“There he is!” Yelled some man from across the room. Luke and I had been sitting on the bench outside the ring for about 10 minutes just messing around, we played rock, paper, scissors and had a thumb war. At some point during rock,papar,scissors skip came over and said “Rock always wins.” Luke started laughing along with Jai, James and Beau. I didn’t understand but I just smiled at him and said “Okay” and I gave a little giggle.
The man that yelled came up and went into the ring where the rest of the guys were. I recognized the man, he was Dean’s new trainer. He would call him every day to see if he would come to training that day but he always said no.
“Hey Mr.Doctorow” Dean said shaking his hand. That’s right, he has a strange last name that I could never really pronounce.
“Brock, call me Brock.” He said looking at him, then the other guys who were just smiling patiently.
“Oh this is Skip, Beau, James and Jai. I invited them to train with me today, Skip is a boxer and also Jai and Beau take boxing.” Dean said to the guy name Brock.
“Yup, nice to see you again Skip, and it is nice to meet you Beau and Jai” He said after shaking all the guys hands.
“No sister?” Brock asked, I saw Dean point behind him where I was sitting on the bench. When he turned around and saw me, he jumped out of the ring to come shake my hand.
“Nice to see you again.” He said with a smile
“You too, Brock. This is Luke by the way.” I pulled Luke up and we were both smiling at him.
“Good to meet you.” He said then went back into the ring.
At first he only trained with Dean, having him get back into a regular routine. I watched and before I knew it I was walking around watching every move Dean made. I watched the way he moved his back, his foot work, how he dodged, blocked and hit. It was like we were back at home. I was always a part of training, but here I wasn’t. Brock wouldn’t really let me have any input. Dean was training with a guy who was a little bigger than him and faster. He was older and had been fighting longer but Dean still got a few good hits in. But when Dean hit the mat with a hard ‘THUD’ I started shaking my head back and forth. I walked back over to the boys and said “He needs to change his footing and arch his back more when he goes to block that hit.” I said, mainly to myself but I could feel their eyes on me.
“What?” I said confused “I always went to training with Dean so I know what I am talking about. Watch, they are going to try it again. See the guy goes in for the hit and Dean tries to go to the side and he doesn’t take his size into consideration and how fast he is and BAM.” As I said that Dean was hit and down for the count again, “he is down.” I said shaking my head again.
I looked over to see them all staring at me in shock. “Hey Dean!” Skip yelled over to him, I just looked at him in disbelief that he just would call him over in the middle of training. Dean got up and walked over to us making Brock start fuming.
“What’s up?” Dean said to Skip looking worn out, after all he kept taking that hit over and over again.
“Alex has a suggestion.” He said smiling at me, Dean looked at me and waited.
“Well I can’t really say it, I kind of have to show it.” I said and it was true. Dean is more of a seer that a hearer.
He then pulled me into the ringing forgetting all about what had happened 45 minutes ago, he just wanted to get that move down and avoid getting hit some more.
“Whoa, wait a minute what is going on?” Brock said stopping us both from going any further into the ring.
“She is going to help me get this move down.” Dean simple said moving Brock aside. That was the thing with Dean, he didn’t care what people said or did, I was his sister and if I could help he took it. After all I had been there since day one.
Brock look amused, like he wanted to see me fail. Well that is rude, I will show him amusement when Dean finally get this guy down, and Dean saw the look on Brocks face also, and he didn’t like it.
“Alright, go over the move, but don’t hit him please.” I said to the guy with a nice smile. He smiled back and nodded ‘okay’. They did the move and I watched again and really saw where he messed up. At the end Dean stepped back at had me step in. I saw the guys move to where they could see me better and Brock did also.
“Alright do the move slowly, but don’t hit me.” I smiled at him again. He nodded with a big smile and we did the move slowly. As the guy went in for the hit I said “Dean, you need to move backwords, arch your back more, when he swings you have shoot back up quickly and get him in the stomach. Hard.” As I said the words, I did the movements showing him step by step what to do. We did it one more time slowly and you saw the guys mouths open as I bent backwords and I shoot myself back up to swing but stop before his stomach.
Dean looked at me and smiled. I was looking at him and then I looked over to Brock who was a bit in shock and the guys were all smiling with wide eyes. “Do the whole thing, but not in slow motions and can you hit the guy?” Dean asked, I looked at him wide eyed. I knew why he wanted me to hit him. He wanted to me really prove I knew what I was doing. I looked at the guy and he said “Sure, you can hit me.” He winked at me and I got angry. I felt he thought I couldn’t hit hard and I couldn’t do it, so we did the move.
As we started the move I did everything I showed Dean and when I swung to hit the guy, he was caught off guard at how fast I shot back up and how hard I hit him in the stomach. With the hit he fell to the ground. I felt so bad after and kneeled down to where he was. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry! Are you okay?” I asked feeling horrible. He looked at me and smiled “Nice hit, did not see that coming at all.” He said as he stood up. I turned around to see everyone wide eyed with their mouths open. I looked over to Dean who was smiling proudly. I walked over to the guys and got out of the ring.
Brock was in complete shock as he turned around, “How did you learn to do that?” he asked.
I laughed “My brother is Dean Cobalt, one of Sydney’s best MMA Fighters, there is no way he is going to not teach me how to defend myself.”
He looked over to Dean and he nodded. They went back to training and I looked over to the guys and they were smiling at me. “You rock!” Skip smiled hugging me tightly.
I was laughing when he let go, “Thanks, but I wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t for Dean over there.” I pointed at him as he copied what I did, but you could tell that is was more forceful, and he just did the move better, a lot better. He looked over to me and we smiled at each other and he gave me thumbs up.
After he did the move a couple more times, he finally got Beau, Jai and Skip in the ringing and he went over some stuff with them and fought with them a little to show them how to really use the moves he taught.
While they were doing that, Luke, James and I went to find a class to do or something when I saw them.
It was a little girl and her dad. She was smiling up at him and he was smiling down at her. She had a leotard and ballet shoes on. They stopped at a door and he bent down next to her and gave her a big hug, you saw him mouth ‘I love you’ to his daughter and she walked in. He watched her go in and he turned around and walked away.
I don’t know when but I started crying and I couldn’t stop. The tears just kept coming. How could he leave her? Why did he leave? Why didn’t he want to stay? I don’t understand. Why? Why? Why?
I could feel my pulse jump and I was getting shaky. I was going into an attack and I couldn’t stop it. I knew Luke and James where trying to talk to me but I couldn’t move. I was still standing in the same spot that I saw that dad walk away from.
“Go get Dean.” I heard Luke say, I turned to him and yelled “No! Don’t go get him, he needs to help them train, I can take care of myself, I am fine.” I was crying so hard I could barely see Luke. I finally fell to the ground and wrapped my arms around my legs when I heard someone say “Is she okay?”
“Yeah she is fine.” I head Luke say, but he knew I wasn’t and I knew I was for from okay.
