Today was my first proper sparring day, and I felt really good when I arrived at the gym… Today was also one of the happiest days of my life, as I was finally allowed to start telling people that my lovely wife is 14 weeks pregnant!!!! Woohooooooooo……. Congratulations US!!!!!

Andy was running the session, and we started off with a few rounds of shadow boxing to warm up.

After that, the “smaller” group, which consisted of Simon, Steve, Paul H, Sparky, Clint, Thomas and me (apologies if i’ve forgotten someone) got our headgear and gloves on for some sparring. The format is that everyone spars for two minutes, but after one minute you change opponent. This gives everyone a good run, and means it’s pretty much non-stop, which is good when there are so many people.

Sparring started with me versus Simon, and I instantly realised that I am clearly a lot faster, stronger and more confident when hitting an idle bag as opposed to another person! My guard went down too much, and I didn’t get many good shots in. I seemed slower both on my feet and with my overall performance, and Simon got a good few shots in… All I can say is that i’m thankful we were only boxing at 50%!!

After one minute, I was replaced with Sparky, who was also sparring for the first time due to a bad back injury he got playing beach cricket, or some other silly carry on. Sparky also said he felt slow, but I realised after talking to the guys afterwards, that our own perception is always a lot worse than reality, as we only really remember the punches we get hit with, and you don’t really see or remember the ones you land!

Next up was Paul versus Sparky, and they had a good one minute. After that Sparky was out, and it was Clint versus Paul. Clint is scarily quick, but Paul handled him pretty well. Thomas replaced Paul, and Clint versus Thomas was a great minute to watch, as they are both very quick and very evenly matched. Steve replaced Clint, and it was Steve versus Thomas for a fairly evenly matched minute. To complete the circuit, I replaced Thomas and went up against Steve for a minute, where he proceeded to unleash hell upon me. Then the whole thing started all over again, and we each completed three lots of two minutes.

So – the order was Me, Simon, Sparky, Paul, Clint, Thomas, Steve, and then back again, with me sparring with Steve, staying in and sparring with Simon again.

The big lads were up next, whilst we did some bag work. Bruce, Mirza, Matt, Darryl, Mark, the other Mark, Alistair and Jake (I’m bound to have forgotten someone, so apologies) but I didn’t get to watch too much of their sparring… What I did see was good to watch. Bruce and Jake provided the best sparring I think, and Bruce against Alistair was the most amusing, as Alistair fights like Scooby Doo and laughs every time Bruce hits him…. he’s either been hit in the back of the head with a skipping rope too often, or Bruce is going too easy on him!

Overall, Andy did a good job in matching us, as everyone was pretty even. I did feel a little disheartened at the end, having taken a number of good shots to the head and (more painfully!!) nose, but after chatting with Simon and Steve, they made me realise that I was being too hard on myself, and that I did land some good shots after all.

I have a lot of work left to do, but luckily have a lot of time left to do it in. I know i’m not completely crap, but I do know that I need more sparring experience to pyschologically remove the barrier of being fast versus people as opposed to only being fast when hitting a defenseless bag!

I have a nice black eye to remind me to keep my guard up, and as they say, some of the best lessons you learn are painful…. Hopefully these bruises will remind me what I did wrong, and i’ll improve with each session up to the big night itself..

I went home with a bruised head and a bruised ego, but still very happy knowing that i’m going to be a daddy

Yes, it has again been some time since my last blog, but between Chinese New Year and a dose of man flu afterwards, I have had nothing really to report…

I was all geared up for a good session on Saturday, as I hadn’t trained for three days… Unfortunately, it was filming day, so we all had a training session on how to be famous… Topless pictures, interview videos and running when Alexis shouted “NOW” so the Vanda chaps had videos to show how hard our training sessions are.

We started off with an orderly queue being formed at the bottom of a huge staircase by a HDB apartment block – a spot that in the UK would be populated with spotty teenagers drinking cider. Admittedly, we did look like a bunch of idiots, but at least we were famous idiots in some weird shape or form. We had to run up the stairs, two at a time (people, not steps) and the video had to be done on widescreen to get Bruce’s head in the frame. I had my springy trainers on again, so bounced most of the way…. Jim and Bruce had a race, and it was similar to the Hare and the Tortoise, except that it was just two tortoises, neither with any hair.

