On Handwraps

So I was talking to someone who I really don't want to see breaking their hands the other day, and getting lyrical about the dangers of punching someone in the face/stomach/ribs/shoulder without adequate padding. And then, inevitably, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about handwraps.

I've been spending a lot of time in fight gyms again recently. And something that happens when you're in fight gyms a lot is that you lose that crazy enthusiasm for getting in, killing yourself the entire time you're there and getting out. You need to stretch properly, warm up properly, warm down. Otherwise you'll get injured. And so what if it eats into your training time? You train enough.

Anyway. Part of this preparation is putting on handwraps. You do it after your skipping, sometimes after your shadowboxing, but before you put on the gloves and get ready to hit gloves/pads/faces. Doing it properly, getting it tight, supporting your wrist and protecting your knuckles takes practice. And although some people talk while they're doing it, some retreat into themselves, thinking about the things they have to practice, the things they have to remember, the people that are about to try hitting them in the head. It's the time when things in the gym go quiet, before the shouting and the whappings start.

I've tried meditation before. I've even done it with Shaolin monks. But there's something about putting on handwraps that centres me like nothing else.