Patience

Most personal training sessions include some time with me using boxing gloves and my personal trainer providing the resistance. Apparently my technique has got a lot better. However at least once a week he stops me to refine some aspect of my moves.

Yesterday he felt that I was just swinging my jabs and not going back to my guard in-between. In other words continuous movement, no technique, no accuracy and certainly no force behind the jabs. Or left/right/left/right/left right until I got tired!! So he told me that he would remove the pad and I could only jab when he placed it back in front of me. Left, Right, and I nearly fell over as I automatically moved for another left to find out there was no pad to hit in front of me. Try again - Left, Right....agh I still managed to wobble as I eventually remembered to bring both hands back to guard position. “You need to be patient Alison” he said as he could see my frustration and desire to just get into the left, right, left rhythm. Left, right, (breath) guard. Left, right, guard, left, right, guard.

Slowly I managed to get into the rhythm but something else happened. I realised my reactions were different. Instead of just getting into a rhythm and swinging and hitting the pad because it was there I was waiting until the pad was in front of me and then intentionally hitting it. It was as if the extra time to bring my hands back to guard was enabling me to remember my objective, to centre myself, before taking action again! It certainly gave me a new perspective on patience.