4am Happy Nutter

I'm back riding!

I am one happy bunny now that I've got the green light from the surgeon to get back exercising.

These last six weeks have been really difficult, not just because the after effects of surgery left me incontinent (TMI) and thoroughly depressed, but the fact that I couldn't do anything that would elevate my heart rate just compounded the depression.

24 Hours

In the 24 hours since I dropped Paula at the airport I've had quite a fun time of it...

Things began with serving 140 litres of soup at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen which was another blessed time of serving generously. This time everyone got a cup & a pot to takeaway and some even hung around for seconds.

Riding In A Lunar Eclipse

I had a great 15k ride on my KH 26er along Strand beachfront promenade this morning, and got to enjoy the last hour of the solar eclipse.

It got truly spectacular as the rising sun just clipped the top of the moon on its way down making for some stunning views of it all.

Riding along the beachfront promenade is always a pleasant ride, but when there's such an amazing natural spectacle adding to the beauty of the place it takes on a whole different level of spectacular.

I'm Going Down, I'm Going Down

I have been hoping to write this post for a while but wasn't expecting to do it quite so soon, but I'm very happy that the day has come.

When I set out on my health & fitness journey in January 2019 I was seriously in denial about how much I weighed & unhealthy I was, and truth be told I'll never know how quite bad it got. All I can say is that after hitting 105Kgs I simply stopped weighing myself, but I know I put more weight on because I did nothing to change my lifestyle.

Reflections On The A To Z Challenge 2022

I'll just say it up top... this was my best A to Z Challenge yet and it was for one simple reason; I had a plan for the whole series of posts which took so much pressure off.

The other thing that made this a lot more fun than previous years was that I had all my posts scheduled to post well ahead of time. In fact the closest I ever got to being close to the actual posting date was with Y & Z both of which were completed just two days before posting.

Now I'm not renowned for being the most organized person on the planet but having a clear plan & schedule really helped me and I would heartily recommend it to anyone else participating in the A2Z Challenge.

Y Is For Youth

I'm really happy that my sons learnt to box in their youth, I wish I had.

If nothing else, learning to box ensures that they'll never be physically bullied, but what really warms my heart about them learning is the fact that it changed them both for the better. 

X Is For eXercise

I love exercise!

There, I said it. 

No I'm not mad (at least I don't think I am), but I do enjoy the rush of endorphins from a good session, they're a great fix and one that I'm in no hurry to give up on.

U Is For Unorthodox

I'm a Southpaw (and proud of it) which means I'm left handed or in boxing terms I take an unorthodox stance. This means that I lead with my right hand jab with my right foot forward as in the photo. My left foot is nicely behind my right with my weight balanced for stability, whilst my right shoulder is slightly leaning forwards with my left shoulder slightly behind. Essentially as a southpaw my stance is a mirror image of an orthodox boxer's stance.

The unorthodox stance actually applies to any stance that isn't right handed, so it covers any other stance including the southpaw stance, but today most people in boxing would understand the term to mean a southpaw or left handed fighter.

S Is For Sparring

Sparring has to be one of the most fun things I've ever done.

It took quite a while from first stepping in to the boxing gym to stepping in to the boxing ring, but the minute I did I was hooked.

The very first time I stepped in to the ring was with Coach Cris who was very gentle and patient with me and helped me to control my temper, it's natural to get angry when you've been hit!

P Is For Protective Gear

It's important to use the correct protective gear when boxing, be it on bag work, sparring or fighting in the ring.

The most obvious piece of protective equipment is the boxer's gloves. These come in various sizes which are dictated by weight. Personally I like to use 16oz gloves, but for white collar boxing match (that will be my W post) gloves are normally 12oz.

O Is For Open Mat

Open Mat is a term probably more closely associated with MMA than boxing but it is used to some extent in the world of boxing gyms.

At Knockout Centre (owned and run by Corné Blom a former MMA fighter) it's used to denote an open session on Saturday mornings, in which boxers can come and do their own workouts as well as spar with other willing members.

For me it's a new idea and one I really like and enjoy, especially the sparring aspect of it (that'll be my S post). 

N Is For Neutral Corner

A boxing ring has four corners, two are owned by the fighters, these are normally the blue & red corners. The other two corners are the Neutral Corners and are normally white.

The purpose of the neutral corners is to provide a space that a boxer can be sent to by the referee, for example whilst counting down a felled opponent.

L Is For Lumbering Dinosaur

In my previous white collar fights I've been known as Pastor Punch as I dispense the five-fold ministry to my opponent.

I always found this quite an amusing play on Ephesians 4:11 "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers" and the idea of 'give me 5', or rather giving my opponent five.

However, in view of my age and health issues, not least of which is a collapsed disc in my spine, if I do ever fight again I will be renaming myself as Dino The Lumbering Dinosaur.

K Is For Knockout Centre

My boxing home is Knockout Centre in Strand, just a short journey from home, and I love this place run by the excellent Corné Blom.

Until recently we were part of the CEY family, but they needed the space for their growing Crossfit classes and the boxing side of things needed space to grow too, so it felt natural to separate the two out.

The biggest joy of now being in our own venue is that the boxing ring is back! At CEY the ring had to be sacrificed due to space demands so it's great to have it back.

Knockout Centre is the only gym in the Helderberg area with a proper boxing ring which speaks volumes about the quality of the place!

J Is For Jab

The jab is arguably a boxers most important punch, though it's probably the one with the least power behind it.

Here Conrad is ducking my jab. I'm a southpaw (that will be my U post), so I lead or jab with my right hand.

H Is For Health - An Update

The Blogging From A To Z Challenge doesn't work on Sundays so I thought I'd sneak an extra H post in given that yesterday's letter was H. If you're visiting from the A2Z Challenge, my H post is here.

So this is H For Health - An Update...

Last year ended poorly from a health & fitness perspective. I already knew and accepted that between going on holiday in late September and hopefully flying to the UK for Christmas in late December I would be battling to keep the weight off, after all, what are holidays for if not a bit of indulgence...

H Is For Home Gym

Prior to the Covid lockdown we had never really given much thought to setting up a home gym but it ended up being a tremendous blessing to the whole family. You can read a bit about how and why we set up the home gym here.

Initially we only had the small punchbag, but a bit later we were able to get hold of a proper 50kg heavy punchbag and that made a world of difference to our home boxing sessions.

G Is For Guard

I touched briefly on this in my E Post on Evasion, but there is a bit more to say about the boxer's guard in the ring.

The guard is arguably the most important part of the boxers game, given that the defence and attack all spring from a good guard.

There are several different guards which can be employed by a boxer, but a good boxer will employ more than one, if not all of them at some point during a fight. 

F Is For Fight Night

Friday night is fight night - this used to be an exciting refrain to hear as a kid, and even now I find it quite exciting, though one rarely hears it.

At the tender age of just 54 I had my first real life experience of Fight Night as my boxing gym hosted an evening of White Collar (my W post) boxing.

My fight was with Conrad who became a good buddy and went on to be a great help to my son as he went to college to study sound engineering.

Anyway, back to fight night...

We had a great fight and though we were the lowest billed fight on the card that night, we were voted *Fight Of The Night* because we went heavy ad hard and really battered each other. It was a LOT of fun!

E Is For Evasion

It has been said that boxing is the art of hitting without being hit. I can't find any attribution for this, but there is an element of truth about it.

It's easy to think of boxing as pure pugilism in which two opponents merely slug it out, hitting each other as hard as they can until one is knocked out. However, boxing is about the defense just as much as it is about the offense.