Coaching a boxing club full of members,
most being within the ages of 20-28, is pretty cool. I must admit it. Our members train hard and, when they don’t,
both Snickers and I are more than willing to jump in, yell at them, and push
them to their potential. Yes, I’ve
become a coach that yells. I yell at
them, push them around, make them do crazy exercises, and then I lean on them to
stretch the heck out of them after it all.
It’s not harassment if they like it though, that’s what I say. And no matter how hard I push them or exhaust
them, they come back for more. Tonight I
got all down and silly with my Boxercise Beginners class and, while they were
doing walking sumo squats in between rounds, I thought it’d be funny to dance
up against some of them. Then of course
I yelled at them for stopping to laugh or not going down low enough with their
squats. I am definitely a tough-love
kind of coach but I honestly am so very proud of my members. We’ve got a great crew here and, in their own
ways and at their own levels, I must say they all train hard.
Then I met one that refused to train hard
today. She refused to even let me take a
picture of her for our records – a rule that we started today. All members must have their picture
taken. She didn’t want me to take her
picture and after about 5 minutes of her playing princess and trying to milk
the cute card, I turned to her and said, “That’s fine. You don’t want to take a picture so I don’t
want to train you. Go home.” I was joking but not really. I don’t deal with princesses but if we’re
going to play “royalty” here than I’m the queen and this is my castle. The queen is higher than any princess, so
take that! Finally she agreed to let me
take her picture and then she complained through her whole training.
“You don’t have to be great to start but
you have to start to be great.”
Even after I reassured her that today would
be her worst training session ever because it’s her very first but it’d get
better, she continued to complain. “Suck
it up!” I told her. I stood there
shaking my head at her. It was both a
very frustrating but surprisingly very proud moment for me. She
was possibly the envy of many women because she’s super small and tiny but
she couldn’t do anything remotely close to what the women I train can do, both
the foreign and Korean women I’ve been training. I was proud of those women at that very
moment. Tonight I watched in respect and
admiration as one of my foreign women pushed herself through a very grueling Crossfit
Circuit class. I stood yelling at her,
telling her to envision herself already succeeding with the exercise and she
killed it.
After all the complaining and literally
pushing her do various exercises, she turned around and apologized. That meant a lot to me – it really meant a
lot to me. Somewhere in between start
and finish she realized that she had nothing on the others training despite the
chip on her shoulder she walked in with.
Skinny doesn’t mean healthy, nor is it something to envy. I hope to never be skinny, I’m serious. I think among the foreign women I may be
considered skinny but among my female Korean friends I definitely am not. If anything, I feel very bulky and masculine
in comparison.
Around 10:30pm I got to do my own training
so I grabbed my gear and took over a corner of the boxing club -- two
kettlebells, a skipping rope, and sandbag gloves. Some of the guys who had been training
earlier and were finishing up came and joined me for a bit – my G-Boys, as I
call them. I haven’t figured out just
yet what they think of me as a boxer but they seem to be a fan of my skipping
and in between round weight training work.
One of them tried to keep up with me but stopped. He stood up and gave me a thumbs up, that was
cute.
When all my members had left the club and
gone home, me advising them continued on with messaging some of them on
Facebook, via KakaoTalk and regular messenger.
I knew a few of them had gone out to eat together so I messaged them,
reminding them to eat clean. Others went
home but had had a hard day at training so I messaged some of them to cheer
them up. I’ve been trying to get one of
my favourite G-Boys to stop smoking so I sent texted him, telling him that he’d
be a better boxer if he quit. The
smoking is killing his endurance. He
said he’d quit so I texted him, telling him that I’m going to smell him
tomorrow and check… hahaha.
It was a great day but it was a long one
and when I finally arrived at home, I had forgotten my house key… great!!! Just
great.
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