Bee was gone this morning but I'm not taking that top off the line just yet in case he's crawled inside or something sneaky little B*****d!

Wednesday Night

Conference finished a bit early which meant I was able to get to the boxing gym at 5 and since Judo is nearby and starts at 6:30 I could do both - even if it's only a short boxing session.

Boxing gym is relatively quiet at this time so it's a good time to hog the ring with individual exercises. I didn't want to do anything which required wraps either as would take up too much time to wrap up etc.

Warm up - Usual 6 rounds of skipping. Did 3 minute rounds but reduced break to 30 or 40 seconds in the interest of time.

One round of footwork by the bell (3 min rounds with 1 min break). Then used break to swing arms around to help warm up, then did 1 round of normal shadow sparring.

Grabbed timer. Set it for 2 mins 20 - so can wait 20 secs to start round and it will go off after 2 mins of work - then i reset it so i guess I end up doing about 2 min rounds with 25 to 30 secs break.

Got into the ring and did 4 rounds blindfolded.

Then 4 rounds on the medicine balls (took shoes off), 3 rounds on the wobble board still with bare feet - felt it in my calves more than usual - perhaps because i had bare feet - or maybe I wasn't doing it properly before....?

Then did 4 rounds partner shadow sparring with Kristine and cycled to Judo.

Judo is good but I'm still a complete twit (100 %)here which feels weird compared to how I feel at boxing (only 50 % twit)!

Warm up is fun but I'm pretty sure I'm doing half of it wrong especially the weird push ups where we have to swing our legs all over the place between each one. Still getting dizzy with the rolling but not as badly.

The beginners coach takes me and we go through all the 5 throws, 2 hold-downs, 1 escape, 2 arm locks and 2 turn overs I've learnt. One of the other guys helps out so I can see things done more rather than just either being oki or the aggressor. It's good. I get squished in the hold downs and am getting an idea of how a judo bout is a contact sport because before getting squished I didn't really appreciate that. I am squished a bit but not hurt so it's all good.

Afterwards I ask Leonard which muscles you use to stop yourself from being pulled foreward. It's my theory that if I strengthen those then I'll have better balance moving forewards and I won't fall into my opponent - which I've being doing in partnerwork drills where we throw jab cross in your turn my turn fashion to practice keeping the punches straight and tight and defending against them.

What follows is a Biiiiiiiig discussion. Being into Judo Leonard is very into what makes for balance and power and how to break it. I'm a bit shocked at his level of understanding of that as it applies to boxing - it's better than mine - despite the fact that he can't box he still understands WHY you usually finish with a jab or another punch after the cross and WHY I feel more power moving in throwing diagonal right cross versus a parallel one and WHY I come up too high on my front foot when I'm throwing jab crosses moving foreward with parallel movement. I thought I understood most of this before but I think I missed some of the underlying concepts. being my brother Leonard likes to pay me out a bit - which I'm used to - now he has more ammunition damn it! Seriously as if his ego wasn't big enough! Really though I'm happy with what I think I learnt last night!