The irony or freaky in today being called Freaky Friday the 13th that played out today came in the form of three young guys who came to help out with our usual Friday cleaning. All three members were from UP Boxing Club.
As many people know, I used to train at UP Boxing Club here in Cheonan but when we stepped away to build our own club back in December, we were met with an unexpected amount of hostility and resentment. Members I've trained with for years stay in touch but many refuse to have their picture taken at my club let alone dare step foot in it for "fear" of Junior Mint catching wind of them being here.
Those who train together stick together and the relationships I've made with many of my teammates is so much thicker than blood, but what about Junior Mint and others I helped train?! My mind is full of numerous questions regarding them and whether or not I had fancied up us being so-called family in my mind or where we really like family. Were we only family as long as it benefited the club and it's members? I don't know but what I do know is that Junior Mint clearly has some of them on very short leashes and yes, the term leash is very much appropriate here.
I will forever more be thankful for Junior Mint in my life and I still think of him fondly and miss him dearly. Sometimes I envision him walking in our front club doors with that usual smirk on his face. He'd complain that my music was too loud and then hit me on the shoulder. Ahhh Junior Mint, why can't he just suck it up and be supportive?! He's taught me both what kind of coach I do and don't want to be. I hope my members know that at my club, those who train together stick together. If they want to join another club for whatever reason, so be it. They obviously weren't getting what they needed out of ours but I'd hope they'd at least tell me what was missing so that we can improve. We're not about being better than the next club, posing as a threat or competition to others. We're about being the best version of our club.
I debated whether or not to clean the club tonight, like we usually do on Fridays, but then an unexpected cleaning crew showed up. For starters, Germany has been hanging out at our club this week during her visit to Korea, and I initially started training her back at UP over a year ago. Our cleaning kid is actually a young high school guy I used to train at UP too. He said he stopped training at UP because he couldn't afford it so we made a deal with him regarding cleaning out club. Tonight he showed up with two of his friends -- two guys who I also know from UP. Snickers showed up to say hi so there we all were, six of us who all initially trained at UP Boxing. I had a good giggle at this, especially because members have noted in the past seeing Junior Mint walk by randomly around 11:30pm. If only he could have walked by tonight, it was like a UP reunion but now we're all "painted green" so to speak. He'd surely be green too, but not in a good way.
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