Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bejarano-korea]

As a kid I always had the dream of fighting Mike Tyson in Las Vegas for the world heavyweight boxing title. In my daydreams and the dreams I had as I slept I would imagine myself ducking in and out of Tysons bull like charges using my handspeed and jab to knock him off balance.

The area of England I'm from is a rugby league area, I had the size factor to make a good rugby league forward but had neither the skill or the pace to be anything other than an average amateur club player.

After every olympics and commonwealth games I would get inpsired from what I saw on TV and turn my hand to something unsuitable such as the javelin or speed skating with absolutley no success. Eventually at the age of 18, I put aside my fear of getting knocked out in front of people and went to my local boxing gym.

The gym was situated in a community centre on our housing estate, the trainer Tommy was an old local character who eveyone knew with his wife Teresa being the timekeeper. The gym had me and 4 other super heavyweights and a couple of middleweights, so I had a good selection of sparring partners who could all knock my block off.

First thing I discovered however was that I had fast hands, a good jab and I picked up boxing really quickly. I would speed spar with the middleweights and I was faster than them, I was a big lump so it was a suprise to find this out. The training involved 4 evenings a week down Tommy's gym and 4 miles of roadwork along the East Lancs road every morning wearing a binbag under a Welsh rugby shirt. I was loving it and my dreams of fighting Mike Tyson in Las Vegas were becoming more
clearer.

Tommy decided it was time for my first fight which was going to be held in the local Catholic club near home. It was to be in 6 weeks and I was very gung ho about the upcoming fisticuffs 'get me in there Tommy' and went to tell everyone I knew about my first amateur fight.

The whole thing snowballed as people on the estate would come up to me in the coming weeks telling me they had bought tickets, by the week of the fight I was a nervous wreck, by the eve of the fight I was either hiding under the bed or on the toilet which left a big red ring around my backside.

'Oh why, why, why did I agree to this' I whinged to myself and had thoughts about ringing Tommy to cancel, but I knew I wouldn't live it dwn locally if I didn't make a show so I turned up at the Catholic club for 6pm with a ton of misgivings floating around my mind.

The hall held about 2000 and it was full. As a super heavyweight and a senior I was last on the bill, my opponent was a very tall (about 200cms
or 6ft 6ins in the old money) slim boxer of Pakistani origin who was a good 5 inches taller than me though at 15st 5lbs (214lbs or 97kgs) I was slightly heavier.

I knew most of the people in the hall including the family members who had turned out to see no1 son/cousin/brother/nephew/uncle get his arse kicked. Me and my opponent touched gloves in the centre of the ring and it was off.

Round 1: I was catching my opponent with fast straight rights but I couldn't get my jab going as his reach was telescopic and getting near him was a problem, still his hands were slow and he didn't like pressure so for the start of round two Tommy told me 'to get inside his reach and rough him up'

Round 2: I went out like the clappers and decided to rough him up. He would in return puh my head down and my headguard would slip over my eyes in which my opponent would unsportingly clump me with a short hook. Thankfully, he couldn't break an egg.

The ref ordered us to break and same thing happened again he would grab, shove my head down with his free hand and as the headguard went over my eyes, give me a cheeky whack on the side of my head.

As the referee ordered us to break he scolded 'Any more of that and you are out' the referee said to ME!!!

'What' I screamed 'bloody well tell him' pointing at my huffing and puffing opponent with my gloved hand.

My opponent looked knackered so I decided to steam in and try to finish him off, for the first time I notice the noise of the crowd and they are going nuts. My lanky adversary grabbed me and pulled my headguard
down and gave me a weak tap to the side of my head, he was finished. However the referee pulled us apart and signalled to the judges that he was going to disqualify me!

The catholic club went absolutley off its head and made their feelings known the only way they knew how. Still the next few weeks I got nods of sympathy off the locals whe they saw me on the street.

'Unlucky mate!' They would say.

Losing my unbeaten record in my first attempt was slightly annoying but I was hooked on boxing! next time out was a trip to Liverpool, unbeknown to us all. My older opponent rather than being a novice havyweight like myself was a former world kick-boxing champion who went out and defended his title a few months previous in Australia before switching to the marquis of queensbury rules.

I lasted as long as a sandcastle in a tsunami.

Now I was gutted after that fight because it was so uncompetitive but when the world class kickboxer was exposed as such and was banned from amateur boxing, I consoled myself and decided to carry on. next fight was against a squat tattooed dooman from Manchester who snarled into my face tht he was 'going to rip my head off and shit down my neck'

I went into the ring a bit apprehensive that night, but he was made for my fast straight left and by the start of the 3rd round, his corner pulled him out as his face was a mass of bruises with a swollen shut eye.

