Vicissitudes continue

The battle goes on.

My main sparring partner and I have been banned from unsupervised sparring at our gym after he leveled me with a body shot. To be fair, we were going hard and it was an ugly scene. We weren't wearing any sort of chest guards (generally required) and it happened in full view of the parents watching the kids doing their Tae Kwon Do (probably should have been practicing in side room out of sight). The result is essentially no opportunity to do any real intensity sparring.

and then...

I fell while practicing on a concrete floor and really banged up my elbow. Swollen for a while now, doesn't seem to be broken, but hurts quite a lot.

But I am not giving in, and I am scheduled to fight on October 18th in the Battle of Baltimore Tournament's continuous contact sparring tournament. Not giving up.

Two and half hours...

of Muay Thai and Jujitsu and my attitude is much improved.

Doubt

Well, the 26th is off and after much rigmarole. The promoter seems to never have been able to really get the other guy to commit and he indicated he was out a week or more ago. But he was sure he could find a fight for me yet. What followed was a litany of increasingly inappropriate matches ranging from very young to fighters 20 pounds above my walking around weight. All of these proposed by someone who was a bit sketchy to begin with. So finally on Saturday I just cut him loose and said I wasn't available for the 26th. Honestly, if he came back with another proposal I would not be surprised at all.

So where does this leave me, the short answer is: in doubt. What is clear is that there aren't many potential opponents who are within even 15 years of my age especially once you narrow the field by weight and experience. It probably reflects my disappointment more than reality when I say that I feel humored by my trainers (look at the old guy, that's kind of funny that he thinks he can fight) and slightly hopeless of ever getting a fight. I am even considering an exhibition with a younger fighter just to demonstrate that I can stand in the ring and perhaps generating some interest. On the whole I am not at a real high point just now.

How I am training

With the fight to give me focus, I have pushed up my training time and intensity to about as high as I can without taking time off from my day job. It has been around 15 hours per week, generally broken down to into 3 workouts per day with one pre-dawn, one at lunch and then the evening. On a typical day this has included running (either hills outside or interval sprints on the treadmill, on one day both), kickboxing (either bag work in the gym, or Muay thai classes at BBMAC, plus some other stuff), a circuit of calisthenics and stretching (either on my own or in a "boot camp" format with a group in the park). Every seventh day is a rest day, and a needed one, as I have very little left by day six.

Hungry all the time, but feeling fast and strong.