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, December 16, 2012

Holy Foreign Woman Takeover at UP!!!... Sunday, December 16


With only one last week to train, the Cheonan Bulldog was at the boxing club tonight when I arrived to set up for my early evening boxercise class.  Junior Mint arrived shortly after I did… as did a whole crew of women – my boxercise ladies.  Tonight’s class had 4 participants, meaning there were five of us foreign women all standing around the club getting ready for training.  Then two more stopped by to say hi, bringing our total to seven.

Seven foreign females at UP. 

Junior Mint’s eyes widened immensely at the sight of us all standing behind him.  UP has never seen this many foreigners here let alone this many beautiful foreign women.  It was like the line up for Miss Universe… hahaha. 

And despite the big gathering of us overly chatty, super smiling, goofy-giggling gals, Junior Mint sat looking frustrated and stressed.  I know he’s feeling the pressure regarding the Cheonan Bulldog’s upcoming fight, it’s obvious, so holding back this secret from him is killing me.  In a way I wished it’d leak and reach him, to kind of prepare him for the news I have for him.  When you think of it though, I don’t think my news of us starting our own boxing club is really going to shock it.  When you think of it, it’s the next logical step in what I’m already doing.  So I don’t think he’ll be shocked or surprised, perhaps just disappointed that we’re leaving him and maybe even uncomfortable at the notion that our club will be viewed as competition. 

It’s been a great weekend of hardcore training with my gals but it was kind of funny training alongside my teammate and Junior Mint.  The ladies got to see the rigorous training Junior Mint puts us through and they definitely got to see a more intense and stressful side of boxing.  Having said that though, they also got to see just how hard they train in comparison – my ladies workout and by that I mean they REALLY workout hard!  We had to alter our training somewhat because of the Cheonan Bulldog using the ring for a good part of his training and then using one of the sandbags.  So instead of our usual 2 minute rounds they did 3 minute rounds.  I cut down each section of their training by one round, to compensate, but it meant they still did extra time and, let me tell you, that extra one minute when you’re already killing it on the bag is hard to push yourself through! 

During their sandbag component of the boxercise class, they split off to train on the red and blue sandbags so I thought it funny to make it out to be like a team competition.  I egged them on a bit, telling them that the Black Team (the Cheonan Bulldog) was out-beating.  It worked to motivate them and to definitely bring some friendly competition to their training. 

The Red Team and Blue Team definitely smoked the Black Team!!!  Good job ladies, way to make me proud.  

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