Friday, August 29, 2025
Coach and Ben in the ring
Coach brought a fruit cup to celebrate getting back together after my surgery
Coach Izzy and TA ended 2024 with 3,686 rounds sparred. We sparred 425 rounds in 2024.
We started our workouts in September 2015.
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Friday, April 25, 2025, was a good day at EKF with men who work out on Friday with Coach.
Warmups for starters, lots of reps.
In the ring for mitt work
Mark and Ben, Rocky and Scott
Coach in the middle
Action picks up with 2-minute sparring rounds
Rocky and Scott
Ben and Rocky
The group, minus Coach
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Sparring at the 1.8.7. Boxing Club on March 6, 2024
Coach Izzy brought some members of his IzzyDuzItFitness boxing team
to Gym 1.8.7. on March 6 for sparring.
Benjy ready to roll
In the ring
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Coach Izzy & Allen, 2023 and before
January 2023
February 2023, with Boxing and Masculinity
March 2023
April 2023
May 2023
June 2023
July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2022 -"I AM 76" (and I am!)
November 2023
December 2023
Back to last year: September 2022
We get to 2,700 rounds
Coach becomes a grandfather
My boxing book comes out, dedicated to Coach Izzy
October 2022
Birthdays
May 2022
Earlier pictures here
June & July 2022 fights here
July fights at 1.8.7
January 2021
Looking back to 2020
IzzyDuzIt Boxing was featured in June 2018 on the
4BoxingNews.com website.
"In the end, our winner was once again the aptly named Bull?s-Eye Original BBQ Sauce. This moderately sweet, tomatoey sauce offered just enough
Always honored to salute my great boxing coach,
In July 2016 we hit 300 rounds, having worked together about 8 months. Called for a cake.
I started with Thursday night and Saturday morning boxing classes. The fitness class on Thursday was tough but gave me a chance to get to know Coach Izzy, and soon I switched to working in the ring with him as my coach. We started sparring Oct. 22, 2015, 3 2-minute rounds.
By the end of 2015, Coach Izzy Gonzales and I had gone 93 2-minute rounds. That's a lot of sparring! Thanks to a great coach!
Andrian and Allen @ the EBC December 2014
July 2014: Photos by Andrian
Pictures from my work with Coach Mark Carlson in August 2013. Photos by Mark Carlson.
For a while in 2012 I trained with Pete Spengler at Studio 360 in Lincolnwood Here are pictures from 2011, my early days at the EBC, working with Coach Mark Carlson, below right:
2 June 2019 - May 8, 2022
Coach, Leo before Leo's fight
Start of the fight, and between rounds
Gavin, from the old days at EKF (left, picture from 2017)
The team
Runs in the family
June 2022 fights
June 12: Leo's fight at 187 Boxing in Chicago
Leo and Coach before the fight
Leo gets the Win
More pictures at here
May 25: IDIF boxing team, Paolo's farewell
Recent Loyola University graduate Paolo in the center, next to Coach Izzy
May 6: Leo's fight at Lights Out Boxing
More pictures at here
March 15, 2022
January 4, 2022: our last day in masks
Starting 2022, 2,418 rounds and counting
We had 2,021 rounds in the books to start 2021 and ended the year
with 2,418 on December 31. Our 2021 in pictures:
April and May 2021
June and July 2021
August and September 2021
October and November 2021
Back to October 2020: Mean Feats
A lucky day for me in the ring, sparring Oct. 23, 2020
These 3 pictures are about 15 seconds of boxing. Most of the other 17 minutes and 45 seconds didn't go so well for me.
October 2020
Coach Izzy & Allen back to sparring
We resumed twice-weekly workouts June 13, 2020, with our sparring count at 1,865 rounds. We began sparring in September with 2 2-minute rounds, then 3 2-minute rounds. By October we were up to 5 3-minute rounds, and our count stood at 1,887. By the end of the month we up to our usual 6 rounds and had 1,927 rounds in the bag. It took time to get used to double masks, but we adjusted.
We are grateful that Coach Tony and Coach Taylor keep EKF fitness-ready, and I am grateful to my terrific Coach and boxing brother for all he does to keep us safe.
Here's our history 2015-2020.
And . . .
Excerpt from "Boxing and Masculinity," my August 2020 talk to the International Conference on Men's Issues.
