Boxing Mk II

So, having paid to join the Harvard Athletic Club and been issued with my fancy-dan membership card I went along to the boxing class again today...and was allowed in.

While not exactly greeted with a warm welcome I didn't feel my reception was hostile (which is probably a definite bonus in a boxing club). The main coach (Vladimir/Igor something like that) took immediate exception to my boxing stance which is pretty much the only thing I was any good at. It transpires that in the Urals/Stalingrad they don't stand in the same position as in Australia.

I toyed with the idea of correcting him and perhaps mentioning the name of my Coach, Don Abnett from the Australian Institute of Sport, coach of the Australian Commonwealth team, the Australian Olympic team and Australian head coach at the Boxing world championships more times than I care to mention. Then I tried to think of all those great Australian boxers and mentally lined them up against all those great Russian boxers and decided that I should try to change my stance.

Regrettably they have mirrors at either end of the hall which is fine when I start out throwing my sophisticated and cultured jabs at an invisible opponent as I'm not wearing my spectacles but the closer I get to the opposite wall the more I'm puzzled to see a stoop-backed, elderly looking gentleman flailing around like a mental in a hurricane.

I met Ben and someone else who was English and from Barnes in West London and after an hour I thought it was over only to be told that we we're heading downstairs for something or other. Drinks perhaps, a smoke and a chat on the verandah or maybe a canape. Instead we all 30 of us piled into a room about the size of our condo (small) and proceed to obey barked orders from Igor and his henchmen which seemed to be variations on the theme of, 'do more press-ups'.

I think there was humour involved as one of them might say let's do 12 diamonds (press up's with hour thumbs and forefingers pressed together to make a diamond) and then another would say, let's do 12 diamonds and another might say let's do two lots of 6 diamonds without a break and so on. This seemed to be a well worn routine with a familiar sounding laugh track which was punctuated by a song, not 1-2-3-4 United States Marine Corps, (which would have been appropriate to the macho atmosphere but rather refreshingly they broke into a manly chorus of You Are My Sunshine which is a song that always reminds me of Peter.

All up it could have been a lot worse, I stumbled home in about 10 minutes and will almost certainly go again (not got my t-shirt yet).