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.

Sunday, September 03, 2017

No Rest Day... Sunday, September 3

I was scheduled to spar today so at 5pm I headed over to Elite Boxing.

I had invited my fighter friend Kevin to join us but he wasn't able to come so it was just me stepping into the ring with two coaches -- Coach Bogs and Coach Jun Jun.  

This past last part of the week I've been carrying an extra heavy load on my shoulders with sad news coming from Canada and me not really knowing how to digest it.  I thought I felt okay for sparring though.  I was feeling good, was well rested, had a full meal a couple of hours prior, and my condition felt good.  One thing was missing though, my focus.  I think I was too mentally distracted by the news from Canada, I don't know.  What I do know is that I mentally wasn't there.  It's as if the bell rang and I just instantly went into auto pilot.  

I took a mean straight paired with a nasty body shot in the third round, from Coach Bogs, and that somewhat knocked some sense into me and brought me mentally back to the ring.  But it didn't last for long, the pain from that body shot lasted longer.

I stepped out of the ring totally frustrated that I just wasn't focused.

I was ticked and everyone felt it.

Usually on days I spar I don't do padwork with Coach.  I totally exhaust myself in the ring with the sparring and that's my only focus for that day.  But today, after stepping out of the ring oozing with frustration, Coach Bogs told me to gear back up.  We were going to do padwork.  So that's what we did.  I did three rounds of very technical padwork with Coach Bogs.  When I was done my rounds with him I thought I was done for the night.  I was still frustrated with my sparring and wanted to go home.  Then Coach Jun Jun told me to keep my gloves on.  I did another three rounds of padwork with him.  

Six rounds of sparring followed by six rounds of padwork... all fuelled by frustration.

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