Excerpt from Boxing and Masculinity: Fighting to Find the Whole Man, my book-in-progress
Looking back to the good old days, starting November 2019
Coach Izzy, Allen, and Dee (left) and Cleveland (right)
August 21, 2019 
Aug. 7,2019
Coach Izzy and the IDIF fighting team ·
Bronzeville, July 28, 2019
King of the Jungle Tournament
The team getting ready for fights in late July Representing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, July 13
and at HyperFight in Schiller Park June 1, 2019
Coach Izzy & Allen, going back a while now
2018
1. Our 2018 round count
2. Boxing at Cubanofest 2018
3. Coach Izzy on 4BoxingNews.com
4. Golden Gloves
2017 Christmas BBQ & our famous shirts
More 2017 pictures
600 rounds
2016 Coach Izzy and I get to 300 rounds
2016 pictures
2015 From the Evanston Boxing Club to Extreme Kung Fu
EBC closes
Random EBC shots
2015 start at EKF
2011-2014 My early days
at Riis Park Aug. 10-12. On Saturday, Aug. 11, Coach and I sparred 3 rounds.
On the left, it looks like my right upper (black shoes) is lifting Coach (white shoes) off the canvas, but don't you believe it
Above, looks like he missed me, but don't believe that, either
Coach figures he won & who am I to disagree? It is always an honor to get in the ring with this great fighter, but this time we did it with fighters and coaches and a few more bystanders than we have at EKF.
Congratulations, Coach! Great to see you and your boxers getting this attention.
Round Count
At the end of 2018, Coach Izzy & Allen had sparred 1,367 rounds. Pictures below start with January 2018.
We started sparring in Fall 2015.
900 rounds January 2018
We pushed the number to 1005.
After #1000
1100 rounds June 26. Right: June 30, 2018
Coach likes his new shoes
Pictures from Sept. 11, 2018 
Oct. 9 
Oct. 30 
Nov. 24 
Dec. 18: 1361 rounds
Pictures from 2017-18
July at EBC
EBC December
St. Norbert's
Corpus Christi, TX
At Studio 360
Visitors boxing
Pros at the EBC
Round count at EKF
300 rounds July 2016
400 rounds October 2016
500 rounds January 2017
600 rounds April 2017
700 rounds July 2017 (start 3-minute rounds)
800 rounds October 2017
2017 and earlier at EKF
would be good to give him my favorite flavor, Bull's Eye Original, along with a T-shirt to associate a great coach with a great brand.
Below, left, coach is suggesting the approximate
area where the hot sauce will stick.
spice and smoke,
producing a well-balanced medley of flavors with no specific flavor dominating. Our winning product was delicious and versatile,
and it wasn?t too thick or thin. We?ll be using this palate-pleasing sauce all summer long." (Quoted from www.cooksillustrated.com.)
Noveber 2017
Coach Izzy & Allen (& Gavin)
Pictures from Nov. 17, 21, 25, 2017
840 rounds and counting
Coach Izzy and I crossed the
700-round mark July 5, 2017. Then we switched from 2-minute rounds (doing 6 rounds per session) to 3-minute rounds (4 rounds per session). We did 5 3-minute rounds for a couple of sessions, and then moved up to 6 3-min. rounds, twice a week.
Pictures above August 2017.
Here's Coach Israel Gonzalez with some members of his boxing team (September 19, 2017).
July 2016
Thanks, coach, for making it real. 
Shots after sparring at Extreme Kung Fu @ 5951 N. Clark, Chicago.
Pictures from 2016
April 3 
May 3 & 10 
June 7 
July 26 
Besides having a lot to learn about boxing, I have a lot to learn about posing for boxing pictures!
Aug 2, 9, & 30 
Sept 13 & 24 
Oct 11, 18, 22, & 29 
10/18/2016 a lucky day for me, actually landed one!
Big fun & bragging rights, small cost. Coach says I hit myself with my own gloves, but . . . .
Other pictures from 2016
May 2016 at EKF
Starting at EKF September 2015
Boxing at Extreme Kung Fu @ 5951 N. Clark, Chicago.
When we started out, coach had a "dry" look at the end of our sessions (upper & lower left), but not any more.
Boxing at the Evanston Boxing Club 2011-2015, four great years
One door closes at the EBC, another opens. The Evanston Boxing Club closed at the end of July 2015.
Here are some of the last pictures I took there after my last workout with Andrian.
And here are some
workout and coach pictures around the EBC that I took in my first years there, 2011-13.
February 22, 2014, was one of many Fight Nights at the EBC. Loyola Boxing Club founder Ryan Motzel sparring, below.
In December 2013 I stopped in Northfield, MN, for a short workout with Gordon Marino at St. Norbert's College.
Marino is a boxing correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
Summer 2012: work with Mark at the EBC, a clip I put up on YouTube. Go here:
Adventurous in those days, I went to Corpus Christi, Texas, in November 2012
to meet boxing coach Rafael Davilla and boxers at this gym there.
In August 2011 I helped some young visitors from Prague into gloves.
There were some great pro boxers at the EBC.
They included Russell (Rocky) Fiore 
and 
Paul Littleton. That link shows Paul in an amazing video.
You can find them both on Facebook and
at BoxRec--Paul
and Russell (requires login, but it's free).
