Really got a lot out of boxing yesterday. After the standard 3 jump-rope rounds of 3 minutes, I used the mirror during shadowboxing to practice keeping a more exaggerated shell after watching an online tutorial and noticing during sparring that I tended to stay too upright when in-fighting. I'm still getting the hang of boxing real close instead of only relying on reach and assuming I'll have that advantage over everyone I face.

Fittingly, I partnered up after with the big dude who made me want to get better at close-range combat in the first place. Practiced countering the jab with 1-2s and other simple combos that started with a left hook.  After we took turns jabbing and countering, we each did a round of non-stop 1-2s rotated with non-stop upper-cuts in 30 seconds intervals. 

We changed partners after this entire medley and my second partner was skilled to the point that we were both a blur when it came to the non-stop 1-2s/upper-cut rounds and our coach came by to compliment us. At one point my red gloves were flashing over his black ones and it looked downright psychedelic, like a kaleidoscope of leather. After awhile of being in a rhythm like this you have to make sure you don't let yourself start thinking, thereby losing the flow.

Back has been feeling excellent, but I don't want to squander that. This weekend I'm scheduled for a heavy deadlift session and I'll be very careful about that to experiment what I can handle. After deadlifts, instead of split-squats I'll either do belt squats or I might just walk away and do the accessory exercises later in the day/the next day. Goal is to not wake-up in pain the next day.