That Horrible, Horrible, First Day of Training

First session for the White Collar Boxing, and I open the glass door in trepidation. I’m a long way from the pub banter and bravado that got me here, and I am seriously trembling at what awaits. I look around at the other wannabe boxers, hoping to catch the eye of someone who is clearly as nervous as me, but to no avail. Everyone else is sure of themselves, or at least they are doing a damn fine job of appearing to be… and they all look like they could kick my sorry arse five ways from Friday!

So, confession time – I have never thrown a real punch in my life. Not one. Granted, I have taken a few (that might give me an advantage, right?), but I have always been the kind of lad that talks his way out of a situation, that calms people down… So what on earth am I doing signed up to fight in a boxing ring with just 12 weeks of preparation? I still don’t have an adequate answer to that question, but maybe that is the reason in it’s own right – I am doing it precisely because it is the last thing anyone, including myself, would expect me to do!

So, off we start with some jogging around the room. Okay, I can handle that. I used to run quite regularly before my first kid was born. I’m not even going to break into a sweat in this air conditioning! A couple of minutes of that and the next instruction is “Bear Crawl”. Well, that seems like a weird exercise to a gym newbie, but it’s pretty easy, just keep going around in the circle using hands and… wait… hold on… 30 seconds in, and this isn’t as easy as it seemed. My legs start aching really quickly, I’m slowing down, causing a bit of a jam with those behind me, and Coach is already telling me to speed up or move aside. We are only doing this for two minutes, but it feels like I have been going twenty and I am already questioning how long I will last.

I had a bit of an accident in my early twenties and did some damage to my lower back. I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice to say it is one of those things that has regularly niggled me over the years, and with increasing regularity since I hit my forties. When I first told people about joining the WCB some were, understandably, very worried about how my back would hold up. But I did my research, spoke to various medical professionals, and weighed up the risks and the benefits. The medical guys were actually very supportive, pointing out how a proper disciplined training regime could actually help strengthen my core. But make no mistake, I would still have to be careful and let my own body tell me how much it could take…

How much can my body take!!?? After the Bear Crawl we moved onto a far easier sideways skip, but then we were back on all fours doing a Gorilla Walk! This is just not natural! We evolved from this, surely? So why am I devolving back? Every excuse I can think of to quit is flooding my mind right now, and I am cursing the friends who egged me on. It doesn’t help that when we do finally stop I look around the room and see a lot of faces that still look fresh, wearing shirts that are still not dripping with sweat. Are these guys even human!?

I have always considered myself fit-ish. My job involves long periods on my feet, I don’t drive so I do a lot of walking, and I generally have good stamina. Even so, I had seen what friends who had previously done the WCB had been through, and heard their horror stories. And maybe that is where the doubt had crept in. After all, these were all guys who played a lot of sport or had some other regular physical training, and if it had come close to breaking them how would I manage to keep going?

Somehow I managed to keep going. The rest of that first session was a sweat-drenched, pain-filled haze of exercises I don’t even remember. Somehow adreneline kicked in and I kept going – slowly, but surely – all the while telling myself that even if I didn’t come to any more sessions I was not going to embarrass myself by admitting defeat in front of everyone else. And all of a sudden we were almost at the end… that hour long session, that had seemed to drag so badly at the start, had actually flown by.

Last exercise of the day: burpees. I had never done one of these before, but they looked pretty simple. So, okay then… down I go, and… a sharp pain runs down my right leg and it crumples beneath me. I slowly bring myself back up to a standing position, but I can’t get back down again, and my session for the day is over. I am so angry with myself. For all the silent bitching and moaning and talk of quitting, I hated that I had not completed the session. Right there and then I swore I would be back at the next session, and I would last the distance.

 

It was on reflection later that night I realised at least one of my reasons for joining the squad. It wasn’t to be better than anyone else in that room (although, here’s hoping for the big night!!)… it was to be better tomorrow than I was yesterday.

Bring it on!