Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Sierra
Never had I ever thought I'd be so sore in these many places. An ice bath, a deep tissue massage, hell, even a shot of rum would have been nice right now to numb me from all the pain. Call me grateful, but I was almost thrilled that Josue’s plan was not for me to train every day.
Even my muscle’s muscles were on fire. At this point, even my hair follicles hurt.
The only other pain that rivaled it was giving birth, but even I only saw myself doing that only once in my lifetime.
His training schedule was every other day, but it’s probably been long overdue that I got myself handed to me by just the basics.
Me winning my last four fights really had me thinking I'd become a stronger opponent, but truthfully, had my coordination and stamina had been tighter, I would have won those first four.
Currently, my biggest invisible challenge was meeting the requirements of his meal planning.
Pasture raised organic eggs. Grass fed milk.
Wild caught sockeye salmon. This damn food budget was too expensive for what I was bringing home from the diner.
Who the hell could afford to eat like this?
The shelter provided three balanced meals to anyone who was staying there, but between work, transit time, and training, I barely had time to even take advantage of it.
Most days, I just had a salad at work. Or if something was going out for the night, and they were just going to throw it out, I brought it home in a doggy bag.
That shit came to bite me back in the ass when I had my first weigh-in, and I'd been eight pounds over.
I had to be more strategic about what it took to make weight.
I’d put my body through it, struggling with postpartum. Juggling between straw weight and fly, all while trying to breastfeed. Not only did I feel like I was destroying my body, I had no energy to fight, which in hindsight, was the reason I lost so many in the beginning.
Realistically, bantamweight was easier for me to maintain, because I'd always been a sturdier girl, and while it meant less fights, it was better for my mental health.
Every once in a while, I had to remind myself my reason for doing this. I just had to keep my head up and remember who I was fighting for.
His weekly plan was to get me sharper on my speed and coordination.
Day two, we worked on hand speed and rhythm, and as a warm-up he had me going three rounds of jump rope, something I truly hated.
The combo work we did with pads made me realize just how fast he was.
His combo game was sick, and it was tripping me up to match his pace.
Or maybe it had to do with how I found his dark eyes so intrusive.
Intrusive wasn't even the right word…beguiling was more like it.
Before I met him, it was easier to just think of him as a fighter.
But to witness someone this focused in live action?
It was hard to ignore how fine he actually was.
I'd always been a sucker for big brown eyes, and there was something about his that truly bore into my soul.
The scar over his right eye took away the symmetry in his face and features, but for the right reasons, it added a brutal ruggedness that kept him from looking too pretty.
A girl like me would take interesting over polished any day of the week, and while height wasn't a huge factor to me, being a fighter, potential partners did tend to masculinize you. Didn’t matter if it was a woman or a man.
Him towering over me reinforced the idea that I loved a taller partner, because it made me feel small for once.
“?Hazme caso!*” he instructed, as he pointed his middle and index finger towards me and redirected it towards him.
“All that shit you see happening around you, nada de eso importa*! You get a big fight, bells are ringing, crowds are screaming at the tops of their lungs. ?Concéntrese*!” he commanded, my knees weakening at the times he spoke Spanish to me.
I understood it better than I spoke it, but he put my mind at ease when he didn't push or overcorrect me when I tried.
I really wanted to improve my language skills, but when native speakers over policed my pronunciation or my misuse of a word, it just discouraged me from even trying.
I'm glad that wasn't the case with him. If he said something to me, he didn't stop to ask if I understood; he just assumed I did, which was more encouraging than most people knew.
He did have a pushy side; he wasn't lying when he said he wouldn't be gentle, but that was a good thing.
It meant he was taking me as a mentee seriously.
Day four, we worked on footwork and coordination because his goal was to help me move fast without losing balance or power from my blows.
We did drills that insanely made me want to kill myself, featuring agility letters and cones.
By day eight we were going over sparring, applying everything I'd learned over the week, focusing three but working up to five strike combos. By the end of the second week, we'd ended training with a second weigh-in, the scale moving only a mere four pounds from the last one.
“This doesn't make sense if you're eating right and resting, that last five pounds should have come off easy. Yeah, sure, it's good to lose it slow, but it might help if you start cutting weight.”
“Cutting weight?” I questioned, hearing about it, but never putting it to practice.
“Cutting weight is when you cut down on your body weight quickly.
The beginning of the week, you load up on water.
By the end of the week, you bring it down to zero.
During the week, you sweat it out. Plastic sweat suits, time in the sauna, force your body into flushing mode to shed the excess fluid your body is holding on to.
That also means low sodium, which shouldn't be a problem if you've been eating according to the meal plan I gave you.
“I mean, I diet and fast sometimes,” I admitted, but to him that wasn't enough. He led me to the gym’s sauna and told me to get comfortable.
“Now I'm not gonna lie to you, cutting weight ain’t easy, nor is it fun.
Hell, I got a lot of bad memories doing all the shit I used to do to make weight, but we're gonna do this at least an hour a training session. And eventually work up to longer.”
“We?” I questioned, as he took off his shirt and took a seat. Holy hell, he looked so sexy with all his tattoos on display.
“Yeah, this shit fucking sucks. You think I’m gonna let you do this shit alone? Now, come on. Let's get started. You got a long hour ahead of you,” he commanded, as I took a seat on the opposite side and tried my best to relax.
Josue sat there, a mix of discipline, patience and calculating.
It was evident he had done this so many times, and in just thirty minutes it was obvious that this was only my first. One minute I felt perfectly fine and then the next, I didn't. Instantly, the space around began to spin, as I lost sense of my balance and felt myself going down.
The last thing I remembered was being shaken, as in and out I blinked to see the coach above me yelling to get help.
As my eyes peeled open, the next place I found myself waking up was in a foreign hospital room, an IV attached to my arm and coach nowhere in sight.
* Listen to me(like, “Pay attention)
* None of that matter
* Focus