highly trained enough in the martial arts to ascertain at a glance a weak left knee from a childhood accident involving play-doh and a protractor, just from the way he stands, means it's pretty pointless. Let's face it there's a simple equation: 

He has Arms + he can Punch me = he is a Threat.

There it is then - he's a bit taller than me and has a slightly longer reach and has boxed more than me...  All I can do is train like a mentalist and prepare myself solidly to face him. Yes, it is weird to fight someone when you know he's a pleasant bloke - I would probably enjoy it more if I'd taken a natural dislike to him. Ultimately though, I have to focus on destroying him, physically and mentally, as brutally and as efficiently as possible... then I'll worry about the him being nice bloke bit - ho hum.

It's my Birthday... why am I sober?

29th March 2009

One of the things I promised myself when getting involved with this whole White Collar malarky was cutting out the beer. Not totally of course (I'm not insane) but not doing what most people do in Dubai which is replace your blood with alcohol for most of the weekend!

As yet I have, in 2 and a half weeks, only had the equivalent of about 3 pints, after food and purely as a social thing. I'm actually quite enjoying being sober - especially as I watch the not so sober around me! You begin to realize that actually when your drunk your a bit of a dickhead and girls that you may have thought attractive while drunk are actually much less attractive, especially with their eyes rolling around in their heads and unable speak properly.

Also, consequently, the flat next door is pissing me off with it's weekly parties that seem to just involve people cheering, constantly, for no apparent reason. A guest asks "Oi mate - where's the toilet - I need a piss?". The host is overjoyed at this major event in his life "Oi everybody - Gav's gonna go for a PISS - YAAAAAAY! - ave one for me son - YEEEAH" The whole party takes up a chorus of celebration of the mighty bladder until the next fascinating celebratory event... "Hey - Sandrine just vommed off the balcony, fell off and landed in it - WAAAAAY"

Multiply this by fifty until 3am and these are my neighbours... dickheads.

Then I realise - maybe I'm going off alchohol, whinging about my neighbours and training frantically to become something I've always wanted to be because I'm having a mid-life crisis. is this why people do white collar? I'm 34 today and what am I doing? I'm up at 6am punching bags in some sort of 'do it before you can't' mindset. I contemplate this as I finsh my 25th 'crunch' and then think 'no'. This is'nt a crisis - this is something I've always wanted to do and it's just taken me this long to get to it... life's a bit mental you know and other stuff gets in the way sometimes!

So yeah, I'm 34 today, I'm training at 6am on my birthday and weirdly loving it. I'm not going out tonight to celebrate (I'm 34 - what's to bloody celebrate?) so for the first time in years I won't have a crappy hangover tomorrow and I might well adopt this whole new attitude for beer for a long time after the white collar fight night.

Plus, with regards to my 'oikish' neighbours I've decided I'm not getting old... I've just always had a low tolerance threshold for cheering dickheads.

Sparring... with girls!

26th March 2009

This morning I nearly got uppercut by a Dutch lady (who got a bit excitable hitting me!) and took a 'straight right' to my head. All this was before breakfast.

Sparring is weird - I have to say that it was difficult for a number of reasons. Firstly not being a naturally violent person the concept of just hitting someone because 'they are there' takes a bit of getting used to. Usually an aggressive situation involves a wronged party getting a bit tetchy and then desiring to damage the other. Fairly straightforward? Boxing is different so I suppose I'm begining to understand why boxer's go through the whole 'Ya mama's sooo fat' routine in the build up to a fight - you probably have to cultivate an emotional reason for wanting to put your fist inside your opponents head?

Anyway, psychological analysis aside, sparring is double strange when you're fighting a girl! I'm naturally programmed not to go around punching the 'fairer' sex (I use 'fairer' broadly - having met some damn scary women) so hitting Mika was a bit difficult, as well as the fact I was a bit crap too. Either way one of us had no such qualms so I just blocked (oops - I nearly wrote 'like a girl'!) and adopted the punchbag stance. The following short sparring session involved Gill doing much the same to me and I learn't that I'm a little bit too hesitant. Again this, on reflection, could be a combination of inexperience and a lack of desire to hurt strangers... yes, this issue has to be rapidly solved if I am to progress.

So, after some contemplation I have decided on setting myself some personal rules when it comes to sparring and finally the actual fight.

1) When sparring pretend that the other person is not a person at all but something to be destroyed as calmly and efficiently as possible - like a chocolate bourbon biscuit - you can take big bites, little nibbles, bite it in half and scrape the chocolate off with you teeth, whatever! Ultimately it is consumed - this is how I shall treat my opponents.

2) I have ammended my personal rules regarding hitting girls. A girl wearing boxing gloves and trying to punch me in the face is now officially 'fair game' - after all it's the age of sexual equality and I assume I'd only be causing insult by treating her any differently based purely on out-moded gender bias - I might not get as hurt as much as well!

3) To finally prepare for the actual fight night I am to embark on a journey of self discovery. Many people look for their spiritual self or a greater understanding of their purpose in life. For myself I intend on discovering and tapping into my inner sociopath until, on the night of the white collar boxing event, for three, two minute rounds, I will totally, with every muscle, sinew and drop of vitriol I have fully crush that bloody bourbon biscuit!