It was a rainy day, a busy day. I had two boxing clubs to visit and no umbrella. Today I was to visit my top pick and another up-there pick -- two clubs located north of downtown.
Visited the first...success. Centre Ring boxing, a boxing club owned and operated by a former Canadian champion, Wayne Bourque. In addition to being a former Canadian champion, he's a 3 time North American native champion and 4 time Golden Glove champ. He was incredibly nice to me and we sat side by side chatting about boxing, his club and Korea. I really got a great vibe from him, loved his positive energy, and I left our meeting feeling supported and excited about the possible potential of this year.
Second club, my first pick -- Atlas Boxing. It is owned and operated by the notorious Coach Adrian Teodorescu and his son Armand. They've trained such fighters like Lennox Lewis, several Pan Am Game winners and numerous Olympian athletes including my former coach -- silver medalist Egerton Marcus.
I liked both clubs, I really did, and I felt incredibly welcomed and comfortable with both, inspired actually and definitely encouraged. Having said that though, just as encouraged they both were to me and how they raised my optimism through the roof, I left one club feeling rather questionable and somewhat discouraged. I didn't expect either or any club to treat me like I am something special, in fact that is kind of the point of me coming here to Canada to fight and train because I didn't want to be centered out and treated differently, but one threw me a bit of a curve ball in our meeting. I won't say which of the clubs and I don't want to speak ill of any club but surely a simple round of elimination and you can figure it out. Both clubs came highly recommended and I know both are surely awesome clubs with qualified, skilled coaches whom I can learn so much from but one left me feeling more like an everyday business transaction than a person and fighter. I can't rule them out just yet, I don't think that's fair this early in the game -- not fair for me or them -- but it definitely made me reevaluate what exactly it is I want in any club I associate myself with.
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