Strong Mum Punching

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone! 

Before my first fight I spent a few months doing things that scared the hell out of me. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway prepared me for the ultimate test - stepping into the ring and being vulnerable in front of hundreds of people. 

I wanted to replicate that raw emotion of plunging into the unknown, and so that’s exactly what I did - quite literally.  The fear of heights has always been my nemesis and so my first test was to ride a terrifyingly high rollercoaster. I watched small children, no older than eight, exit the ride. They were laughing and squealing with delight, and doubling back to go again. I couldn’t understand their enthusiasm when my every fibre wanted to run away screaming. But I didn’t run; I felt the fear seeping into my bones, and I did it anyway - I did it and I didn’t die! 

Before my first fight I spent a few months doing things that scared the hell out of me. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway prepared me for the ultimate test - stepping into the ring and being vulnerable in front of hundreds of people. 

I wanted to replicate that raw emotion of plunging into the unknown, and so that’s exactly what I did - quite literally.  The fear of heights has always been my nemesis and so my first test was to ride a terrifyingly high rollercoaster. I watched small children, no older than eight, exit the ride. They were laughing and squealing with delight, and doubling back to go again. I couldn’t understand their enthusiasm when my every fibre wanted to run away screaming. But I didn’t run; I felt the fear seeping into my bones, and I did it anyway - I did it and I didn’t die! 

If you let fear stand in the way of your dreams, your dreams will never materialise. 

I’m still scared of rollercoasters, but fear no longer stands in my way. 

#feelthefearanddoitanyway 

#comfortzone #boxing #boxingcoach #boxingtraining #mindset

A Year In Lockdown by Deborah Goldman

A year ago, I worked in a gym. The kids went to school. Life was normal.

Then BOOM!

I sometimes wake up and wonder if the pandemic really happened. Then I see a pile of schoolwork, strewn across the kitchen table, and the full force of reality rushes in.

I am sure that everyone has their own tale to tell, about how lockdown has affected them, and most likely how it has changed them, too.

For me it has been a total cliché – an absolute rollercoaster of a ride. I left my job during Lockdown One, built a gym in the garden (from nothing but a set of 1980’s dumbbells) and started my own Personal Training business. I have also learnt (whether I wanted to or not) how to add improper fractions and surprisingly, how to lay artificial grass.

I also found (and lost) love, during lockdown.

It is almost as if 10-years of my life has been condensed into just one, and the result is a weirdly eventful period of massive ups, and heart-breaking lows. There have of course been spells of abject boredom, along with gin-infused meltdowns (me, not the kids), but all-in-all, the pandemic has had a strangely cathartic effect.

The Truth About Ghosting By Deborah Goldman

I suppose the real low point for me, came when he began to enthuse over the bargain price he had paid (per square metre) for his new carpet. “good quality pile, too” he continued, and any nerves or excitement that I had felt prior to the conversation, evaporated faster than a spill on Darren’s new, stain-resistant rug.

This was our first telephone conversation – the first five-minutes of our first phone conversation!

So naturally, I did the grown-up thing – something I always do when I realise that I am never going to meet the person on the other end of the line. I shamelessly used my children as an excuse to hang-up. “So sorry but one of the kids is shouting for me. I’ll call you right back!”

DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!

I realise this approach isn’t entirely honest but it’s a jungle out there and I don’t always have the energy for lengthy conversations about why it’s not going to work out. I myself have been ghosted on a few occasions and you soon learn to shrug it off – right or wrong, it is simply the way that online-dating works. Tenuous connections are made and then broken in the blink of an eye. Perhaps we have lost the ability to connect on a deeper level? Perhaps we have become such speed junkies that we are incapable of investing our time anymore. We want everything NOW! Faster broadband, faster meals, faster dating!

The truth is, we are spoiled for choice. It reminds me of when I was a young girl, when there were only four channels on the television to choose from. Only four channels, and yet there was always something worth watching. Now we have hundreds of them, and yet I cannot find a damn thing! That is internet dating in a nutshell.

Ghosting is an interesting phenomenon though – one minute you are having a fascinating conversation about shag pile, and the next ... crickets! It happens all the time in varying degrees, but some ghosts are infinitely more brutal than others.