This is Bruce relaxing after his training.

We did this stair run three times as the cameraman kept ballsing it up, so it did end up being a good workout really – plus I love running up stairs for some bizarre reason.

Next we went to a hill that we had to run up twice for the camera. Bruce also balls’d this up because he ran faster than the group rather than staying in a lovely orderly formation. This is clearly never going to happen in real-life, as shifting that oversized frame anywhere fast requires a crane or an aeroplane.

Then we went down onto Zion Road, where we collectively ran along the road pretending we were training hard. Unfortunately, as we all started to run following Alexis’ “NOW” an old lady was walking towards us and we accidentally scared the bejesus out of the poor old love…. So, we had to do that again as well – this time without trying to scare the poor old’un.

We went back to the gym after this for photos and video interviews, and a few of us splintered off to hit the heavy bag, and do a bit of light sparring.

Thomas and I did a bit of light sparring, and he was a bit rubbish, so I won every round. He asked me to go gentle on him, as he didn’t want his face getting damaged. Thomas also wears foot powder, which everyone should find weird. And it smells so wrong.

After Thomas went off to carry on practising his autograph, I did the same with Steve, who halfway through decided to headbutt me in the nose – a tactic which i’m not sure is allowed….

Between the two, I managed about 8 rounds, and it was good stuff and felt good…

Not a very productive day, although the training gained from all the sodding around with the camera made for a few good runs…. I also made a complete hash of my video which I blame on being headbutted in the nose.

It’s been way too long since my last blog due to work, visitors, sickness and other bullshit excuses I could list here if I thought anyone would actually believe them. Anyway, i’ve been a little lapse, but back to normal from now!

Wednesday 10th was the training session where Alexis was unavailable due to his crook catching real job, so Andy ran the session. Andy told me to make sure I made my blog sound brilliant, but to be perfectly honest I don’t really remember much of it, except for the fact it was all bag and shadow work, and was really knackering, with piles of bodies everywhere at the end. I do remember it being a good session though Andy, so thanks mate, you’re brilliant.

Saturday was another early start, with training starting at Turf City at 8am. Given that I am still experimenting with my Saturday pre-workout nutrition, I decided to try the holistic approach, and dream of bacon, eggs, sausages, hash browns, beans and black pudding instead of actually having anything to eat. This experimental approach meant that I had an extra 15-30 minutes sleep and woke up full. Well, that was the theory anyway, I ended up dreaming of crashing a car or punching a dog or something non-appetizing, and woke up late having turned the stupid noisy alarm clock off.

I drove eight billion miles an hour, and just about made it on time…. The truth of the matter is that my ladies Hyundai Getz rarely tops 60 before starting to rattle, but if I could drive at eight billion miles an hour, it would be dead handy, as i’d get there in under a micro-second. The downside is that i’d probably feel sick, as the G-Force at that speed would explode my head, which wouldn’t be good.

Alexis sent us off for a short run while he woke up with his cappuccino and Danish, so we went for a loop of Turf City, which is about 2km. I had my shiny new trainers on – the ones with the fast twitch springy bits – and was like a speed machine. I ran so fast at one point, that I overtook my shadow. Here is a picture of them before the run. FYI, you can also see the 8 gallon capacity socks here and some damn finely toned pins.

The picture of them after the run got ruined by the flumes of smoke from the trail of fire I left in my path.

When we got back, we did some shadow boxing. Four rounds of two minutes, and I was like lightening! I was so fast, that I actually knocked my shadow wonky! These new trainers are like magic! They make me so fast, i’m actually considering handbag snatching as an alternative career.

After the lightening fast shadow boxing, Alexis split us into four groups. I was put into the special group, of just Michelle and I, called the “pathetic attempt of a man and Michelle” group. We took it in turns to try and box the head of each other while the other tried to block. Jab. Jab, cross. Jab, cross, duck, cross. I practiced my floating like a butterfly in between, but had the prowess of a bouncy hippo with a prosthetic leg (not that I am discriminating against hippos with prosthetics).

