When I got out of the locker room, Ray was there by the ring ready to go. In the lobby on the way in I had run into Ricky, who owns Go Time along with his buddy Chad, and he'd read my last Ring Notes Blog . I welcomed the attention and the readership, but I was a little worried about mixing boxing and blogging, the unwritten codes do not overlap exactly. What would Ray think about being turned into a cross between Sonny Corleone and Angelo Dundee?
He started by
wrapping my hands . I watched closely, trying to learn. There's no science to it, he said. No right way. But then he proceeded to do it the right way. Wrap a tidy base, not too tight, around the wrist. Separate the fingers one by one. Add padding to the front of the knuckles. Separate the thumb. Then add some support to the wrist and wrap it up snug. That's it. Simple as that. Now you do it.
We climbed into the ring. Ray wanted me
to shadow box . I had done some of it for the first time with Jimmy. Ray confirmed the secret Jimmy had let me in on. Good
shadowboxing is the key. You ever heard of Muhammad Ali? Well before that he was Cassius Clay, the greatest shadowboxer of all time. The thing is to relax the shoulders, let the hands go, and transfer the weight. It's all feel. I told Ray it looked like he was emphasizing the hip and shoulder turn. I'm fighting someone, he said. I'm not throwing hard, but there's somebody in front of me.
Ricky came over with a print-out of the blog in his hand and showed it to Ray. I felt the need to explain myself. That's Barry McGuigan. I'll read when I get my glasses on, Ray said. Let's punch some.
Then we were onto the mitts. My left shoulder was still sore from my last time out. Ray wanted to see my left hook and I gaffed it out there and wrenched my shoulder some more in the process. It took me a whole round to start to throw the hook with any kind of comfort. My shoulders wouldn't relax on the jab either. Not bad, Ray said. Keep the feet on the ground and turn the right foot when you throw the right. He showed me a five-punch combination. Ray teaches you a three punch first: jab, jab, right hand. And then you add to it. Jab, jab, right hand, left hook, right hand. My tendency is to come out of the last two punches, to start moving away. Throw your shit. Then get out, Ray said. Throw your shit. Then get out. He said it two times slowly so I knew it was important. Boxing is just moving and hitting. You never do both at the same time. You want to, but it's wrong. The power of the punches comes from being rooted to the ring when you throw. Tall, skinny guys, like me and Thomas Hitman Hearns, can be dangerous if we root down good and use our length for leverage. As soon as you throw your shit, you need to move. Sometimes to get away, other times just to change your coordinates so that the other guy has to re-measure distance.
I didn't ever feel that comfortable on Monday, already thinking about all the stuff I was doing wrong when I was punching. Don't worry about. You're doing better every round. That's all I care about. We headed out of the ring so Ray could show me the bag.
When I went to the heavy bag, I had a revelation about the left hook. Think Rocky now. And hanging meat. You have a meat hook in your left hand and a half a beef in front of you. You have to swing that hook in between two ribs so it digs in and you can move the beef with it. I tried to tell Ray. That's why it's called a hook, he said. He winked at me. I started throwing decent hooks, as decent as my shoulder would allow anyway, since it was a little torn up from throwing bad ones. I remembered how Liston had dislocated his shoulder missing Clay in
their first fight .
The purpose of the heavy bag is to teach you how to measure distance. The bag swings bag and forth, side to side, and you want to move with it so that you are hitting it right at the end of your punches every time. It sounds easy. Boxing, like bullfighting, has a lot to do with gauging distance. Once you plant your feet you can't move. So you plant them where you can be dangerous and he can't. That's the idea.
That was it for the lesson. I jumped rope for five minutes until my arms burned and then I milled around thinking I should tell Ray why I felt the need to compromise the unwritten code of master and student by writing about it. I couldn't figure out how to do it though. Probably thinking too much so I said goodbye and left. Throw your shit. Then get out.
I had my second boxing lesson with Ray Pace Monday. Another chance to build the skill set and to listen to Ray talk about moving and hitting. Learning boxing is like learning to talk to strangers-you already know how to do it just not that well. You won't relax enough to get better at it until you practice, practice, practice. So I was walking the two blocks to Go Time through the frigid temps in my down igloo parka and trying to let my shoulders loose and feel the punches come out of them, but my backpack was digging in and I was keyed up and it wasn't working...