Level 1 Ghost: Pleasantries are exchanged but the conversation doesn’t seem to flow. You double check their profile photos to make sure you do in-fact fancy them, and that you didn’t swipe right by mistake (or as a result of one too many gin & tonics). You conclude that ‘drinking and swiping’ is a terrible idea. Delete!

Level 2 Ghost: You both like each other, but you realise quite early on that you’re not quite on the same page:

• He wants kids. You would rather pluck your own eyeballs out with a pair of hot tweezers, than birth any more offspring (to be clear, I love my kids).

• He wants to travel. You want to watch Escape to the Country in your pyjamas.

• He likes House music and raves. You like Michael Buble, and the ability to hear yourself think. Delete!

Level 3 Ghost: You spend two-hours hitting it off over text message and then suddenly there is radio silence. You re-read your exchanges to make sure you didn’t say anything too offensive – you didn’t. While this is baffling, your heart is in-tact, and you move on. Six–weeks later he finally replies with a message saying, “Sorry (babe) my battery died.” Not his grandmother (which would have been slightly more forgivable) but his actual battery!

The ghoster who comes back to haunt you is the very worst type of ghost. Delete!

Dick Pics and Dating

By Deborah Goldman

Being thrust into the often-bizarre world of online dating can be quite alarming. The average, unsuspecting newbie is usually unprepared for the barrage of salacious comments that can fill up their inbox.

What is worse than the outpouring of sexual innuendo, however, is the appalling level of grammar displayed by many potential suitors: . “Your hot. Want a shag?” for instance, wouldn’t be nearly as offensive if You’re had been used correctly.

I’ve been dipping in and out of the online dating world for several months now and have gotten quite adept at swiping left when I spot an ill-used apostrophe. “How’s you?” for instance, is a pet hate of mine. How is me? Me is never going out on a date with you, that’s for sure!

I realise I am a bit nit-picky, but I can’t help it. As a writer, I am constantly correcting and editing myself and the fear of using the wrong ‘their’, ‘they’re’ or ‘there’ is horribly real. Once, I spelled allowed (aloud) wrong on Facebook, and I had to crawl under the duvet in shame, for a whole week!

It’s fair to say that some dating sites are better than others (depending on your requirements) Bumble, for instance is a favourite of mine because it prevents anyone from contacting me until I have messaged them first. While this does solve the problem of unsolicited messages (and the feeling of being low-level violated) from undesirable love matches, it doesn’t guarantee you a conversation with the man of your dreams, either!

Nathan 42, for example, had a promising profile: Well-groomed, funny, interesting, and close to my own age, too. Excellent! While he did look a little young for his advancing years, I am also aware of how angles and lighting can pimp up your appearance, so I swiped right. After a few pleasantries he asked me what kind of men I like. “Ones that aren’t serial-killers, misogynists or total gits,” is my usual response to this question (because it gives any Ted Bundy’s out there, the chance to alert me to their propensity for mass-murder, before we arrange a date.) Lovely Nathan, however, didn’t strike me as any of those things. Sadly, he turned out to be a compulsive liar instead.

After about 20 minutes (20 minutes of my life that I shall never regain) of increasingly blatant, sexual innuendo, he eventually admitted to lying about his age. It turned out he was only 24, which is a whole generation younger than me. “It’s ok though,” he reassured me, “I like older women!” Naturally, I was meant to be flattered by this admission, but since I had specifically opted for men over the age of 39 in my profile settings, I felt duped. Respecting my preference had never occurred to young Nathan, who was just after a bit of Netflix and Chill with a grateful cougar!

His wasn’t the most offensive encounter I’ve experienced though. It’s the ‘Dick Pickers’ (as I like to call them) who really let the side down. Let me just be clear right here and now – and I think I can speak for most women when I say that a flaccid (or otherwise) phallus is in no way, shape or form attractive to the female eye. So, for the love of god ... please just stop!

There are, without doubt an abundance of decent men (and women) who join dating sites in order to meet their soulmate, but it really is a minefield out there, and you must learn to navigate the terrain quite skilfully in order to bag yourself a half-decent partner. In my experience, these are the profile types to be generally avoided.

Profiles with:

● No accompanying photographs (married!)

● Wearing sunglasses in every photo (something to hide).

● Only photos of their motorbike (just why?)

● A photograph of them holding a giant fish (put the damn thing back!)

It can be quite disheartening at times. In fact, I have lost count how many times I have, in despair, deleted (and then reinstalled) Plenty of Fish!

