In trying to make Hulk's more than just a boxing club we've really tried to make it also like a club house -- a place where members can come to train hard but also relax in and just hang out. A place where members are comfortable, supported and encouraged beyond their training.
A particular group of six members today showed me just how successful our efforts have been when it came to closing and they were still here with us. We had to ask them to leave and I couldn't help but giggle at the irony of the situation. We love our members and really want them to come to our club, whether that be to exercise, hang out or just merely to pop in and say hi, but many of them stay so long. My only concern with members staying so late after training is their post-training meal -- they have to eat after training. We have a large fridge we let our members store any post-training meals in but a lot of the members who stay so long at our club are students. Many of them come straight from school or from their part time jobs so grabbing a coffee to hold them over while they train is usually the closest thing to eating a pre-training meal. Any hope that they've prepared a post-training meal is slim. I'm working on a pre-paid meal plan for our students in hopes of helping them succeed more and get in that much-needed post-training meal.
I've got big plans for our juice bar actually...
- creation of pre-paid post-training meal plans
- addition of extra clean eating goodies
- launching of a bi-weekly/monthly Sunday sit-down member meal at the club
These days I've been trying to through our students various competitions during training and even bribes. I bribed a couple of the girls today, telling them if they trained hard I'd reward them with an Egg Ding-Ding each. They took me up on my bribe. I knew they would too but I also knew it meant my Egg Ding-Ding would probably be the only thing they'd eat after training until they went home.
Three of these girls I bribed with my simple Egg Ding-Dings were among the six that stayed so late tonight. It was after midnight but four of these 6 particular members had shown up at Hulk's at 7pm; the other two had arrived at 8pm. And in their 4/5 hours at Hulk's, we had measured them, trained them, fed them, entertained them, and had even lectured them. They had showered in our facility and then decided to hang out at the juice bar for a couple of hours. When two of them didn't show up at their parents' house, their father came to the club looking for them as did the father of another and a mother of one.
I also find such amusement in having to flick off the club lights to signal that we're packing up for the day. Many of them stay while we shut down everything. Some even run around the club for us -- turning off the lights, putting things away, and gathering up the laundry. Together we close the tall club front doors, lock them and then we usually either walk with them to their cars or part ways at the corner. Those of our members who smoke often leave the club later then us though because they'll sit on our outside stairs smoking. It's always funny having them wave to us as we leave them there.
Speaking of smoking, yesterday I discovered that one of our high school students just recently picked up smoking. I confronted him in the bathroom when I caught wind of him smelling like cigarettes. He's a shy member who really doesn't talk to anyone besides Snickers and I. He's most comfortable with me so I thought I'd approach him about it before Snickers found out. "Why did you start smoking?" I asked him. He didn't have a real answer, he just shrugged his shoulders, so I added "I don't know why you started but I know why you're going to stop -- the Hulk!!"
I remember once, back when we lived at our old apartment. Snickers looked out one day and saw a group of high school boys smoking under the bridge. Next thing I knew it he was putting on his shoes and stomping out the door to confront them so I followed behind. He grabbed their smokes, slapped one kid and then told them if he ever saw them here again smoking he'd slap them all. I stood there shocked, definitely more shocked than even the kid that got slapped. But that's Korea and that's really one of the things that I do love about this country. There's a sense of responsibility and connection among it's citizens and the hierarchy of age means Snickers being older than those high school kids could do such a thing. You wouldn't be able to do that in Canada, surely no. Those five kids would have ganged up on him if he did. I tested out this idea once, the notion of community responsibility, when a month or two ago I spotted some students smoking out by an abandoned building beside Hulk's. I stomped out there, told them to leave and I too slapped one student but only after another had smart-mouthed me. The irony of the situation was the girl I had slapped later became one of my members at Hulk's.
Again today, this young high school boy arrived at the club smelling like smoke. He was able to avoid Snickers catching whiff of his cigarette smell by the fact that I trained him and I didn't say anything to reveal his nasty new habit to Snickers. But when he left for training and dropped his lighter, I let his secret out. "He dropped his lighter" I told Snickers, "... because he's started smoking" I added. I'm sorry but I couldn't resist. I didn't want to get him into trouble but I also didn't care for him to continue his new bad habit. He's been training so hard and working so much on bettering his health for him to just kill it all because of wanting to fit in with the "cool kids". I don't even know if that's why he's started smoking actually but he's young, he's shy, and I'm assuming it is the reason. Regardless of why he's started, I want him to stop. He was almost out the door when I made that comment so Snickers hollered out his name, calling him back in. The two of them talked, well it was more or less Snickers giving him a tough lecture while he stood there looking at the floor, and then he left. "Smell him the next time he comes" Snickers told me. "He better smell like a high school boy!"
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