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.

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Picking a Proper Glove... Tuesday, October 30

As a coach and club owner, I think it's more so the responsibility of the boxing club staff to educate their fighters on how to pick a proper glove than it is the fighter and I see it all the time when fighters where whatever.  Fighters wear whatever, for whatever reason, and coaches let them wear it, also for whatever reason.  I think perhaps more people than assumed just don't know how to pick a proper glove. 

You can't expect a new fighter to know how to pick a glove and even some not-so-new fighters even have trouble.  They just haven't been educated.  Some have learned through trial and error, myself included, so I decided to do today's Vlog as a general guideline on how to pick a proper glove.

It was a pretty general Vlog because I wanted to stress picking a glove for your weight, something that SO MANY green fighters (boxers) don't do. It's also something that SO MANY coaches and boxing club staff don't call their fighters out on.  I also wanted to give some little pointers on what to look for, etc.

For amateur bouts and pro bouts, fighters don't actually pick their gloves so I didn't think it necessary to go into that but I did go into picking a glove for heavy bag work (bag gloves) and sparring. 

BAG GLOVES/ FITNESS GLOVES 
+100lbs = 6-8oz glove 
101-150lbs = 10-12oz glove 
151-175lbs = 14oz glove 
+175lbs = 16-18oz glove

SPARRING GLOVES 
Youth = 8-12oz glove 
101-150lbs = 12-14oz glove 
151-175lbs = 14-16oz glove 
+176lbs = 16-18oz glove

I also didn't go into which particular brands I like, well, I did a bit. But then again everyone and anyone who has ever trained with me or been trained by me knows I absolutely can't stand Everlast. My favourite are Reyes, with Ringside always being my go-to glove for sparring, and I like Winnings too.

In making this Vlog however, I then realized just how many gloves I have.

And to think, I only came to the Philippines with a couple of pairs. I left many in Canada and in Korea. Most of these are actual prototypes for the Empowered Exclusive Slay glove I ended up making. Bare in mind I never actually set out to make a glove. I just got so frustrated with clients showing up with brutally bad gloves.

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