Slip, Weave, and Bob

"Have you ever gotten a bloody nose?" I asked one of the boxers.
"I get bloody noses all the time, my brother," the boxer replied as he swung his gloved hand next to a smaller version of himself "he never gets them."
"Hmph." I said as I shrugged my shoulders and put on the headgear and the 16 ounce gloves. I put my mouthpiece in and stepped into the ring.
"You want to finish out the round?" the boxer asked.
"Yeah let's go."

We touched gloves and began to spar. I jabbed, jabbed again and threw my cross. The boxer slipped the bunches and bobbed then came up into my body with a flurry of punches. The four plus punch flurries would start off being defended but one or two of them would always seem to slip in and whack me. I went back to my two punch combos, my fanciest assault was a one, two, three the third punch being a mixture of a hook or a long left uppercut.

My opponent came in with another flurry. I put my helmet on and tightly covered my head but became quickly confused and fustrated as punches came in from nowhere, my hands moved to the side and I recieved a uppercut right into my nose. My nose seemed to move back into my brain and when it came back down due to gravity's desire blood started dripping down as well. I took off my head gear and walked into the bathroom where I inspected my gusher. It wasn't too bad. I stuffed some toilet paper into my nose and put some vaseline in my nose to make it more difficult for my nose to bleed.

"Did you get a lot of nose bleeds when you were box sparring?" I asked John a boxer at the gym turned desk clerk.
"Yeah I used to get them a lot, your nose hurts real bad, but after a while your nose ends up getting conditioned and it quits bleeding as much."

After my nose quit bleeding I stepped back into the ring and sparred some more. This time I moved around a bit more instead of trying to go toe to toe with my opponent and moving back and forth in a straight line. One of the things that unnerved me though was my ability to move to the right against my opponent without it being dangerous. In muay thai moving to the right against an orthodox opponent is like moving into a right kick. Ouch. Maybe its the same for boxing in that you're moving into the right cross, or hook but it doesn't seem to be as nasty.

The other thing about boxing that I don't fully understand is bobbing. While I respect a boxer's ability to bob and weave its something even when box sparring specificially I never do. The sheer thought of bending over while fighting someone scares the shit out of me. One of the reasons not to bend over and bob or weave in muay thai is that you'll get kneed in the face rather quickly. I'd rather put that off for as long as I possibly can.

For whatever reason tonight after coming home from the gym I feel a little depressed. Maybe its all the blows to the head, or maybe its that I just didn't feel like I was giving it my all or something. I'll go back tomorrow and try to train harder.

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