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, April 21, 2017

Excitement in the Cage... Friday, April 21

My schedule was to wake up extra early so I could go to boxing.  Grab lunch after training and then get my hair done before heading out of town for the One Championship live fights.

Getting up early went as planned.
Boxing went as planned.
Lunch was quick but it went as planned.
My hair appointment... That's where it all went wrong.

I had gone in on Tuesday to make an appointment, they told me to come back on Friday, today, so that's what I did.  I showed up exhausted from training but fed from lunch and eager to get my hair done by their leading senior stylist.  What should have been a five minute wait turned into me being pushed aside for 30 minutes and other clients being tended to instead.

So I got up and left.

I got up, left, and then made a public review of their salon on Facebook.

One lengthy review on my behalf turned into quite the stream of messages, both Facebook messages and cell phone text messages, all from their manager wanting to clear up the situation.  This started in the early afternoon and lasted way into the evening.

But that wasn't the highlight of my day, nor is that situation even over as the text messages then continued into the next day.

The highlight of my day was being invited to attend the One Championship live fights -- a tournament that had much hype regarding.  There were nine of us going to the fights together.  

The fights were awesome and it was great to sit there and really take it all in.  With the exception of being the corner coach for Snickers' one cage fight, I have never attended a professional cage fight nor one at this magnitude.  There were fans screaming, lights flashing, music pumping the crowd up, ring side girls throwing shirts into the crowd, dancers doing backflips during the main fight intro, fireworks and streamers showering down.  

It was a sensory overload.

I ended up running into one of my buddies from Elorde at the fights and I can't even begin to tell you how that felt, to be spotted in the crowd and approached by a friend.  All my buddies here are at the boxing club, I don't really know anyone from my fitness gym, but I only see them there, at training.  It felt so nice to see a friend outside of the club.

The biggest highlight of today's highlights though was when I looked up on at the big screen TV hanging above the ring and noticed who was on the screen.  It was Manny Pacquiao.  He was there, in the crowd, and when the rest of the crowd present caught glimpse of him on the TV they too started screaming.  Pacquiao is like a God in the Philippines, he's such a hero, and to be there in the presence of him was pretty fabulous.  To see just how much he is respected, adored and idolized was very cool and I felt it all when they cheered for him.  It was amazing.

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