Fight Night 1

Fight Night 1: I got my ass kicked.

Yesterday was the first night I got to participate in Thursday Night Fight night. Of course the owner of my school, who visits me frequently at Outback, told me the first night I was going to fight him. He is the school's best fighter (hands down). He is a sixteen year old second degree black belt who is very mature for his age and teaches the advanced class (which has upwards of 30 students)

Don't you know I was the first fight to happen last night. He started out taking it easy on me, but when I caught him flinching and punched him in the face he unleashed what I thought was an eight move combo on me. As soon as I blocked a kick, there were three behind it, followed by quite a few punches. I managed to block most of it but did get stuck in the face a few times. I was ducking under kicks aiming for my head and dodging punches by swinging my head backwards.

I was told not to duck and not to dodge, but to get in and hide behind my hands. Lets face it, I was fighting sloppy. The rest of the fight I spent dodging flurries of moves and occasionally landing a punch, but never landing a kick.

I have never sweat so much in my life. And I was physically wasted half way through the fight to the point where I could barely hold my breath and keep moving.

I will need to start running and get my endurance back up. I'll also have to erase old fighting habits of dodging and ducking and learn to either get out of the way or block and counter.

After the fight we touched gloves and he (Kieth) told me I fought good. After class we talked again and I told him I have a lot to learn, and he said don't worry about it, you should have seen me when I first fought.

After that fight I fought a green belt (one belt higher than me). She must have been 14 or 15 years old, almost as tall as me. I really took it easy because there were parents watching, and toned down my speed and power. The owner of the school was barking at me to really unleash on her, and I wasn't about to do that for two reasons, she was much younger than me, and her mom is probably watching.

I ended up fighting her a second time and took the same approach.

Then I fought a blue belt (two belts ahead of me) who is a good fighter, but from watching him for weeks I knew he likes to throw kicks three or four at a time. I kept circling around him and kept the offense going so he couldn't. He was backing up (which is bad, you want to circle around your opponent, not give ground) so I started lightening up. He did throw a few kick combos and managed to land a few unblocked.

All in all it was a blast! I can't wait to do it again next week!