Third time lucky! I was chuffed and went home to tell everyone about what happened!

It was the start of a boxing career which I won more than I lost, I have it in the back of my mind to give it one last go (I'm 35 now) Before I get too old. I'm thinking of boxing in the states as a manager in Arkansas called Stacy Goodson has promised me a pro debut on one of his shows in Ft Smith when I have finsished up in Korea.

I think I'll give I go because I'll regret it if I don't, and who knows! Las Vegas might be a reality after all!

Tell us about your sporting dreams and stories!

[VanIslander]

i always played on a soccer team but the summer before grade 11 i decided i wanted to try out for the high school football team with dreams of being a quarterback or linebacker. i was growing tall, 6'0 then, with wide shoulders and long legs and a thrice weekly 10 k run regimen which helped me pursue girls and give me enough fitness to think i might be able to handle a grueling august try-out camp in full padding gear, especially since the coach loved to make guys run laps a lot, which i was ready to handle. in prep for camp i had my weightlifter friend work me through an upper body course, especially shoulders and chest, and practiced the football throwing motion with a 5 kg weight in front of the t.v. (not a dumbell, a corner table, round for the lamp, which balanced nicely in my hand and made for a funny sight when my dad came into the living room and saw me pretend throw the table, over and over and over. when football camp came around the coach was impressed with my throwing ability: not accuracy, but distance, I could throw it farther than anyone, so he said i was "the third string qb" though i made the team as backup tight end and starting defensive lineman. i went home with dreams of hail mary late in game bombs. in the last practice before the first preseason game i braced for a double tackle on a screen passing play, protecting the ball i dug in my feet to take the hit and blew out my knee, costing me half the season injured. but that training and experience served me well when at the beginning of the semester i threw the discus farther than the high school's top athlete, a track and field star. farther! i got a quick rep as 'discus man'. my football throwing exercises also helped in shot put: third in the school. so the track&field coach said i just needed one more event (everyone needed to compete in three) to make the team and perhaps do well in provincials in discus. but... but... with my knee i couldnt run, so all track events were out for that year, including my beloved long distance runs. no long jump or triple jump either. so... that means i just had to show basic proficiency in javelin throw. easy. except try as i might it was wobbly every time. i spent about 10-14 hours trying to throw the dang thing, but i just couldnt get the hang of it. in hindsight i should have asked the coach for out of class lessons instead of trying it on my own, and i gave up in disgust a week later. makes me wonder how i might have done in discus if i'd just found a way to throw the javelin, or if my knee hadnt blown in football. sigh. one wonders

[MollyBloom]

I played division 1 soccer and lacrosse in college...that's my only athletic claim to famer.

[just another day]

was shortstop in hs varsity baseball for two years. scouted by the braves in hs too.

was on my college boxing team, competed at light heavyweight division 1 (club team), i was a slim 165 lbs then... fought two matches record 2-0. quit after i got a neck injury.

played flag football (was quarterback) against a championship flag football team whose quarterback was a starting qb for a top 20 ranked hs team in california. we almost beat them...came REALLY close...

[canuckistan]

When I was 12 my cousins convinced me to try some rodeo riding on a cow in the field next to their house.

That was my first flying lesson.

[tfunk]

I won the egg and spoon when I was 6. My best friend won silver and when we were going up to collect our medals on the podium he pushed me off and I fell and broke my arm.

It was at the age I was due to start school and so I couldn't begin for the first 2 weeks and when I did begin school everybody already knew each other and I was the freak boy with only one working arm.

I still blame that incident for all my psychological problems.

[Are they the lemmings]

I owned first slip. Nine years old: it took four balls to learn what it was about. For the first two, I just stood there like I'd seen them do on TV. Third ball came, a really quick one. Snick! It whizzed between the keeper and I to third man for a boundary.

"Oh, I get it". I shuffled half a pace to the left and waited. Now I'd seen what happens at slip, there was no getting past me.

Fourth delivery: same ball, same line, same length, same snick, but this time it was safely caught. And so began the process of Harsh Bloke's hands becoming known the securest in the land... well, in our age group in that district, anyway. Every edge to first slip was reliably snapped up.

Not long after, I got a call. "Harsh Bloke, you've been recommended for a trial for the rep team. Are you interested?"

Interested? More like destined. What else would someone who was born to field at first slip do?

That fateful day, I showed up at the local domain in my gleaming whites, ready to hold the selectors in thrall with my fly-paper hands. I assumed my place at first slip and, inevitably, it came.

