Sharla's Log

[Sharla]

Wednesday Night Boxing

This will be changed to Wednesday night Judo after the bout this weekend but for now I have to show up at the boxing gym every day this week just to let the coaches know I'm there and fit and well still.

Coach Arthur apologises to me because he can't make it to my bout. He has a wedding to go to which is fair enough - it's not like he can tell all his friends months in advance not to schedule their wedding day on the same day as the state titles - we don't even know the date that far in advance so it'd be pretty difficult!

Coach Paul is on holiday in Thailand with Kristine. Which leaves coach George to look after me. he is already nervous. I can see him already terrified for me. I'm just glad I'm not as nervous as him!

Stretched, Warmed up with 2 rounds of skipping, 2 rounds of footwork, 4 rounds of shadow and did 4 rounds of pads with coach Arthur.

I was happy with my speed especially for the shadowboxing. not so great with the padwork but this is the first time I've done padwork with coach Arthur so i guess I'm not fluent throwing the combos he wants just yet. Still he said it seemed fast and working well and he was happy with me.

Caught taxi home (bus there from field site). I'm starting to feel the positive effects of tapering and hoping that by Saturday I'll be the human equivalent of a jelly bean!

Thursday morning

30 min jog very similar to yesterdays. Back not complaining as much as it was last week so i think going easy for a while is helping. Didn't want to get out of bed to do it but caught some extra zzzs on the bus out to field trial site. Not soil coring this week - just scoring plants for maturity so it's not heavy work luckily!

Thursday Night

2 rounds skipping
4 rounds padwork with Coach Paul

He and Kristine have just returned from the holiday in Thailand and I get to see some really cool pics of tigers etc rather than do a long session. Paul makes me feel confident when some others can't. It's good to have him there!

[Bomp]

Good luck for the weekend .

[Sharla]

Thanks Bomp CC - can't decide whether to be excited or nervous but hopefully I'll be hyped tomorrow night

[Sharla]

Friday

Off - tapering. Did try to stretch a bit. Spent some time in the spa since I weighed myself on the aquatic centre scales to double check in case my own were out. Sleep the night at mums so I could have a lift to the weigh-in in the morning first thing.

Didn't eat or drink much all day - a little paranoid about being over. Scales can be out by 300 g so easily!

Saturday morning

Weigh in - scales were out - but light! I was 53.3 kg at mums before leaving and weighed in officially as 52.9!!!! They had fruit at the weigh in and I'd taken some very weak sports drink so started on that as soon as i had weighed in, go checked by the doc and then left.

On the way home we called my mum's partner who started making me breakfast. He's great for my mum and makes a huge effort to do stuff for the family and this was no exception! He's also a very tall, large German guy - so I came home to a LARGE German breakfast when I really would have been better off having a few smaller high carbohydrate meals that my stomach could handle after having a limited intake for the past few weeks. Still I had missed food and firends had commented that I needed 'eye fat' because my eyes had sunken in from making weight so I put in a good effort at breakfast .

Brace yourselves - this is what I ate and I am a bantamweight female .......

4 rashers of bacon,
3 fried eggs,
3 mini croissants,
2 pieces of toast,
3 servings of fried mushrooms,
1 whole tomato sliced and grilled,
2 sausages,
a few helpings of mixed diced mushrooms, onion and bacon fried.

I can't say i didn't eat anything else for the rest of the day either and i tell you my digestive system didn't know what to make of it but the taste was almost worth it - I'll just save the gorging for post competition next time!

Saturday Night - Fight Night!!!!!

I won 15 points to 2. I have so much respect for my opponent because she had about half my experience and was very, very brave. At times i think i should have fought with a little more tempo but didn't have the lung capacity. Might be coming down with something or just too full of greasy food

I am happy with my mental preparation though. I was more aware of what was happening in there than usual and less nervous. What made the difference for me was thinking that really everyone who steps into the ring is a winner because it's such a big thing to do - also that my main goal is to improve and competing is only one part of that so winning isn't everything. That allowed me to just think about what I was doing rather than fearing failure which tends to make me freeze up with nerves.

It's true too - Omar was at the fights and wished me luck - one of my big goals will just be to learn to spar guys like him better even if i know that I'll probably never be able to woop him - I'll always have something to aspire to with guys like that to challenge myself against.

Coach Paul came back from holidays just in time to be in my corner which was great because coach George HATES it. He was the second for the bout but severely unhappy about it! He did say it was the best he's seen me box though - i think because he's more into seeing a bit of power and rational thought rather than a lot of energy without much focus or direction which is my usual style!

Coach Paul hasn't always been able to be consistant in his day to day coaching. Other things in life interfered with that which I guess you can expect but DAMN he's good to have in the corner - made the fight so simple for me!

My opponent was a very good sport and I suspect I'll be seeing her again sometime. It's was a good night . My mum dazzled everyone with her huge lung capacity - including her partner who now knows what i mean about "you've never heard my mum yell!" My bro came straight from a wedding in a taxi to come watch me - he looked pretty formal compared to the average spectator! He also has a strong voice but really no one can yell like my mum can - NOONE!

Sunday

Off watched my teammate compete and he won which was great - he won by 3rd round stoppage. Did really well. Also a few of Rods boys did well. I liked seeing some of my sparring partners win titles the night before because I knew it meant that I'd had quality sparring and it made me feel more confident. Also Omar was introduced to the crowd as 4 time South African Champ and a Commonwealth Games representative. S**t I'm blessed with sparring partners!

[The_One77]

sharla, may i ask...
what made you start boxing?

[Sharla]

I have older bros and have always been a bit competitive in nature. Plus I've always been into being fit etc.

My uncle had a stroke in his forties which rendered him paralysed over half his body vertically - he was told he'd have to stop drinking and smoking by a doctor before it happened but he continued anyway. Seeing all his drinking buddies stop visiting him, his wife have to give up her business to become his carer and resent him for it, his complete in ability to communicate and care for his kids - put my entire family off smoking forever. I've never smoked anything.

There was a kickboxing gym close to my university so I went there for a bit of fitness, distraction from uni and a challenge. I soon got hooked enough to compete and thought I was pretty good. Then I took a boxing fight to get my bouts up and was totally wooped. I've been trying to learn to punch properly by sticking to straight boxing ever since.

[Sharla]

Monday

Lunch jog. Only 30 minutes. Will have to start picking that up again!

Night Judo

Was good - still too technical for me to be aerobic yet but gave me a muscular workout. A few good drills for balance too. It might help me learn to fight well moving forewards too since at the moment I can move backwards and fight more easily. Had fun - might be able to join in with the main group more in a couple of lessons. Most difficult thing at the moment is remembering everything!

[Sharla]

Tuesday

Boxing

3 rounds skipping with 10 secs on (sprinting), 10 off and then 15 on 2 off for the last round. This was more difficult for me than i think it should be - will have to include more intervals in everything for a while to improve my recovery after sprint efforts.

Partner footwork with Kristine 2 rounds

Partner shadow sparring with Kristine 3 rounds

Partner drills another 6ish rounds. Worked on parries, improving reaction time, when we got to working speed together well it was fun. All very light - I left my mouthguard in the bag I took to the fights on Saturday!

5 hard rounds on the bag. Felt sluggish and unfit. I felt so much fitter just 2 weeks ago - I don't get it - maybe I tapered too much?

Balance work and abs - did ab work in between 3 rounds on the medicine balls, 2 rounds and the wobble board and one trying Scraps diagonal movement drill. Felt awkward doing that in any direction other than diagonally foreward to the left! Will have to work on that more! Also realized tonight that I've only been walking the medicine balls foreward all this time so started to walk them backwards. Why did I not think of that before - what a ditz! I guess eventually I'll try sideways too but for now learning to do it backwards is enough!

Wednesday

Lunch run, jogged to oval, 10 minutes jogging backwards, 5 forewards then 4 X 400m and 4 X 200m hard intervals with 100 m walk recovery between them, jog backwards about 8 minutes to cool down. Again not feeling as fit as I should. Noticed heart rate was low while warming up but still felt like my lungs weren't opening up enough - maybe something like asthma? I have been known to get asthma if I've had a bad flu or been stung by a bee (am extremely allergic) - but it's not something i usually suffer from although it does run in my family.

Wednesday night Judo

I kind of felt like I wanted to go to boxing training instead because that's still my favourite but going to Judo has the effect of making me appreciate my boxing training more. I'm actually looking foreward to a normal boxing training session rather than feeling it's something I have to do which takes up every evening.

I'm getting better at being a good oki - person to practice throwing etc. Falling safely is becoming natural. Apparently that's the main thing i should be worried about at the moment. I asked Leonard for a booklet of the throws and holds to help me remember them but he said I'm not allowed to have that until I get my green belt. Safety falling etc comes before learning techniques until then. I'm happy with the way I'm getting the concepts and feel the different ways I have to use my bodyweight. Some things are pretty foreign but a lot of them make sense in respect to experience I already have from boxing and other sports. I like that I'm forced to bend at my knees more (which I'm slack at doing in boxing) and still be aware of how wide my feet are and whether or not I'm on my toes.