After this we spent some time trying to beat the shit out of the big heavy bags. Actually, they are stuffed with clothes, and every now and again nice clothes come out and I wear them home. Not only does this give one the incentive to punch harder, but the excitement of what prize might jump out keeps you going.

The final part of this particular circuit was pad work with the big fella himself. I think this is my favourite part, as it takes more skill that punching a clothes bag. The downside, however, is if you punch the pad wrong, because the fecking pain that goes up your arm is comparable to being struck by lightening on the finger. Not that I know what that is like, but being kicked right up the hole wasn’t a good comparison.

When we had finished these circuits, Alexis realised his watch was on upside down, and that we had time left. He ran off and smoked some pot and came back with a brand new exercise. He tied two lots of hand wraps together, and held them at shoulder height for us to duck under and punch to practise our footwork. We would step under it left, and cross with our right, and then step under it right and punch with our left. This exercise will be really useful if we ever get into a fight on a boat at sea, but I’m not really sure there’ll be much use for it on the fight night! As you can probably guess from my disdain, I was really, really shit at this. I think all the jeering at my two left feet didn’t help, plus the fact that Bruce said I looked like an orange on a toothpick (due to my oversized head and skinny frame). I wasn’t quite as crap as oversized Bruce, who given his lanky mass ended up bobbing like a chicken. Thomas was quite good at this exercise, but then he’s used to going down on things suspended between two men.

The quote of the week, which slightly misplaced here, came from Bruce to me when we were standing in line to make fools of ourselves. “3.5 times the circumference of your head is apparently the same as your height, so you should be 7 foot 5″. I do have a large head, I know….

We did circuits after this, which was 20 reps of pushup, squats, crunches and mountain climbers… no f*cking burpees!!!!! We did two sets of these.

The final exercise was the twirly plank – 2 sets of 10 twirlys. Normal plank position, then twist your arm into the air, so your body is perpendicular to the floor, and twist it around underneath your armpit on the floor. Yes, I have described it as ponsily as it is for good reason, as it’s like watching a bloody room full of ballerinas!

The good thing was that I did all of this on an empty stomach… I’m not sure what the nutritional nuts would say about that, but in previous weeks, i’ve been close to vomiting all over the place due to meal replacements or oatmeal! Maybe attempting to dream of food instead is a better plan? I do know one thing for sure, I emptied the bloody fridge when I got home, so what I lacked in vomit, I made up for in binge eating!

So, fight name… Long story, but during my last campaign for the October 2009 White Collar Boxing competition I chose “The Pikey”…. You’ll surely recall the pikey from Snatch.

Now, I know Brad does look scarily like me, and his body is nearly as finely tuned as mine, but that’s not the reason I’ve gone for “The Pikey”. I got called a pikey because I went on a caravan holiday to Spain once, and i’ve kind of been known as a pikey ever since in certain circles. Being of Irish descent, there are a few questionable family members on my mothers side, but I don’t think spending the week in a caravan in Costa Del Sol really counts, does it? Yes, I did urinate into a plastic pot that flushed blue just behind the headboard of the bed that used to be my sofa – What’s wrong with that?? And there’s nothing wrong with wearing your boxer shorts into a public shower to give them an old rinse after you’ve worn them for 4 days! The truth of it is that I don’t really know why I was ever called a pikey, but it has kind of stuck.

Anyway, fight name is The Pikey. Don’t, however, let the plot of that film confuse you. The Pikey might have gone down on Snatch, but this pikey has never gone down and intends to keep it that way.

So, my first training session where I’m going straight from work, as I relocated to lovely new offices in Changi over the weekend giving me an extra 80-90 minutes commute a day. Deep joy.

While walking towards the car park, the lanky form of one Alistair Looney appeared out of the pavement, so I gave him a lift to the gym. We talked about manly things like gum and sweating, both of which are always entertaining and fulfilling topics of conversation.

Arrived early, which I think disappointed Alexis, as he enjoys barking “Snell – you’re late”. Getting changed out of posh clothing is a pain in the arse, as you have to hang it all up neat and tidy like when you were a kid and your mother would bollock you for having a messy room, and you’d have to hang your school uniform up instead of stuffing it under the bed with the sweet wrappers and stolen stuff.

