One way to the UK?

Okay so a while ago I was feeling a bit down on London and meeting new people (lack of etc) so my friend Ali suggested I join a ‘team sport’ instead of just going to gym… so after much research and looking around I decided on Kickboxing! Not exactly the ‘team sport’ he had in mind but hey – it’s proved enjoyable so far! I was chatting about it at work one day too, so Mandi, my colleague (and temp HR manager) decided to join me on the 8 week beginners level 1 course. I went down ‘for a look’ the night before the classes started and was laughing on first impressions – you walk down concrete stairs and the door says ‘gym’ in graffiti writing, and then once inside it’s a desk in a ‘wire cage’ and then the gym is all exposed brick walls in the basement (hence The Basement Gym) but once you stop and take a look around, you realise the Dojo is quite nice with padded floors and pillars, a ‘ballet’ bar along mirrors for stretching and people always training or sparring in the boxing ring.

The first class was great, our trainer Rob is a lovely guy and always has a smile on his face.. most likely because he’s thinking up new moves to try out and new painful or funny ways of warming us up. Lots of people turned up for the first class at the beginning of April… now we’ve settled into our actual committed group of about 11 people! Always an odd number for some reason as I think one or two cannot make some classes etc. Anyhow it has been great so far, and also a great addition to my normal gym reigime. I’ve been going for one month now, so one more month of Level 1 before the 8 week Level 2 course starts. I’m not sure if Mandi will keep coming after this Level as she said two nights a week of exercise is a bit much (argh). Umm what else? Oh yeah I have my own ‘bindings’ now for my wrists and I don’t know why but I’m the only one in the class with white ones!? That’s just what the gym gave me – good for keeping clean I guess as they can be napisanned/bleached. So yes.. next to purchase is my gloves… still deciding on Black or Green perhaps?

We’ve learnt some pretty good moves so far, round-house kicks, front kicks, side kicks, cross and jab, left hook and right uppercut and an axis kick, duck and slip.. what else? Loads of useful things! So look out anyone who gets in my way when I’m next shopping on Oxford Street! Or walking home for that matter…

Oh so if you want to check out my ‘basement’ gym or the trainers etc, view the website www.paragongym.co.uk

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 2:02 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.