Cycled there, got a lift home

[Sharla]

Thursday Lunch Run

It was raining in the morning so I wasn't tempted to go out and do this in the morning - let a few little sneezes serve as an excuse - like what if I'm sick and running the rain makes it worse - pathetic I know but did a reasonable session at lunch.

Ran about 15 minutes to warm up and then did the Monaghetti fartleck. That is the following in hard intervals with the same amount of recovery jog time before the next hard interval - about 45 mins in total - ish.

2 X 1.5 mins
4 X 1 min
4 X 45 secs
4 X 30 secs
4 X 15 secs

[Sharla]

Thursday night boxing

3 rounds skipping - 10 secs on, 10 off for the first two and 15 secs on. 5 off for the last one. Plan to pick this up to 6 rounds because it's giving me a different cardio workout than I get from running at the moment.

Footwork - 2 rounds

Shadow - 2 rounds

Kristine shows up - partner footwork 2 rounds, partner shadow sparring 3 rounds

Then did about 8 or 10 rounds of partnerwork working first and second attacks off of slips, blocks or parries trying to get reaction speed and speed and balance overall better. Felt good. Noticed to begin with slipping left to avoid her cross I'd move my head too much more than my left foot and be off balance for my counter but fixed that and got a bit more power and balance in it. Kristine is good to work with for this stuff!

Did some balance work on the medicine balls but only a couple of rounds since the gym is empty and Kristine is locking up. Walked Kristine to Paul's place before cycling home - she's had car trouble and it's not safe to let her walk alone. Cycled home. Had to dodge one guy walking with a group, who decided to charge at me with a shopping trolley - luckily he missed and his mates didn't catch on to the game until I was long gone. I won't miss cycling home late at night!

Friday

No run this morning - packing - am moving house - little stuff today and big stuff tomorrow. Hope to get something in sometime though - maybe at lunch today. Am excited because I'm moving close to the gym and the aquatic centre so training will be easier to organize - weights and swimming in the mornings, boxing at night and still get home reasonably early so can spend less time cycling at night!

[Sharla]

Moving is a crappy, crappy job. This is where my training begins to fall apart - when big things come up in other areas of my life. I'm not a very organized person although I'm trying to improve that I still find myself in a mad rush fairly often.

No training Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Packing, moving and unpacking. I need to get the new place in respectable order since I am interviewing prospective flatmates this week plus need to clean up old place ready to hand the keys back. Still have more to do but made a pretty big dent.

Monday - went for morning run - just over 30 minutes. Good thing is I'm starting to feel like a runner again for the first time since returning from my knee injury ad managed a good pace.

Wanted to train at night but was at uni until after 9 pm (under the pump there too) and had to clean up more when I got home (meeting a potential flatmate today). I'm a little worried since I've got a match to compete on the 4th of November and really want to be in heavy training now but hopefully things will be calmer next week!

[Sharla]

Tuesday

Slightly better - but not much

Went for run at lunch - about 40 minutes. Running pace feeling good still which is nice - wasn't just a fluke. - Although I have been told that if you do well you shouldn't consider it a fluke but if you do badly sometimes you can consider it to be just a bad day since you'll get sick and be overtrained etc but unless you're on illegal performance enhancing drugs you won't have a good day by accident!

Boxing at night

6 rounds of skipping - 2 mins with 1 min break
1st - 5 secs hard, 15 secs easy
2nd - 10 hard, 10 easy
3rd - 15 hard, 5 easy
4th and 5th - 10 hard, 10 easy
6th - 5 hard, 5 easy.

Am finding 5 secs easy and 15 secs hard is still too long a sprint and too short a break to recover and keep my sprints all as explosive as I'd like. The 5 secs hard and 15 secs easy is a bit too easy but probably still beneficial and 10 secs hard, 10 secs easy is about right.

Then did 1 round footwork, 3 shadow, 3 floor to ceiling ball, 3 bag and stretched.

Was a shortish session since I had to meet prospective flatmates both before and after training. Hopefully I've found one as long as he can come up with the bond money. Still have to clean up other house and still under the pump at uni though so may still have a crap training week!

[Sharla]

OK been awhile since I updated this so I'll try to remember everything but I've got a bad memory so there are definitely no guarantees.....

Wednesday - skipped Judo - did all nighter at uni to catch up on stuff.

