Here's my article that got printed in this month's issue of 10 Magazine. Note, this is my unedited version that I submitted to them. They picked the following title.
Flipside Fitness and Hulk's Boxing
One boxer's journey turns into a fitness revolution
in Cheonan and beyond
In Cheonan, there’s a name that is often mentioned; a name with which 60+ foreign females already identify—Flipside Fitness. What initially intended to be a social club, providing its members with healthy social alternatives, has grown into an elaborate fitness company—a sisterhood—sponsored by local businesses and international company, Adidas. It publishes its own monthly magazine/newsletter (The Fab Gals Gab) and is evolving into what could be Korea’s biggest boxing club ever.
Flipside Fitness stemmed from a terribly sad but all too real situation -- a young girl discussing life at the foot of her mother’s death bed back in August 2011. The young girl was Amy, a professional female flyweight boxer fighting out of Korea, who had traveled home to Canada to visit her mother one last time before her mother’s fight with cancer would came to an end. After its conclusion, Amy returned to Korea to officially launch Flipside Fitness on October 27th, 2011 in hopes of “being the change [she] want[s] to see” as her mother had advised her.
Flipside first came on the scene with its unique training program that Amy had devised specifically for potential members—boxercise. It’s a group aerobics class that combines the drills, techniques and skills of traditional boxing with the fast pace intensity of aerobics. The boxing club at which Amy competitively trained volunteered its weekend space for her to use. Flipside quickly grew in popularity and membership and, from it, stemmed even more activities and events. Glam Girls Night Out, a semi-formal dinner on March 10, 2012, was the first Flipside Fitness social event and is now an annual favorite. Flipside now includes weekly ROBO Time runs (Running Our Butts Off) and bi-weekly Shopping for Abs (fresh market shopping). Since 2011, Flipside Fitness has hosted 27 fitness-related social events outside of its regularly scheduled activities.
As the group’s popularity and boxercise classes grew, the boxing club could no longer accommodate the group. Flipside simply needed more space, more equipment, and more time than just the weekends. The next logical step for Flipside Fitness was to set up its own boxing club and that’s exactly what is happening in a massive, 200 pyoung building.
In spring of 2013, Flipside Fitness will officially open its club doors for business under the name Hulk’s Boxing. Because Flipside Fitness is widely known as a girls-only company, Amy and her business partner decided to use a different name for the club so that all would feel welcome, beyond just foreign women. Regardless of the club’s name, Flipside Fitness will persist in name and mission.
As for the name ‘Hulk’s Boxing’, it is an adaptation of Amy’s business partner’s professional boxing nickname—the Korean Hulk. Kim Young Bin, Amy’s husband, is a once bad boy street fighter turned pro-boxer and was South Korea’s four-time reigning Super Light Champion. Amy, who is Korea’s former 3rd ranked flyweight boxer, and Young Bin have been the focus of various MBC and Arirang TV documentaries and have earned the nickname,“The Danger Couple of Cheonan” so they are quite the known and respected athletes within Cheonan already.
Hulk’s Boxing will offer members not only boxing, but weight and crossfit circuit training in addition to Flipside’s signature boxercise classes. Hulk’s is a bilingual club owned and operated by foreigner, Amy, and her Korean husband, Young Bin. Their aim to to make Hulk’s an active part of the community; a tool to make Cheonan more fitness- and foreign-friendly; a place where labels like “Korean” and “Foreigner” are replaced with “member;” and a place where equality, respect and unity are the foundation. Flipside Fitness is the result of Amy’s desire to foster change within Cheonan, to make healthy alternatives for others and to make Cheonan feel more like a home for its foreign residents. Hulk’s Boxing will continue this mission on a much larger scale by reaching out to the estimated 9,000 foreigners who live here, male and female, as well as the Koreans and the community as a whole. It will be more than just a boxing club, it will be a much needed beacon of change in Cheonan.
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