Thursday, August 25, 2011

“I thought I knew how to Punch”




Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting my brother and his family. During some downtime, I checked out my brother’s garage/boxing gym. For fun, I hit my brother’s heavy bag a few times.

While I was hitting the bag, I heard a laugh from behind me. It was my four-year-old nephew Curtis. He had moved a lighter bag into his range and went to town on it. “You have to punch like this Uncle Henry.” Curtis told me - and then proceeded to show me.

If a four-year-old tells me I need to work on my striking technique, I’d figured I needed to learn how to strike. Fortunately, ECU has regular striking classes right here in Westchester that are taught by professional MMA fighters. So I said to myself, “What the hell?” And started training striking at ECU.

I thought my years of watching Joey Kocur videos had taught me enough, but I was wrong. Jo-Jo has completely transformed my striking – and that’s after only three classes.

It turns out that I really don’t know how to throw a punch.

JoJo patiently guided me through my first class. Since then, I’ve had to learn both how to strike properly, and be an excellent training partner.

But I’m learning quickly. What I couldn’t do yesterday seems easy today.

Imagine what I do will do in a year?

So, I’d strongly suggest that anyone who has ever thought of trying an ECU striking class get there ASAP.