Pretending it's Work Out Wednesday.....A Tale of Two Girls Entering the Ring

Due to a crazy work schedule I've had to take a mini break from blogging this past week but rest assure, I'm back at it and "pretending" it's Work Out Wednesday.

So if you read my last post, or linked up for FTLOB Get Fit feature, you know that I have been trying to get fit for my upcoming wedding in July and have been trying a new activity: BOXING.

First off let me just say I LOVE IT!

I've been to two classes so far and while we have done different boxing drills in each class, I feel just as sore the next day.  It might sounds strange but I actually LOVE that soreness feeling...makes a girl feel like she was working hard/kicking ass and taking names :o)

I figure I should give you a little summary of what actually went on in the class in case any of you are interested, AND tell a story simultaneously to link up to TexaGermaNadian's Story Teller's Blog Hop

Boxing Class numero uno, here goes:

I arrive in Quincy the day before St. Paddy's day and the area looks like it's right out of the movie, "The Fighter".  As I am walking on the main road in town I see about 20 Irish bars mixed in with a few run down stores on one squished block.  Next to the "Clash of the Ash" Irish restaurant and pub I see a sign for "Cyr-Farrell Boxing Gym".  Super intimidated, I wait for my friend Amanda to meet me and casually sneak peaks into the window to see what I am getting myself into.

Finally she gets to the gym and we both walk in giggling like little girls because we were both so nervous.  I mean if you know us you probably wouldn't think we would ever act like that because we are both strong, confident, athletic women, but let me set you straight....we were being such girly girls haha.

As we walk down the stairs we see this short, rough around the edges type looking man wearing a Boston Red Sox hat.  As we walk over to him nervously I let Amanda do the talking and she says "Hi..ummm we're here for the first time....we don't have any equipment....and we don't know what we're doing".  Reluctantly, the guy smiles at us and says that we'll be just fine and he'll hook us up with some wraps.  Wraps? Wow this is beginning to get serious.

He gives us the wraps and we walk over to the bathroom to get out of our work clothes and into our boxing gear.  "You ready?" I say to Amanda who is in the other stall. She replies "yep" and as we walk out, disaster strikes.  We are wearing the SAME EXACT outfit haha.  I'm not exaggerating and I wish I took a picture, but we were both wearing silverish sneakers, black capri pants and a short sleeve green T-shirt.  We totally looked like we had planned it AND were being festive for St. Paddy's day.  Such losers haha.

Ok we didn't look THIS bad but you get my point

As we left the bathroom looking like twins and headed into the gym I started to get really nervous.  I had no idea what to expect.  Was I going to be good?  Was I going to be horrible?  We're we both going to look like matching fools who have no idea what we were doing? Probably.

Fear started sinking in and my hands began to sweat.  I always get super nervous doing something new, but this time the feeling was enhanced as I walked in and saw about 20 guys going at the heavy bag and sparring in the ring.  The place looked right out of the movies.

I then here someone say "alright ladies lets go", and I turn around and see this really good looking guy with beautiful blue eyes looking in our direction. (Jordy, he's got nothing on you babe if your reading this ;o) I then thought to myself,  "Oh man he's totally judging us. Shoot he's walking over here. Oh my gosh I am so nervous."   He then comes up to us and says, "do you ladies need your hands wrapped?" We both just stand there and stare. We totally looked  like lost puppies.  Finally say "Ughhh Yep" and he comes over, takes the wraps from me, grabs my hands, and then starts weaving the wraps over my wrists and palms.

And then It hits me; Crap. my hands are SO SWEATY from being so nervous hahaha.  Embarrassment ensues.  On top of that Amanda decides to jump in and add "you know we really didn't plan these outfits".  Oh God. Now I'm more embarrassed because he probably didn't notice what we were wearing....until now. 
Quickly I come up with a not so smooth line saying "yeah we didn't plan this but we mind as well use it as an excuse to go on a pub crawl tonight in honor of St. Paddy's day"...........crickets..........

Come'on...he couldn't even crack a smile for these girls? haha

"OK lets get started" the trainer says relieving us from this terrible awkward moment and he splits us into four groups.  He sends our group over to the punching bags and with a different trainer.....coincidence? I think not haha.

Amanda and I learn the basic jab and punch and begin sparring with the trainer. We both are pretty competitive so we're hitting pretty hard feeding off of each other's energy.  After switching between us, the trainer says "Uh oh...looks like we have double trouble here" and Amanda and I exchange smiles. 
We then move over to the punching bags and use the techniques we just learned.

This isn't me and Amanda but these girls are at Cyr-Farrell hitting the heavy bag like we did.

"BEEP". The switching buzzer sounds and we move over to the next station.  Oh man...now we are with the cute trainer. 
As he started to explain our next drill I knew me and Amanda were thinking the same thing. "Ok now we've got to show him what we got and that we mean business to make up for our awkward behavior before". 

And we did. 

Amanda held the small chest bag as I hit her with multiple combinations.  After a couple of minutes we switched positions and she started throwing punches at me.  "wow look at you two" the trainer said as he acknowledged how fast we had picked it up.  We exchange secret smiles at each other again.

"BEEP". Time to switch stations.

We then headed over to the speed bags both feeling confident and on top of the world but then we quickly came back down to reality.  The speed bags were really tough and it was all about timing, not strength.  By the end of the station we finally got the hang of it but we both felt that it is something we really needed to work on.

 "BEEP"...thank god haha.

Amanda and I then moved into the actual ring where there were 3 different trainers waiting for us.  They approached us and the sparring began.  They started yelling out different combinations they wanted us to hit them with and before you knew it I was seriously out of breath.  Now this was the stuff I liked.  Getting down to some serious cardio while working your upper body.

"BEEP". We were done with our stations and then ended the session with abs.

As we left the gym I felt really great about the whole experience.  It was something new and different that I really enjoyed.  All of the trainers were really nice and I never got a "creepy" vibe from them which is also good haha.  Amanda and I ended up going the next week again and the trainers switched things up which kept things interesting.  I think some of the other girls in our first class told their friends about the boxing or the really cute trainer that was leading the session because there was probably triple the amount of girls in the second class haha.

Well that's my boxing story.  I think I'm going to keep up with it every week so I'll be sure to let you know my progress and if I have any good stories to tell about any awkward encounters haha.

Take Care!
Hillary