Went out and did a bit of skipping with the hoserope while I waited, and had to wake poor Alexis up, who was asleep on the weight bench (the first time he’d used that particular apparatus in a while.)

We started our warm up with Alexis handing out hand weights, and getting us to start the usual on-the-spot carry on. My weights were pink which manned me up a little. Bruce also had pink weights to start, but he asked if he could change them as the colour clashed with his hand wraps, so he got green. We buggered around doing jogging on the spot and star jumps for about 8 minutes, and it was no surprise that having a two pound pink weight in my hand felt nothing out of the ordinary. Paul Hodges was back in his sparkly new Nikes instead of the Hi-Tec trainers he bought at a car boot sale, so he was more springy. His weights were pink too.

While we were having our 1-minute break after the warm up, we compared the carpet burns we’d got from that stupid exercise Thomas invented (I’m going to call him only Thomas now, as he thinks he is getting too much negative criticism with all the porn stuff, and especially after Bruce said his fight name should be “the poof” on Facebook). With hindsight, comparing carpet burns is a bit lady like, but mine really hurt, especially when I sweat…. Having just googled “sweating into abrasions”, I was pleased to find 1.35 million matches, although smart arse google did challenge me asking if I meant “sweating and abrasions” which has only 124,000 matches, so google isn’t as bloody smart as he thinks he is. The first match of the 1.35 million was “penis abrasion” which if this is a league table, is quite a concerning number one.

I know it’s quite unforgivable to actually click on this particular link, but I couldn’t resist it (FYI – http://www.cyclingforums.com/health-nutrition-supplements/470496-penis-abrasion.html)

I feel a little sorry for the author who is apparently a light-duty cyclist, who has been riding 6-10 miles in the hot weather wearing his normal clothes, and now has a red stripe “down his gland” that looks like a burn, and it apparently gets worse the further he rides.

Well, with intelligence of that magnitude, I hope it rubs all the way off, and falls down his trouser leg into a drain. Silly shite.

Anyway, I digress…. Next up was our circuits, with this being 15-seconds of push-ups, f*cking burpees, crunches and squat thrusts, and we did two rounds of these totalling 2-minutes. We did 3 sets of these, and Thomas (the fella that is no longer called a porn star) left a perfect sweat shaped torso on the gym floor that resembled Pamela Anderson – you really had to see this to believe it. I’m not allowed to mention his porn star status anymore, but if I still was allowed to, I’d say that that wasn’t the first time he’d had a Pamela Anderson shaped torso under him…. But I can’t say that unfortunately.

After this, we split into two groups – the big fellas on the heavy bags, and us wee lads in the ring. Us in the ring did jab and parry, and cross and block work (basically stopping the other fecker punching you on the nose) and other combinations – we did this for a number of rounds of 2 minutes. I worked out with Thomas, and this was good, as we seemed to work well together, and he only punched me in the head about 5 times. I could see that he wanted to get his revenge for all the porn star comments, but he just wasn’t quick enough to catch my lightening fast bobbing and weaving (a term which up until recently, I thought was something to do with sewing or knitting).

After this we moved onto the heavy bags, where we did various combinations to the clock. Straight jab, jab and cross and other combinations. Alexis kindly pointed out that my jab was like watching my mother punch, which I can’t actually disagree on. My jab, for some reason has become particularly crap and I’m wondering if some of my punching muscles have been damaged by all those stupid burpees and one-armed Rocky pushups we’ve been doing. I may sue Alexis if I can get medical proof that burpees are stupid and damaging.

I’m sure we did something else after that, but I’ve forgotten what it was, and it’s pretty boring to just keep talking about the same set of stupid exercises. The final exercise we did was that one out of An Officer and a Gentleman, which I’m guessing Alexis watched last week. We lay on our backs and put our straightened legs about six-inches off the floor, and Alexis shouted at us about leaving the army. Actually, he didn’t, but it would have been more Officer and a Gentlemanly like if he had. I’m guessing this exercise is really useful if we get knocked out during our fight, and don’t really want to get back up again, but want to let our supporters know that there is no brain damage, because brain damaged, knocked out people will probably have issues positioning their legs six-inches off the floor. Quite smart really.