Thursday - think i ran - think?? Went to boxing at night - shortish session though - bringing in 6 rounds of skipping. Realized that all this time I've though our gym bell was set for 2 minute rounds with 1 minute breaks and it's actually 3 minute rounds! No wonder when i counted the rounds etc I couldn't work out where all the time went!!! i think I also paced myself in my last fight for 3 minute rounds instead of 2s!

Did some back weights etc and ab work but still not fully into weight training again yet. partnerwork with Kristine is going well. Still working on decreasing reaction times and feeling more stable with blocks and parries and stronger in attack.

Friday - boxing but no time to run. Spent all day cleaning last house and after a few years as a share house with people who came and go leaving stuff behind there's an awful lot of crap there! Got to work with coach Paul a bit tonight. Felt good. It's been a while since I've been able to work with a coach in a way that has me reacting to their actions and I really enjoyed it.

Saturday - Met Kristine at my gym in the morning - did another good session - first half partnerwork - then Paul came and supervised us for sparring. We went fairly hard and it went well. Only thing i want to work on is sidestepping more to the left when she's throwing flurries - sometimes she can follow me to the right and since she's taller and stronger i can only backpedal for so long. I also need to get more comfortable with using blocks a bit. I do it in partnerwork but in sparring i just opt to get out of the way all the time which might not always be the best option when i need to get in. Overall good though i think - for the first time right hooks are coming off and i never used to throw them - was taught that they are not a punch originally but i am finding times when i can use them even if my elbow isn't a 90 degree angle and it's followed by a step to the right.

Again warmed up with 6 rounds of skipping with timed sprints - it's getting easier which I'm happy about! Don't feel so bad now i know I'm doing 3 minute rounds aswell! I was worried for a while there!

Saturday Arvo

Assumed sparring at Rods gym in Somerton was still going. Cycled there only to find it wasn't on and cycled back. Very hot day and total cycling time turned out to be about an hour and 40 minutes so i guess it's still a workout.

Sunday - off - completed last house moving crap by sorting out the boxes piled in my room so i can move in there. Did sort out a lot of sports stuff i own and FINALLY made up some resistance bands to hook up to the post on my bed. One to go to my rear ankle and the other my head as per Scraps training methods!

Monday - went to wrong building for a conference and then had to go back across town. Messy. then had to buy an ironing board for new flatmate to use (i don't own any clothes requiring ironing) in my lunch hour so couldn't exercise in that either. Wouldn't be too good trying to rock up to a conference sweaty anyway. Conferences are the one time i am expected to look half respectable!

Monday night Judo. It's making more sense. I find the human movement physics very interesting. I'm getting that I need to strengthen my lower abs and to be able to hold my hips to prevent falling foreward in many cases which i also need to be able to do particularly for foreward movement in boxing. Might be why I struggle with this more than backwards movement since when you move back your punches are pushed forwards while your body moves back and they balance each other out.

There was a really buff chick there from interstate tonight who is on the national team. She was heavier than me but a real buffinator - i really must get back into the weights! I'm jealous!

Tuesday morning - 1 hour jog/run then some ab work and dumbell back exercises.

[Sharla]

Tuesday night boxing - Warmed up with Kristine because she's there before me and I'm running late because of conference. Did partnerwork footwork for 2 rounds, then partnerwork shadow sparring for 3 rounds, partnerwork single punch drills with defence - your turn, my turn stuff for 2 rounds, then i did shadow and waited while Paul spoke to kristine - they came in with the announcement that paul's bro is having twins! Then on that happy note Paul supervised us for 4 rounds sparring. Need to get my tempo up but am happy with sidestepping. Still need to be careful my guard doesn't get messy. i follow her punches too much to defend them when i really need to let them come to me! Then 3 more rounds with straight one, two combos - need to keep crossing hand from getting a bit wide so it's not countered with a jab.

Finished with 6 rounds skipping as on other nights.


Wednesday Morning

Went to the aquatic centre - did back weights - dumbell rows, seated supported rows, chin ups plus hamstring curls with machine and with fit ball. Then 30 minute swim. plan was to get through weights faster and then have longer for swim but with back muscles fatigued and not having swam for a while it was still work!

F***ing bee has been sitting on my top on the line outside since yesterday. Wanted to take it off the line but it was there last night, preworkout this morning, still there when i got back - little Ahole is staking me out because he knows I'm extremely allergic! They really do hunt me down I tell you! That has nothing to do with my training at all but i'll mention it in case i end up in hospital any time soon - it was probably my fault because I've seen him!

[Sharla]

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!