Ready, Set, Box... Tuesday, January 9

The attendance cap on the Empowered small group, women-only boxing class was six.

One lady cancelled but then eight ladies attended.  

I had emailed all the ladies last night, those signed up, and had really stressed to them the importance of them coming early.  I had collaborated with Hernandez Boxing and Alphaland City Club to make this happen, to have them sponsor Empowered Clubhouse and let us use their boxing club, and they had so graciously agreed to let us use their club for one hour.  We had the club from 7:30pm-8:30pm and showing up late wouldn't mean we'd get to end late, it'd mean less time for us to train.  I had consciously stressed them showing up early a total of 3 times in my email and even went so far as to threaten them with burpees for those who showed up late.

They ALL showed up early!!!  

Now anyone who knows anything about so-called "Filipino time" knows that this means Filipinos are notoriously known for being late.  It's the polar opposite of what I dealt with in Korea for over a decade so I still struggle with losing my patience over those who arrive late.  Tonight the first lady that showed up arrived almost 40 minutes early and the latest lady to show up was still ten minutes early for class.  It was a miracle.  They say miracles happen every day and, well, it happened right there in front of my eyes tonight at a boxing club in beautiful Makati, Philippines.

I wrapped all the ladies hands though I should note that next week I'll definitely teach them how to do so because wrapping 16 hands is quite tiresome.  And forget burpees as a punishment, I've come up with a better one.  Anyone who is late will have to wear my blue Hulk's Boxing handwraps -- handwraps that I haven't washed for about 2 months and instead have only air dried them.  I tell you, once sweat or any kind of water hits those handwraps, wow, look out.  It's like smell activation.  Talk about not needing a strong hook to knock out your opponent.  You only need to wave those handwraps in front of your opponent's nose!

The class I had planned was exactly 12 rounds from start to finish and that included stretching, a warmup with laps and agility ladder drills, shadow boxing, heavy bag work, leg training, core training in the ring, and then a cool down stretch.  

It was pretty awesome to have a packed class that had more ladies participating than anticipating but it only added to the great positive energy they all brought to training.  If this was an inclanation of what the Empowered Clubhouse is going to be then trust me when I say it's going to be a fabulous, fabulous, FABULOUS space of positivity and awesomeness for the ladies to be training in and associated with.