It was a dolly - like those gentle underhand lobs fathers throw to their three- and four-year-old boys to teach them how to catch. It seemed to take forever, and I remember sneering in my mind at the hapless batsman who had ruined his chances of making the rep team by offering such a feeble shot.

The ball continued on its lazy arc. Who would have thought it was take so long for the ball to take so long to travel just a few metres from crease to slip cordon? The keeper and we slips could have held a vote to decide who got to catch it, bickered over the results and had a re-count, and still have caught it in time.

Finally, the pill started to descend in my direction. Out of the corner of my eye, I could detect the keeper. Why was he crowding me? Did he want to take the catch? That wouldn't be a problem; it wasn't the kind of catch that would impress the selectors anyway. Nonetheless, the ball was getting nearer, so if he wanted to take it, he'd better call "mine" soon so I could get out of the way.

His gloves! Did I just see the keeper's gloves? Okay, so he does want it. Fair enough. So, with the ball about 30cm from my cupped hands and on its way down, I pulled my hands away and let it go.

The ball fell to the ground, and took my career at first slip with it. Incidentally, the keeper was nowhere near me. The catch, the drop, the responsibility, the shame and the irrevocably missed opportunity to play rep grade were all "Miiiiiiiine"!

[DRAMA OVERKILL]

When I was 11 years old I took part in an "NHL old-timers vs. select minor hockey league players" game. Standing at center ice taking the faceoff with Guy LaFleur he knocked the stick out of my hand (I was holding it with only one hand waiting for the ref. to come and drop the puck). Upon fetching my stick off the ice and returning to center ice I proceeding to whack the stick out of his hand (which he was only holding with one hand, waiting for the ref. to come and drop the puck). It was beautiful - I really don't think he saw it coming. I didn't do it to be funny, I did it because I was a hateful 11 year old embarrassed by what he had done. An eye for an eye!

[RACETRAITOR]

In school you could either be the athletic type or you could be the smart type. A few athletic guys played dumb and made sure they didn't try too hard in school, and a few smart guys shunned all physical activity altogether. I was one of the latter, just a skinny nerd with glasses.

The only team sport I'd played much of was soccer, which I joined up every year and usually led the defensive line. In junior high phys ed I mostly stayed on the side and looked bored for 50 minutes, except when it came to soccer and football. When everyone chose off teams, I always wound up on the reject team (all my friends of course) and we had the strongest defence. Nobody could get by me in soccer, and in football I would intercept pass after pass from the other team and score a touchdown each time. This happened every year, 7, 8, and 9. Nobody remembered how I was last year, and I still wound up on the reject team who could hold its own against everyone else.

Near the end of grade 8, I was walking home when some of the more athletic kids in my class were playing football. One of them kicked the ball as hard as he could and it landed next to me. They asked me to kick it back, so I sent it up, even farther than he had and bringing it down right at their feet. I heard one of his friends chuckle, "See Jesse, you can only kick as far as RACETRAITOR."

At the end of grade 9 we had our track meet, and the teachers announced anyone who didn't compete in three events would fail PE. First event was the 100m dash. I took my place at the starting line in my canvas shoes and didn't even take off my poncho (which was the style at the time). Everyone was betting on Terry, one of the few black guys in our grade. When the starting gun was fired, I could hear Terry behind me shouting "Holy crap!" as I blew past him and won the race with a strong lead.

Next I went to the long jump pit. My first jump was something like four meters. I was disappointed but everyone told me it was respectable. My second jump was way farther, and everyone stared in silence after I landed. Another first place.

Then the end of the day was approaching and I'd still only done two events. I'd fail if I didn't go in one more, despite the fact I'd already won first in two others. I ended up in the triple jump and biatched it both times.

In high school I took the minimum required PE courses and never looked back.

[contrarian]

I joined the Canadian Army when I was 18. I was into military shooting and I thought I was pretty good. I won the regimental shoot and then Western Canada. The Army sent me to the Commonweatlh competition in England at Bisley.

I thought I was good. Then reality set in. At the end of the day I was 91st of about 450 shooters.

So much for thought of glory.

[crusher_of_heads]

Apart from getting a concussion playing second row in rugby my graduation year, I was playing racquetball out in Thundebird arena with a big lead, when I sprained my ankle. I kept playing, just as any MENSA member would, and as a result I was on crutches for just under 4 weeks. Fortunately I lived in a house that took in 5 renters-2 of which were nurses, so free crutches but more than a few "What were you thinking?" questions.