Actually, I lie. It was my second time in the ring, although the first time it was body-shots only and it was nothing special. But more on that later!
It started off like all the other training sessions, with the warm-up and rope-jumping. The warm-up consisted of running around the gym and doing the appropriate action when it was called out: 1, left hand touch floor; 2, left hand touch floor; 3, jump; 4, change direction. After that we did three 2-minute rounds of roping, with 1-minute rest between round. As with my home workout, the first round I did the bounce step fairly slowly, the second alternate-foot step and the third bounce step as fast as I could.
After that it was time for the first group to do ring stuff, so we were allowed to do what we wanted. I did a few minutes on the bags, a few minutes shadow boxing, and also watched the sparring for a bit. Nothing major, just a bit of skill work and keeping warm.
Then, the other group (including me) were in the ring. Last time I was in the ring it was body-shots only, but this time it was head-shots too. Great fun, although I don’t think I did too well. 
I got a few hard shots and a slightly bloody nose, and I don’t feel I got in many decent shots.
I’ll quickly sum up how it went. First time in it was jabs only and second time straight rights only. In the jab-only round, I was against a guy who was taller and stronger than me (yeah, I know it just sounds like an excuse but it was true!). He got in a couple good jabs, and I think I did too. My jabs are damn weak ATM though, definitely need to train them.
Second round I was against what my coach afterwards called a “fucking headcase”. Put simply, he went in punching like mad, and took a lot of punches doing so (he was the first to get a bloody nose). I did get a few in, but I kept looking for a shot, whereas he was punching like mad. He would have won that round methinks.
But hey, it was fun. Bit shook up afterwards, but soon got over it. It wasn’t just me though, a lot of people got a few good shots because they weren’t defending well (or at all!).
I asked my coach what he thinks I should improve at and what I should practice at home…And he mentioned quite a lot! 
It was fairly obvious stuff though – Improve footwork, especially stepping in, punching and stepping out of the way. He said my punches need to snap more, which I agree with completely as I know mine are fairly slow, especially my jab. He also said just practice bobbing, weaving, ducking, stuff like that. I could also see something my coach didn’t mention, and that was aggressiveness. I wasn’t very aggressive at all, waiting for him to strike first or waiting for an opening which never appeared. I do think if I was more aggressive – stepped in with the punches without fearing stepping into a punch, throwing more punches and generally being more offensive – I would have done better. Something else to improve, eh?
Then we just did a cool-down, packed up and went home.
I don’t have a session next Friday, so I’ll be practising at home instead, and probably during the week too.
Posted by jgibbins92 
