Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Literal:

I, Alfredo Nunez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

I give credit to my coach, Bernard Roberts (Bernie), for training me daily, and teaching me most everything I know.

The thirty hours of work will be taken from the spreadsheet that contains the hours of mentorship.

During training, I learn the techniques it takes to be a great fighter. With the help of my coach, I do exercises that help strengthen my body, mind, and technique over all. I also often find myself helping the people who are just starting to train with their basics, such as stance, wraps, shadow boxing, etc. I also spar often in order to learn what I need improvement with and how I can become a better fighter.

Interpretive:

 Everyday I go train, the gym opens at Five and closes at Eight, I always try to get there no later than 5:30 and stay from 2-3 hours depending on how demanding the day is. If I spar, i usually try to conserve energy for the spar, as it will be three three-minute rounds (sometimes more sometimes less) of the same stuff i would be doing, only much more rigorously, quickly, and powerfully. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that spars can get out of hand and this is still true, but a spar is meant to train you for the reality of the ring, so trainees often give it most of their all, but slow down when necessary. As mentioned earlier I also help new people with training, I teach them the basic stance of a boxer, and how he or she will move once in the stance and how they must return to said stance to provide balance and a strong base for releasing adequate punches. I have taken videos of training sessions as well as spars, but Blogger doesn't allow me to post them through their site, so I will post them elsewhere and leave a link on this post. I will update that later.

Applied:

With every person I teach, i myself learn and improve my knowledge of the basics of boxing. This is important to understand since a good foundation is necessary to becoming a great fighter ( An idea my coach stresses A LOT.) One example of how the independent component helped me improve my base is: since my coach has slightly more trust in me that most of our "little team" he often sends me to help out new comers. The last was a boy named Brian who had never really trained before and he asked me to train him since he liked how I had taught him at a past time. I taught him how to stand properly and employed techniques mentioned in my research to help him improve his stance. I also showed him the basics of slipping by showing him how to use the rope ( a contraption we have set up in our gym that has a rope that can be moved to different heights) and in doing this I myself caught minor mistakes I was doing in my technique, I promptly corrected them and continued to help him. He now often asks me for help and enjoys learning from me a little more than my own coach.  Training daily helps me get into the groove of the lifestyle that is boxing; one that is very demanding, athletic, and empowering.