Just Like Rocky

Hoping to mix up my workout routine, I hired this little old man to kick my butt. Let me explain....before the holidays, I had seen Farhad at my gym giving boxing lessons to a couple of rather large men. Looked like fun to me, so I signed up for private lessons twice a week for an hour each. "He's the best boxing coach in all of Azerbaijan," is what the front desk told me. Well, I didn't need that, but heck, let's do this.

The first lesson was a little surreal as Farhad speaks no English, and well, we all know about my Russian language skills. Farhad is almost a foot shorter than me, skin like leather, gold teeth, no hair and quick as a fox. He could pretty much pick any fight he wanted and win.

I was eager to impress, and I was hoping that I had earned brownie points by showing up with my own boxing gloves and wraps. I am positive that my cardio kickbox certification came in handy too. But this was a whole different animal. No wimping out and acting like a girl. No caring about what my hair looked like or if I was sweating all over the place. No excuses, because Farhad couldn't understand what I was saying and he didn't look like a guy who wanted to hear them anyway.

Farhad started me on a light warm-up: 2 laps around the gym, 1 minute of jump rope and then basic punches with 5 pound weights. From there, we quickly escalated into jab, cross, hook, upper on the focus mitts and worked on my technique. Farhad would yell at me in Russian and mimic what he wanted me to do. I think I got the gist of it: my stance was too wide (that's for kickboxing), keep my guard up, rotate all of the way through my hips, punch harder, etc. I'm certain my everlasting smile annoyed him. I was having so much fun and I did feel a little like Rocky, but it's hard to look tough when your gums are showing. In between thoughts of, "how many calories am I burning?" I tried to stay focused as to not get popped by his mitts when I was supposed to be ducking. I considered it a success that it only happened once.

It was even a bigger success when Farhad told me "harisho" at the end of the hour. "You did good." I was proud and already looking forward to the next lesson....as soon as the soreness wore off.