In Support Of Ukraine

Like many other folk I'm appalled by the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and feel powerless to do anything, so I'm proud of my favourite band for joining with Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox to raise funds for Ukraine.

The new track can be purchased here.

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.

24 Hours In The Life Of

It was an all action night at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen last night.

Whilst the Soup Kitchen itself passed off peacefully as usual, thank you LORD! It was chaotic outside with one of the local youngsters getting herself run over causing the driver to crash in to a parked car.

Amazingly the ambulance actually turned up (they rarely do in these communities!) followed by a fire engine (why?!?) and eventually a traffic cop showed up too.

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.

Featured Blog

Jim over on Missionary-Blogs.com has featured Facing The Mountain once again.

This time we're part of his Awesome God in Amazing Africa post on the Missionary Blog Watch page of the website, where Jim picks up on our post: Savouring Every Last Drop, a short post as Jim describes it "Just a little simple post of thanksgiving!".

I do try and focus on the blessings as much as possible on the blog and this particular Soup Kitchen was a tremendous blessing to us as well as to our regulars.

It's always humbling and a privilege to have any of our posts picked up and shared by others, so thanks Jim!

D Is For Dad

My Dad was, is, and always will be my true hero!

Dad, born Donald Coutts Finnie in 1929 sadly died in 1984 (I was just 18) after a long battle against MS. 

I won't bore you with the long story, but in a nutshell... when I was 2 (my two brothers were 4 & newborn) we were taken in to local authority care after my Dad was imprisoned for beating up our mother's boyfriend. Sadly, due to health issues which were complicated by his MS, we never got to live with Dad again, but he used to regularly visit us in the children's home and later I would cycle to see him most weekends.

Anyway, my Dad instilled a love of boxing in me and I used to love looking at his trophies and hearing his stories, though he was most proud of his brothers, particularly Dave who was a notable professional middleweight contender in Scotland.

Sharing Our Blessings

What a joy and a privilege it was to be able to share some of The Gathering's blessings with the three Soup Kitchens we support (two in Macassar and the one in Chris Nissen Park).

Thanks to the generosity of My Father's House, we were able to share with each of them: 25kgs of oats, 20kgs of maize meal, 2 boxes of peanut pastes and 4 boxes of Easter eggs for the kids.

C Is For Cristiano Jesus Ndombassy

Coach Cris as I know him was my first boxing coach and to this day the best coach I've had, and he is someone I have a huge amount of respect for.

Cris is the real deal! Also known as The Warrior of Faith, he is  a professional boxer and belt holder, he is currently holder of the World Boxing Federation (WBF) Welterweight International Champion. He also held the African Boxing Union Title (ABU) Champion which he successfully defended twice.  Cris now coaches boxing for the love of the sport.

A bit of background: Cris is Angolan but lives in South Africa, he's part of the Angolan diaspora caused by the civil war in the country which eventually ended in 2002. He arrived in SA as a youngster and now resides here permanently. Cris started boxing in Luanda aged 15 as a distraction from the gangs he was involved with and his passion was sealed.