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.

Friday, September 26, 2014

So Much for an Expected Relaxing Friday... Friday, September 26

Accepted a new personal training client today, actually two of them. And not only are they both guys but they requested I train them as supposed to having Snickers do so, that was pretty flattering. They're both young university students looking to lose body fat. They train in boxing with Snickers but they now officially come in once a week to work with just me. Today we had our first session and I'm pretty sure I proved to them I was worth the investment. 

I've never claimed to have the best of bodies but you best believe I can definitely hold my own and I'm pretty competitive when it comes to thinking someone can do something better than me. Like that goblet squat challenge, I rocked it. I pulled a number that may have been only two points higher than my male workout buddy but you best believe I was not going to lose. I pulled the highest number among the females and I pulled the highest number among the males. And I must add that this isn't the first challenge I've taken it upon myself to make sure I out beat all others participating. It used to be all about because I was a girl, it was a gender thing, but now it's definitely a coach/pro athlete thing. 

Fridays are usually my chillax days at work when I get to play catch-up with all the club's books and files. A day when I get some solid study time in and get to socialize more with members who come in for training. Today was not such a typical Friday. First of all the construction going on outside was pure distraction. They're pouring concrete on the street first, before the pavement, and leave it to Balboa to run out of the club and right through the cement. Yup, classic Balboa nature. He milks his cuteness because he's such a trouble maker! With construction blocking off the intersection right outside of our club, it meant more Pesky Parkers to deal with. And when my pups weren't barking at the excessive amount of Pesky Parkers standing around their cars smoking then they were barking at the fact that the Chicken Godfather, who just recently moved across the street, has started to leave out food for the street cats. Yup, so all day my dogs look straight out unto a water bowl and food bowl for random street cats. I counted five street cats today. I jokingly asked the Chicken Godfather what was meant by the food bowl, whether it was bait to lure in victims for my dogs to attack or meant as a means of getting the neighbourhood to hate our club because of our barking dogs. He thought I was joking, I was but not really. Ended up totally intentionally letting Pyen Chi run loose and eat the cat food all up. "Well that's one way to cut down on the $150 a month I spend on the pup's food", I told a friend. 

Am sporting a goose-egg-of-a-bump on my head and a bruise on my tush, all thanks to two mini Hulkies who decided they'd use and abuse me on our Friday Fun Day... hahaha. OK, so the fact that I made up the silly games plays a part here but it was their body parts flying at me and clashing against mine that caused the injuries... hahaha.

After work tonight Wow arrived and so Snickers, Wow and I headed out for late night ribs. There's two new rib restuarants that are just to die for, seriously. I look at their ribs and just know at the sight of them that the only thing that will stop me from eating more of them is if the ribs or my money runs out. They may not be like my Mama Bere's ribs but they're super finger-licking good and the expected hour long wait outside is a testimony to this.

It had been a great Friday, an unexpected busy and sweaty Friday but none the less a great one. Well, that is until we parted from Wow and drove home. We were just around the corner from Hulk's, at an underpass that's rather tight and already dangerous enough on it's own, when suddenly we saw a car swerve and come straight at the taxi in front of us. CRASH went the car into the taxi. Snickers instantly took a sharp u-turn and followed the white car that had hit the taxi -- it looked at first as if he was trying to flee the scene. When we opened the driver's door and the driver stepped out, we both knew he was drunk. He smelt like soju, he couldn't focus his eyes nor could he really stand still. I looked inside his car and in the front passenger seat sat a girl -- a girl who never did get out of the car to help out. Snickers went to talk to the taxi driver while I tried to protect the driver from falling into oncoming traffic. In a way I felt bad for the kid because he was a kid, probably university age, but in a bigger way I didn't. It was a hard lesson he was learning tonight and I have an absolute zero tolerance for drinking and driving. Korea makes it so easy for drinkers to get home safely and easily. It's called a call service that drives your car to where ever with you in it. 

The taxi driver was rather rude to both Snickers and the young kid, insisting the kid just hand him over money and be on his way. "Be on his way?!" I asked, "like get back in his car and drive away???" Police were then called, the kid was questioned and then the taxi driver got ratted out for what he had proposed. The kid was really drunk, I was so surprised he even managed to get his car through such the tight tunnel of the underpass, but now he's in so much trouble. The police officer said he's looking at probably a $5,000 fine plus he'll lose his license for 3-5 years. Woozers, sounds rough perhaps that's getting off pretty easy considering he could have really hurt someone or himself! Stuff like that freaks me out and I felt sick having to stand there and be questioned by the police. Back when I was 18 years old the cousin of my boyfriend-at-the-time was hit by a drunk driver.

Around 4pm on a weekday, while standing waiting for the bus to take her to her part time job at the local McDonalds, a drunk driver hit her and sent her flying. And the only reason the police even knew that someone had been hit was because they found her hat and shoe. He had hit her so hard it knocked her hat and shoe off and sent her flying into a tree several meters away. Her inspiring volleyball scholarship, totally kissed that goodbye that day as it was replaced with over half a year of being bed ridden, years of therapy to learn how to walk away, not to mention metal plates in her legs to deal with. And now, some 16 years later, she still has a hard time walking for any lengthy periods of time, and all because some guy was having a bad day and wanted to drink his stress away. I'm sure in retrospect the stress he drank for fails in comparision to the stress of breaking a high school girl's picture-perfect, much-anticipated over and much-expected future. Not cool, so not cool.

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