Had my first boxing session at Dreamland yesterday. I've been writing about this place in my training log since 2007 so it's been a long time coming.

As usual, I was the biggest guy in class, but also the oldest. The instructor was super young, possibly still in his teens. He was also really quiet and it was hard to hear him at times. Worse, he was on his phone while we were doing drills instead of monitoring everyone and handing out tips. First impressions are important.

Started off with 3 rounds of 3 minutes skipping rope to warm-up and then moved into minimal contact sparring: only the shoulders and...knees???...could be punched. This was fun enough. Compared to the last time I sparred someone in Muay Thai, I was working angles a lot better and cutting guys off who kept trying to run. 

 For the next drill, one person held a punch shield and walked their partner down while the other moved backwards while striking. After a few rounds of this, the direction was reversed and the striker moved forward while the defender moved back. We had an odd number of people so I switched off between working with the instructor and just hitting the heavy bag. Everyone rotated partners each round and I kept asking to join with people, but for some reason I was relegated to either the instructor or the heavy bag the whole time. 

Ended with 1-2s that escalated up to 6-punch combos (1-2, 1-2-1-2, 1-2-1-2-1-2, then back down the pyramid) and then some push-ups.

The only advice I got the whole time was pivot directional changes faster and throw jabs off the pivot. In truth, my legs were sore but that's MY problem so it was a sound tip. Afterwards, I stuck around a little longer for open gym to hit the bag some more.

Definitely been to gyms with a better atmosphere. It felt like everyone was just in their own shell to get through the session instead of working with each other. Looking forward to working with a different coach this Friday.