As a single mum of two young children, my spare time is like gold dust and so a potential love match must first exhibit some viable boyfriend/parental qualities before I am willing to meet with them face-to-face. Truth be known, I have only had a smattering of actual in-person dates and most of them have been unremarkable. There was, of course, the time I went out for dinner with someone and almost choked to death on a piece of chicken kebab. My date was very nice about it though, and I didn’t die, so all’s well that ends well!

Perhaps I am just too picky. Perhaps I should give Colin ‘The-Willy-Flasher’ or Gavin the ‘Show Us Your Tits’ Man, more of a chance? Granted, it is a tough one. After some intense, internal deliberation however, I think it’s fair to say that I still favour the gentleman who doesn’t wave his knob around in the public domain, over the man~child who does.

Just Trimming the Bush!

I freely admit that when I was a wife - apart from putting out the bins - I left the “blue” jobs up to him. I’ve never been a keen gardener - I can’t even keep a cactus alive - I haven’t got a clue how to put up a shelf and if you ask me to pass you the monkey wrench I’ll just stare at you blankly and walk away.

But circumstances change and now I’m in charge of the pink, the blue, the purple and all the other jobs in between. I’ve been forced out of my comfort zone and you know what? I find it deeply satisfying - there is a lot to be said for standing on your own two feet. It is however, a work-in-progress and there’s still plenty more to learn (thanks You Tube! 🙏) but I am now aware that the lovely five-foot plant at the back of the garden is in fact a weed, and that if you paint a radiator it’s probably a good idea to lay a sheet down on the carpet first! 🤦‍♀️

But Rome wasnt built in a day and I take small victories as they come. I mean, I managed to mastick the bath with relatively little drama (if you don’t count the fact that I had to cut mastick out of my hair afterwards) and I am now the proud owner of a drill (not a clue how to use it but I could if I wanted to - what could possiby go wrong?!)😐

We are only limited by what we think we can’t do, and since I was never taught DIY, I was afraid of it. But fear is an opportunity for growth and teaching myself new skills is my opportunity to expand. I only pray to the DIY gods that I don’t severely maim myself (or anyone else) in the process.

Never be afraid to learn. Be brave.

http://instagram.com/@dgboxingcoach

Firstly, what the actual eff is a number place grid? I didn’t sign up to be a maths teacher. I am neither qualifed nor am I equipped to field such questions as, “Mummy, why do we move the counter one place down in a Gattegno chart?” A Gatty.... what, darling? Give me strength (or a gin and tonic).

In all honesty lockdown could be a lot worse for us; we live in a house with a garden - there’s no great hardship. But for the love of god, if I have to navigate my children through a mathematical minefield of number arrays and fraction lines for the remainder of lockdown then I may have to lock myself in the downstairs loo (with the Gordons) until we’re given the all clear.

During my low spells there’s only one thing that shields me from all-out meltdown, and that is boxing. Boxing has always been my therapy and it is now my trusty companion once more, seeing me steadfastly through this very surreal situation. Admittedly there are fewer nosebleeds now (blood is difficult to draw from a distance of two-metres) but we’re all making sacrifices.

Like everybody else, I’ve had to adapt. I’ve had to find new ways of working, of parenting, and of structuring my day. Those attending my virtual classes are now separated from me by a 16-inch computer screen but amazingly there’s still that same sense of community that we shared in the gym (perhaps even more so now now that we’re all undeniably linked by this singular traumatic event). It seems that the fighting spirit cannot be dulled just because we’ve all been reduced into bits and bytes.

After a month of quarantine I’ve come to the conclusion that there will be two types of people to emerge from lockdown: the fit, the healthy, and the well-rested (albeit with a touch of germ OCD), and those who crawl out of it (in unwashed pyjamas) as lethargic couch-potatoes, sporting a slight drinking problem and presenting mild symptoms of institutionalisation.

Naturally then, I was pleased when I stumbled upon a local business delivering fruit & veg the very same day. I swear to you though that at the time of ordering I had no idea I was purchasing the entire country’s annual spinach crop. Still, these things happen and in a bid to offset my (accidental) hoarding of root vegetables I did manage to trade four of my onions for a gin & tonic, with my neighbour.

