When I first looked across the ring at my opponent she looked much bigger to me. I thought she was taller and her legs looked big, but once we met in the middle to tap gloves I saw that she was not, in fact, taller than I am. I was totally preparing to punch up by a few inches. In our first little clinch up she turned to the side and I clipped her head with a knee. She was pretty horrified by it and stood there rubbing her eye like it was poked and the ref wasn’t sure what that was about so he gave her a second – not sure if he counted. But I went to the neutral corner in case. She moved around more than my previous opponents have, at least in more directions than just straight back and though I was mentally concentrating on stepping in for my kicks I just wasn’t getting close enough and initiated them from WAY to far back. Den scolded me and we’ll definitely work on that more this week.
When I had her against the ropes a few times I was telling myself to jump in with a knee or a flying kick or SOMETHING – the way you stand on the edge of a diving board and your head is screaming “jump!” but your legs just don’t go. Gotta just go for it. But between the rounds Den told me to elbow and knee in the clinch, so when we clinched up again I threw an elbow down as she was dipping to the side and I got the back of her head. She was totally again horrified and didn’t really acknowledge me when I went over to say “sorry” and “thank you” after it was called. I understand how pissed she must have felt – my elbow hurt because I didn’t hit right on the bone and I can only imagine how much it hurts her today. Could have been me though – gotta prepare for everything.
I’m happy to have used elbows again and very happy to get to tell Master K it was an “Elbow KO!” I told Den as he was taking off my wraps that I want to fight again this week. He said, “OK, Friday or Saturday, I’ll tell you on Monday.” So, back to training.
(For a longer post on the experience of this fight, see my blog)
The Whole Fight
