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, January 07, 2018

Field Study... Sunday, January 7

"Field study", that's what I call it, when I attend a fitness training facility, attend an exercise class or get coached from someone other than my two coaches, Coach Bogs and Coach Kristian.   

Today I did some field study.  I attended the Sunday morning "Contender class" at Fly Weight, a boxing boutique located here in BGC.  I didn't introduce myself as a professional boxer, instead I tried to play it off that I only have limited boxing experience.  I wanted to see how they'd approach training me.  The idea behind it all was to see what kind of class they offered and how "beginner-friendly" it'd be.  I know some of my clients have actually attended at class at Flyweight and with my own small group boxing classes launching this week, I wanted to know what my classes would be compared to.  

My class is nothing like Fly Weight's class.

For starters, my boxing class is coached by a pro boxer with ring experience and not a fitness trainer who likes the sport.  Liking a sport and living the sport are two different playing fields.  Not to disrespect the trainer today but it's true.  I liked the trainer that coached the class today, she had great pointers and good energy, but I didn't really care for the actual set up of the class.  It was so cardio-based and once it started it was go, go, go, so there was little room to correct form.

I felt like Fly Weights class was more or less like the Boxercise classes I use to host in Korea, back before I created my own boxing club.  It was very aerobics based and integrated Tabata into it.

For now, I just have a beginner's small group boxing class but the plan is to either create an advanced class or separate those within the beginner class and teach two groups with level-appropriate drills at once.  A big key to making this possible is incorporating partner padwork into it.  Every boxer loves padwork.  It gives the advanced participants a chance to really add some guided intensity to their training and of course it gives the beginners something to strive towards.  Setting up some speedbag work too is another possibility, it all comes down to the facility's available equipment though

Attending Fly Weight today was interesting, it reassured me that what I'm doing will work, and it was a fun twist on my usual training.  I did have fun but it was so fast paced for my liking.  It was way too expensive for me to even consider attending again.  The clientele they're more for are those with money, those that want to get in a quick workout at a place that's been labelled "cool" and trendy by them and their "cool trend-following friends".  I'm not a cool kid nor do I follow the cool kids.  I'm a boxer, I box.  My "cool kids" are the hot kids slaving away on the heavy bags at the boxing clubs.

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