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.

Monday, July 25, 2016

Ditching Physical Training for Mental Relaxation... Monday, July 25

I went to bed early last night but was suddenly awaken by Snickers calling me.

I was then awaken again but this time by Mother Nature.  It was after 5am and a thunderstorm had started.  It was as if Mother Nature was bowling at a disco club -- crazy rumbling thunder and an excessive amount of lightening.  It doesn't really thunder in Korea like it does here in Canada, it's strange but it's so true.  I stood standing on my bed for a solid half an hour, looking out my window, so fascinated by it all and then I went back to bed.

I woke up in such a funk though, hours later, after what Snickers had said had seeped into my thoughts and crept into my dream.

You know when you get into one of those funks that you just can't shake? Well, today I was definitely in one and it was a deep one.  I'm just so tired of fighting.  In Korea I fought the obvious and not-so obvious issues that came with me being a foreigner, an athlete, an entrepreneur, and a wife to a local living in another country.  But now I'm in Canada and fighting a whole other set of issues that come with being back, with wanting to move forward with my life... with me wanting to start a new life but having things from my past life holding me down and bringing me down.

Today I just felt so incredibly exhausted.  I just wanted the fight to be over.

I left my house feeling exhausted, absolutely mentally exhausted, and was totally shocked when I ran into a favourite neighbour of mine -- a super sweetie who is notorious for his parties and the cops showing up to crash them.  I haven't seen since he left to study in Finland before Christmas.  He was coming down the street when he and I both realized who each other was and then it was a series of continual hugs, smiles and high pitched voices of excitement.  It felt so good to see him again.

My high with seeing my friend still fresh in my head, I headed downtown to go try on some bikinis.  Trying bikinis on a Monday, ya, like that isn't the worst recipe ever to start the week off on, seriously.  I tried on about half a dozen bikinis and just looking at them, even before I tried them on, I could hear all the reasons and smack talk in my head as to why I won't look good in them.  I never did get a new bikini.  I'm not a sexy gal who can pull off this cheeky bikinis.  I'm such a jock.  So I convinced myself to stick with my sporty Adidas one and leave the sexy bikinis for the sexy girls who have the curves to rock them and the toned, tight bodies.  I'm too much of a jock to even try to pull one of those bikinis off, what was I even thinking.  Nonsense I tell you.  Flat out silliness.

So no bikini but yes to laps in the pool... well, kind of. 

I brought my funk to the pool.

By the time I did my first set of 20 laps, I was so mentally done.  I couldn't even so much as focus on my form and, well, when you're swimming and lose form it means you start drowning and/or swallowing water.  That's exactly what happened to me.  I was like a fish out of water, struggling.

A local kid ended up giving mad lip to the head lifeguard and, because I was in such a funk, I swam to the shallow end of the pool, ready to jump out of it and seriously hit this kid.  He was a skinny kid, a punk, but there was such a confidence about him as he stood there being rude and cursing out the life guard.  Word has it he's gang affiliated but I didn't care.  One motion from the life guard and I would have walked up and hit that kid.  I didn't though.  Instead, I got out of the pool and went home.  

I was in such a funk and it was only getting worse.

The Captain messaged me about his final exam and noted that he was also in a funk so I told him lets grab some snackies and head to the lake -- let's celebrate the end of his course.  After his exam he swung by to pick me up and we headed down to the lake. 

We arrived at the lake shortly before 9pm and stayed there till close to midnight.  

In between arriving at the beach and leaving it a certain someone who found out I was at the beach took it upon himself to search me out.  I was a sitting duck on the rocks but once the sun went down you couldn't even so much as see the massive pile of lakeside rocks the Captain and I were sitting on.  We had been sitting there so long talking, bouncing ideas around and sorting out each other's social stuff.  

A little bit over an hour later this certain someone found me.

Plan B, that's his nickname.  That's the "certain someone" who searched me out tonight. I met him a few weeks ago back when I was at the beach, leaving from watching volleyball.  And he was the hero the following night, on that Monday night when I got left on the side of the highway like roadkill by who now all my friends refer to as "Jerkhead" and "Ass-and-a-Half".  

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