I finished off with some weights but because I wasn’t using a lot of weight Bruce called me something to do with a small feline which I couldn’t possibly repeat. I apparently have sparrow arms and a sparrow chest, which will be pleasing to all sparrows, but not really a compliment to my slight form. I would say I’m built for speed, but following my pathetic performance with Saturdays sprinting and all my slow twitch issues, you’d know I was a lying little gobshite. I’m built for uprightyness, and that’s about it. I’m a few tattoos short of ever being real hard.

After all that, I went and got changed, and given this was my first straight from work session, I got it horribly wrong. I forgot my towel which means I was a walking sponge (and believe me, I am an unnaturally sweaty fecker – odourless – but sweaty) and I only had my work shoes. So imagine a complete idiot walking around with 8-gallon socks inside my lovely Ted Baker loafers, dripping from all sorts of spots trying to get his rubbish into the car, whilst covering the car seat with the half-torn bin liner (yes, I’m still doing that!). Only when I got in the car did I realise that I’d left my water bottle on the shoe shelf on the Vanda third floor…. Balls. Out I get and straight to the lift because I couldn’t be arsed going up the stairs. Oh, forgot to mention, when I was leaving, the odd ball that hangs around the car park shouting things at people was up at Vanda looking for a car registration plate – I think he wanted to shout at the car.

Anyway, the lift was trapped on the third floor, but I was insistent that I wasn’t going up them bloody stairs in my sweaty gear, my 8-gallon socks and lovely loafers. Five minutes later, the lift started going up, one floor at a time, for about 20-seconds a floor, and gobshite here was still adamant that I wasn’t squelching my way up the stairs. After about 15 hours, I gave in and ran up the stairs, cursing that bollocks the same way as he curses anyone that comes near his car park – I reckon he’s got motor-tourettes. I got to the third floor, retrieved my bottle and started back down the stairs. As I got to the second floor, I saw the mad fella getting out of the lift, and trapping the door open again while he went to try and find this magical car to swear at. I ran into the lift, unjammed the door and pressed all the buttons. I am so bloody juvenile, but it didn’t half feel good!!!!

Up at stupid o’clock after a rubbish nights sleep where I dreamt that on the night of the White Collar event, I have a posh dinner in the ring instead of fighting. A table to ten people, including my opponent, sit there eating posh nosh. Him and I however, are having issues eating this fine feast, as we are still wearing our gloves and headguard. I am weird!!!

I had a Wild Strawberry meal replacement drink for breakfast, which although a refreshing new flavour (as opposed to the vanilla reverse-vomit flavour) was a little hard to stomach at 7am. I really need to stick with oatmeal, but that means getting up even earlier to make sure it settles before training starts…. I also need to do further research into how detrimental a bacon sandwich would be instead of a bloody milkshake wannabe.

We started off with another me-led run, which was luckily familar to Alistair, so the pressure was off me having to remain up front. We went out the opposite way this time, the other way around the old racecourse, where we passed a billion kids all playing soccer and stuff. We ended up going through the gap in the fence again, the same as last week, to the spot with all the horse shit and ceramic toilet bowls (yes, random!) and then back to the gym where Alexis was waiting for us outside.

Next up was some sprint work which i’m really crap at. Apparently sprinters benefit from the fast twitch muscles in their thighs that are developed over years of training. Well, I have slow twitch muscles that have been developed over years of doing absolutely bugger all. We started off with sprint relays in two teams, which my team lost. Then we moved onto a second relay, where we had to sprint out and back 4 times each, with Alexis moving back between each one. It was hard enough doing the sprinting without the road we were sprinting on being as slippery as a greased up fish wearing a slippy coat. Two lots of relays, and my team lost both. No, it is no coincidence that I was in the twice losing team because like I have already said, I am shite at sprinting due to my slow twitch muscles. (FYI, i’m writing this on Sunday, and have just bought some fast twitch trainers that should counterbalance my rubbishness). We were all wrecked after this session, as besides nearly dying with sprints, the heat was mad! And it still wasn’t 9am!

