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.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Hitting a High Point (and almost the Security man too)... Friday, July 19

It's another Free Train Friday which means it's another Friday of morning visits to various members' businesses and a morning visit from Secom Security.  The visit from Secom wasn't scheduled but it's becoming too overly predictable.  They came in the morning, like I expected and then in the late evening.  I thought two visits was all it'd be but then they came a third time.. and fourth time.  Upon arriving the third time, it was long after 1am and I was at the club alone.  I had the doors locked and was in the bathroom washing my hands when all of a sudden I heard a man yelling out something in Korean.  I didn't know how he had got into the club but I could hear that he was walking towards the bathroom because his voice was getting louder and louder.  Instantly I left the bathroom, lights still on and water running, and then softly shuffled my way to the locker room.  I figured the running water would draw him to it, allowing me to see who had broken in and then giving me the option to either run for the front door or attack from behind.  Turns out it was Secom and turns out Snickers had given them one of our club front door keys -- would have been nice to know before I start planning my means of attack.  I was going to attack him from behind and hog tie him with my handwraps!

We hit a pretty significant marker today -- we entered the three digits with our membership, very cool.  There's always a sense of pride I get whenever a new member signs up and it's someone who originally approached me about the club.  I've been getting such positive responses from the Koreans who visit our club for a tour which is very reassuring to me because it's very demanding on my Korean language skills and my social skills as a club manager/owner.  

I actually ended the day with a total of three new members signing up today, two of which I definitely put through hell and back with a grueling 7 exercise full body circuit -- I call it Thundra Tight & Toned.  But they smiled through the whole circuit and I think they were quite surprised at how intense my "it's only 11 minutes" circuit really was.  

Two more members joined my "40's Club" -- they successfully completed 40 pull-ups on the squat bar rack via different sets of various numbered reps.  Ya, that's right... my members rock!  It's always amazing to see just how far they'll push themselves if you tell them that you believe they can do it -- it's so very cool.  I'll stand there yelling at them, telling them "just one more" and they'll give me that one more.  And then, when they push out that one more rep, I'll clap or yell some more and they'll push out yet another rep sometimes two or three additional ones.  

I love my Free Train Fridays, they're my favourite day of the work week but they're not really free train because I do have specific setup training sessions with various members.  It's just more relaxed and less demanding for me to train all the members though.  I have this pair of university guys I do a circuit with everyday and today they came in.  One of them insists on letting me do the She-Hulk Hulked Out ab circuit, the extended advanced version that's 17 minutes long.  I went through it with him today but at the general level and boy did he work up a sweat.  We made a deal though, the deal being that I'll do the extended advanced version of it with him on Monday.  As for the second part of the deal, we've yet to decide on it but I'm thinking something along the lines of making him call me some silly name, like "Master Abs, Queen of the 6Pak", and curtsying every time he sees me for a week... hahaha.

Originally we were planning to go on our club camping trip tomorrow but it's been a rough busy business week for a group of our members.  They haven't been able to come out to training and today they asked us if we could postpone it till next week, no problem.  Camping next Saturday... just me, three of my ladies, my man, and 15 other dudes.  We've taken on the responsibility of buying the tents with our club money and arranging for transportation but we're maxed out on the going list and more want to come.  We've officially started a waiting list and there's 5 members on it.  This is going to be very cool and we may even take next Sunday off of work so that we can stay at the beach longer.  

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