I made the mistake in my early 20s of sparring with a big 14 year old football player whom I thought was 16. It was fun but later I thought - he was a minor. That wasn’t ethically or maybe legally right.
Fast forward 6-7 years and I sparred with an 18 year old and 19 year old - a couple of times one Summer. Both had been co-workers.
The 18 year old was not sure at first but ended up being a lot of fun to glove up with.
We got together several times. A younger guy can be as much fun to spar with as a peer.
I think that I made a convert.
The 19 year old had worked out more, had large-ish pecs and claimed to have had karate training.
He was about 5’6” and and 135 pounds. Liked to think that all if the younger female staff loved him. My long-time boxing partner - an older, in-shape gay high school teacher was there that night.
(He told me later, that he might have seen Randy in a high school study hall a few years earlier.).
We 3 were going to round-robin spar. Randy - the kid - had no style, no training, no clue. He had the body. My tanned, more muscular partner went easy on him for 3 rounds.
Then we sparred 3 rounds on my deck with Randy watching. I guess that us older guys hit more often and at a faster speed.
When my turn to box with Randy came up - he was surprised at me. I was a different guy from my work image.
We sparred only 2 rounds before he said that he was too tired to continue. So we stopped. We never sparred again.
Randy was one of the few guys that I think that I would have really liked to have popped in our makeshift deck “ring”. Just a blustery kid. A prick, though.
In his early 50s now - he finally seems to have grown up.
I still wish that I could have gone tougher on Randy. Still would have boxed again with him.
BilBeaux (0)
2018-04-20 00:23I made the mistake in my early 20s of sparring with a big 14 year old football player whom I thought was 16. It was fun but later I thought - he was a minor. That wasn’t ethically or maybe legally right.
Fast forward 6-7 years and I sparred with an 18 year old and 19 year old - a couple of times one Summer. Both had been co-workers.
The 18 year old was not sure at first but ended up being a lot of fun to glove up with.
We got together several times. A younger guy can be as much fun to spar with as a peer.
I think that I made a convert.
The 19 year old had worked out more, had large-ish pecs and claimed to have had karate training.
He was about 5’6” and and 135 pounds. Liked to think that all if the younger female staff loved him. My long-time boxing partner - an older, in-shape gay high school teacher was there that night.
(He told me later, that he might have seen Randy in a high school study hall a few years earlier.).
We 3 were going to round-robin spar. Randy - the kid - had no style, no training, no clue. He had the body. My tanned, more muscular partner went easy on him for 3 rounds.
Then we sparred 3 rounds on my deck with Randy watching. I guess that us older guys hit more often and at a faster speed.
When my turn to box with Randy came up - he was surprised at me. I was a different guy from my work image.
We sparred only 2 rounds before he said that he was too tired to continue. So we stopped. We never sparred again.
Randy was one of the few guys that I think that I would have really liked to have popped in our makeshift deck “ring”. Just a blustery kid. A prick, though.
In his early 50s now - he finally seems to have grown up.
I still wish that I could have gone tougher on Randy. Still would have boxed again with him.