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, March 10, 2017

Bloody Knuckles... Friday, March 10

Found out why my knuckles were so beat up after Wednesday's boxing.  Today they got even more beat up.  Unfortunately I found out why during boxing today which meant I had to bear the pain and punch through it.  I chunk of the padding in my right hand glove has decided to go MIA.  Actually, I'm pretty sure it ended up all destroyed and stuck to my handwrap.  When Coach Gary took off my gloves and then started to unravel my handwraps from my hands, I noticed just how banged up my right hand was so I turned my palms up so he wouldn't noticed.

I have another pair of gloves with me but they're my sparring gloves.  I usually train with 10oz or 12oz but spar with 14oz.  I rather not train with my sparring gloves, they're still super new and I rather keep them in top condition for sparring purposes only.

Life of an athlete... my money goes to training, training gear and food.

I'm only four days into my workout regime of training twice a day and I've already reached a point where every day my body is sore.  I'm training to exhaustion but I absolutely love it.  There's that natural super high that comes with knowing I just killed it at training.  I come back to the condo from boxing, totally soaked to the bone, looking like I either jumped into a pool or peed myself, with my hair all messy and every single muscle in my body craving the coolness of a nice shower and then rest, my bed.  

"I'm only here, in the Philippines, for training", I told Coach Gary today, that's the truth and that's exactly what's going down here.  I have my "adopted" family here, family members I haven't yet met, and I've met with some of them already but I'm keeping meeting with them in line with my purpose here.  I meet them for meals out and our meals out happen in between my training sessions.  

No skipping training to meet family, that's the golden rule!

Filipinos are very much like Koreans in that there's always food when meeting up with them and for an athlete like me this is absolutely perfect.  Food is food and I definitely need to fuel up so it's like hitting two birds with one stone when I meet with them.  I get to see them AND I get to refuel... Perfect!!!  So far here in the Philippines I've enjoyed the company of about 13 family members, only 2 of which I've meet before, in Canada, and this Sunday I'm attending the 101st birthday of another family member I've yet to meet, very cool.  Last weekend I went to a cousin's daughter's 9th birthday party, that's where I met up with 11 of them at once.  Sundays are my one day off training so this Sunday I'll be having a family day -- I'll be enjoying the day meeting more family, fuelling up on food, and giving my body a much deserved day of rest.  

No comments: