HOW TIME OFF TURNS YOUR RHYTHM RUSTY

By Angela Chang

You fought and are now taking some time off. Weeks turn into months, and months into years. Finally, the time has come when you tell your coach you’re ready to get back in the ring.

You train hard, make weight, and now it’s time to fight. The first round starts and you feel incrediblyslow. This surely isn’t your first fight, but you feel very slow to react and have trouble finding your distance and timing. This goes on for another round or two before you begin to feel your familiar rhythm flow back into you.

Even if during your time off from fighting you were still training, you may experience something called ring rust when you start competing again. Ring rust is a phenomenon experienced by many when they take a (long) period of time off from fighting and they’re not feeling as sharp as they did when they last competed. They can feel physically slow; feel more nervous than normal; be less...