We went back into the gym for circuit work, and a gallon of water each. The circuits consisted of one-handed pushups, which I do have to say are up there in the stupid top-10. Rocky did these in most of his movies, but they were bloody movies! Real people don’t do one handed pushups as they are pointless! Logic would tell you that doing twice as many means both arms are getting the same workout. I have serious concerns that my body might end up lopsided if I continue to do too many of these, like a monkey with a preferred swinging arm or a yob with a preferred vandalism arm. So, there we were, doing one armed pushups. Thomas (the porn star) seemed surprisingly good at these, but then the combination of his plastic surgery and his day job of having to get into bizarre positions probably helped him. I ended up looking like a bloody starfish, and nearly broke my nose when I collapsed on my head after about four of the feckers. Other than pressups, we also did a round of dumbell bendy twisty things, which I was really impressed to hear someone else call them, once again proving that I should write my own dictionary. The final station of our circuit was one legged lunges, which also sound bloody stupid and pointless, but whilst doing them I realised that if I was ever in an arse kicking contest, i’d be the clear winner for having done this exercise! We did three sets of these bizarre exercises whilst Alexis smoked more pot to dream up some more silly exercises.

Next up was shadow boxing for 3 lots of 2 minutes. Shadow boxing is quite weird, as you always feel like a bit of a tit when doing it. I know it is a complete necessity, and I will continue to take it seriously as part of my training, but as my blog is a “thinking out loud and re-inforcing my stupidity to the world” then I need to get this of my ever expanding chest. Shadow boxing is where you stand in front of a mirror, and pretend you’re fighting an opponent. It is something the brilliant Ali did countless hours of proving that it is vital to training. However, when you’re crap and probably not doing it right, it’s hard not to look around to see if anyone is watching you looking like the pissed uncle dancing at the wedding! I need to start doing more shadow boxing, as it’s something I feel I haven’t done enough of this time around.

Next up was that stupid exercise Tommy Porn Man invented and brought to Alexis last Wednesday. The plank-into-pushup position-times-20 exercise, and Alexis made me count out loud for all the class to follow! Brilliant… Not only do I hate this exercise more than I hate piles, I had to keep going whilst shouting numbers! After two sets of this, the wonderful carpet at Turf City had left me with porn star elbows covered in carpet burns! Thomas wasn’t phased, as this is his day job.

A good hard anaerobic workout, and very enjoyable as always.

On the way in before training, I bumped into Alexis who told me he is representing the Youth Olympic Games at the Singapore Air Show later on that day showcasing boxing….. He went on to tell me how much he loves boxing so much and wants Vanda to be the fittest and the best school in Asia… All I can say is that with the passion, committment and drive he never fails to show, I’ve got no doubt that one day he will achieve his dream. What a top man!

My thought for the week is around my efforts to save the planet, or at least do my bit. Working out fifty-eight times a week takes its toll on the training clothes front, and to avoid having to buy another washing machine to keep up, I’m wearing all of my clothes twice. Now, this may appear disgusting, and I was asked by our Scottish-Australian colleague (yes, we’ve got all sorts!!) if I had multiples of the distinct t-shirt I was wearing (I had to tell him the re-wear story) but I’m trying to avoid too much washing so I can stop the ozone ballsing up the earth and killing the polar bears because I like the big white fluffy buggers, even though they serve no purpose other than to define what white really is in the context of animal whitey-ness. I’ve been to many a hotel that tells me to “throw the towels down the toilet if they should be washed, or hang them up neat and tidy if I’m a tree-hugger” (not that I do this with my gym gear) but I’ve taken heed to that message and am doing my bit to save the dolphins choking on coke bottles and all that. Just to clarify your probable belief that I am a smelly bastard, and that on second-wear during a burpee-a-thon that I might get the occasional whiff of myself which makes me want to vomit meal-replacement everywhere, but I’m blessed with non-smelly sweat which means I have no body odour issues. I know this may sound like a load of old codswallop, but it’s true and I’ll happily let anyone have a good old sniff should they wish to try and call me a smelly fecker.

The jury is out on whether I should go for a third, or even fourth wear, so I’ll stick with two for now. In the meantime, let’s all do our bit fellow boxers. Wear everything as many times as possible, especially at turf city where skunks could pole-dance in each corner unnoticed, and help me save those big white feckers from ex-stink-tion.