As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Poking Out the Eyes of Unhappy People with my Umbrella... Tuesday, April 16

When I woke up today, everything seemed so different and, despite my limited amount of sleep, I felt great. 

Yesterday we had officially announced our boxing club's name and the weight of keeping it a secret was now off my shoulders.  I woke up to Snickers kissing me on the nose and saying "Good morning Coach Amy", to me.  I laid there watching him as he got up to put some Adidas boxing trunks on and then get ready for what was expected to be another long day of grueling renovations.  He said he was going to quickly shower so I rolled over and clicked on my phone to check up on Facebook.

The first status update that I saw was something about the Boston Marathon but as I scrolled down I saw more and more mentions of it.  Within minutes I had learnt what had happened and my first reaction was to be so completely angry.  I sat up in bed and whiped my pillow across the room.

When Snickers returned from his shower to find me frowning and a room full of scattered pillows, I told him what had happened.  "Stupid parade peeing people!" he said.  This was his attempt at using an idiom I had taught him the other day when we were talking about how unhappy people hate to see happy people be happy.  "They always want to pee on someone's parade" was what I had tried to make him understand and was what he was trying to say but "stupid parade peeing people" worked too.  I understood. 

What happened today was terrible, no doubt, but I felt so angry for the marathon runners.  After months of grueling training and all that hard work, their moment to shine that was definitely deserving was totally robbed from them.  The awesomeness of this high level marathon will forever be changed.  It will never be the same and thoughts of the bombings will always be in the mind of those who participate in the future ones.  

Another friend had noted once on her wall, "If you think there's no goodness left in the world, attend a marathon" and though I used to agree with her having competed in such running races, surrounded by cheering strangers that all want to help push you to the finish line, I couldn't help but mumble a slapstick sarcastic remark as I thought of her comment today.  Those runners were robbed of all the glory they should have, could have and would have experienced today if it weren't for those "stupid parade peeing people" as Snickers put it. 

In a way, I too felt robbed actually.  I had anticipated waking up and writing something about waking up as Coach Amy of Hulk's Boxing on my Facebook page but when I read about the Boston Marathon, I almost felt it inappropriate for me to be all happy and positive.  The stupid parade peeing person who had peed on the Boston marathon runners' parade had peed on mine too. 
"That's a lot of pee", Snickers commented. 

Stupid parade peeing people ultimately became the theme of today, evolving into us referring them to "Triple Ps".  When K-Gere installed our first official toilet, Snickers yelled for me to come to the bathroom and see.  "Triple P's can put their pee here now!" he said.  It was his attempt at making light of the situation that had shocked everyone today and I appreciated that. 

I wasn't a participant in the Boston Marathon but I definitely felt angered for them and robbed too.  I wanted to bask in the glory of today me being Coach Amy of Hulk's but had initially thought it first inappropriate considering.  The best revenage against these Triple P's is to show that you're happy and their attempts at killing your happiness had failed, so for the second part of my day I really tried to focus on that. 

And then it happened... a moment that changed everything and made everything feel real.

Yesterday I had handed over our sketches for our four boxing ring corner poles and today we got word that they were done.  I jumped in Lady Ghini (our new van) and headed over.  When I stepped out of the van the workers had started to bring our ring poles out of the shop.  They laid on the ground starring up at us and there was a moment between Snickers and I and those four massive poles. They there were, my sketches but in a physical form that I could touch.  Our dream suddenly felt so real.

We were so completely excited and overjoyed.  It definitely was a Kodak moment, for sure.  At 60kg a pole and only Snickers and I loading them in and out of the van, they were a challenge but we had so much adrenaline pumping through us they could have been 600kg for all we cared.  We stopped by WOW Motors on our way back to Hulk's, to show the WOW Motors President our ring poles.  He shared in our excitement by pretending to spar with me in the parking lot. 

Everything is coming together and it's happening so fast...

TENTITIVE SCHEDULE:
Wednesday
make our boxing ring
send all our stuff to the printers

Thursday
wallpaper and stickering gets done
all our boxing equipment arrives -- 45 pairs of gloves, 10 sandbags, etc...

Friday 
entire club gets cleaned
crossfit and weight training equipment comes -- kettle bells, medicine balls, dumbbells, barbells, holders
monkey bars, smith machine and cable machine get set up

Saturday
we put the flooring down
bathrooms get done

The plan was to clean, do the flooring and then bring in the equipment but we ran into difficulties with the scheduling of all the crews -- these four days involve a total of 9 different crews of workers, not easy making the schedule fit everyone's own schedule!!! 


I'll end this entry with a funny line a friend told me:
I'm ok with you trying to pee on my parade if you're ok
with me poking you in the eye with my umbrella.

... take that Triple P's.  Stupid parade peeing people... use the toilet!

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