Cabbagetown Festival Card ~ I Have Been Boxing For How Long?

    ENTRY 464


CABBAGETOWN FESTIVAL

Hey everyone.  It has been a while since the last entry. It is summer, I was busy with a new job, and generally summer is a slow time of year for boxing. However, things are picking up.

September 7 is the Cabbagetown Festival, and as usual, Cabbagetown Boxing Club will be hosting it's annual amateur boxing card.

I have been entered in 175 lbs. class. That means that we are waiting for a response from another coach who has a boxer in the same category.

I have not competed at all so far this year, and I have been working very hard. I need to redeem myself after that piss-poor performance at the Golden Gloves last December in Niagara Falls.

I will admit to picking up a lot of bad habits, especially from the lest gym I attended. I was a better boxer while I was at Stockyards. I left Stockyards for a reason that I can't remember. Then I went to the Toronto Boxing Acadamy which at the time was an Ontario Boxing Association gym. Then I left there when the OBA lost their license, and went to Xtreme Couture. They were terrible, and I ended up picking up bad habits due to poor coaching and their odd training techniques.

One of my current coaches verified that by saying that some coaches don't like coaching Masters, and that has been my feeling all along, and it was nice to have someone agree and understand my position.

The interesting part is the reason I chose to attend Xtreme Couture, and it was a mistake.

"The Heartbreaker" with coach at Stockyards Boxing Club
. ©2017 paulbrec Photography

I was at attending a card at Stockyards as a spectator, and there was a bout between Mike from Xtreme verses Peter "The Heartbreaker" from Cabbagetown. The end result was that Peter knocked Mike right onto his ass in the first round. What did I do? I decided to attend Xtreme. Yeah. Good idea. Go to the gym where the guy got knocked right out. To this day I have no idea why I did that. I ended up going to Cabbagetown anyway, and I could have saved a year by just going there right away instead of going to Xtreme. To be honest, after attending Xtreme for a year myself, I am not surprised that guy got knocked onto his ass. Their training is so screwed right up. I have never seen amateur boxers trained the way they do there.



Anyway, I'm at a decent gym now with coaches that can acually coach.
Thank you to the coaches at Cabbagetown Boxing Club and my fellow boxers who work with me five times a week. If it wasn't for all of you, I would still be full of bad habits.

I hope to get an opponent for September 7, so I can make up for last year and practice what I have learned over the past year, and bring in a 'W'.

Join us at the Cabbagetown Youth Centre on September 7 for boxing in the afternoon and a dance in the evening. In support of the Cabbagetown Youth Centre. Enjoy the rest of the Cabbagetown Festival along Parliament Street all weekend.


I HAVE BEEN BOXING FOR HOW LONG?

You know, I had actually forgotten how long I have been boxing? I have always thought it was six years, but it is actually longer. I found a photo that was taken of me at Stockyards in 2013, and I was at another boxing gym before that. It is actually eight years.
My first bout was in 2015 at Stockyards, before there was a Masters Division in Ontario. I remember wearing 12 oz. gloves, and it felt like I wasn't wearing any gloves at all.
That first bout in April of 2015 is now forever immortalized on the wall of the Cabbagetown Boxing Club in the form of a poster. Right directly next to the men's room mind you, but still...

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--Paul 'The Brick' Brec

LINKS:
MASTERS BOXING ON REDDIT
ANOTHER 'BRICK' IN THE SPRAWL