It would seem that the adrenaline-fuelled, first stages of lockdown are over and we’re now entering the ‘Am i going totally mental?’ phase. We’re all being tested and we’re all discovering what (and who) is important to us. At this stage I don’t have an awful lot of wisdom to offer but there is one thing I’m absolutely certain of and it is this:

If it’s onions (or tuna) you need then I’m your gal.

That was until the dog decided to trample my lady-bits and sit on my head.

Lucidity (temporarily) restored, the day continued on a fairly even keel. Home-school began at 9.30am and the first assignment of the day was to design badges for our new establishment, Bogwarts (copyright pending!). I also managed to establish some strict boundaries for our new set-up (see below).

I was able to deliver my first virtual workout with some fellow ‘isolatees’ almost without incident (bar the dog licking my toes mid-pressup, and accidently smacking a child in the face while performing star jumps) but teething problems are only to be expected at this early stage aren’t they?

For lunch I decided to get creative. I set out on a very long expedition to the back of the food cupboard where (much like my own sense of logic and reason) tins and jars have long since been forgotten. This was my chance to whip up some unnusual, yet strangely delicious, meals that I could then share with the entire online community. I typed into the google search bar: “recipes for ‘spam’, ‘tinned peaches’ and ‘rum-spiced plum chutney (remnants of a bygone christmas hamper from Aunt Julie)’ but surprisingly the search engine returned very little. So with my hopes of ever becoming the millionaire author of “Emergency-Outbreak Recipes For the Whole Family” dashed, i made tuna sandwiches instead.

Mercifully I was able to deposit the children at their father’s house in the afternoon, and I’m ashamed to admit it but at one stage I caught myself eyeing up his stash of free-range eggs, and wondering how I could stuff a couple of them in my jean’s pocket without him noticing. l’m obviously slipping into a state of unbridled anarchy.

It occurred to me that my off-the-scale anxiety is being exacerbated by the sheer volume of corona virus-related information flooding my social media on a daily basis. People have been relentlessly posting stuff on how to deal with heightened anxiety at this difficult time which then serves to heighten my anxiety because I havent been practicing Doctor Know-It-All’s ‘Mindfulness for the Manic’ or Professor Who-The-Eff’s ‘relaxation techniques for the totally buggered’.

I concluded that what I really need to do is switch off. Netflix, and cherry bakewells (because they - along with linguine - are the only fecking thing left on the supermarket shelves) serve as my happy places right now, and that, until things settle down into a new type of “normal”, is exactly where I shall be seeking my solace this evening.

Signing off

I’ve been in self-isolation with my two kids for two days now and i’m already starting to feel a touch of the ‘Lord of the Flies’ coming on. The primal urge to wittle spears out of branches in the garden and go out spearing local wildlife (or Alison who keeps buying up all the loo roll) is very disconcerting.

Day one of isolation was relatively enjoyable and I ran the house like a well-oiled machine. Home-schooling was a doddle, the house was cleaned top to bottom, and I lovingly prepared vitamin-laden meals for my babies, who in turn told me what a lovely day they’d had. I even managed to multitask burpees with marking school work, which is no easy feat i can tell you.

Day two however descended into a dystopian-like choas. One child came down with a fever while the other was so tired from coughing all night that she could barely raise a finger when I offered her chocolate buttons for breakfast.

Amid the tatters of my military operation however, I did manage to bake a rosemary foccacia that was almost edible, and assemble a lie-detector kit that had remained unopened since Christmas (turns out i’m a pathological liar who, despite my protests, does in fact like poos, wees and bums!)

So understandably I’m going into day three with much trepidation, but being British I remain defiant and I find myself muttering things like, “this virus won’t bally-well get me down“ and “I will definitely keep calm and carry on”. This of course is followed by inward screaming and howls of “where the effing eff is my next pay cheque coming from now that schools are closed for the next billion weeks?!”

Emotions are high, loo-roll is low and i’m genuinely confused as to why the only pasta left on the shelves in Waitrose is linguine. Is there something I don’t know about linguine?

Signing off now. I have a facetime date with a girlfriend and we are going to drink large quantities of vodka whilst companionably watching Eastenders.....😫

The Trouble With Being a Mum

Today was a mixed-bag kind of a day that commenced at 7am with the daily threat of, “Get out of bed or I shall never feed you again!” This of course elicted precisely no response from my precious off-spring, and left me knawing at my fist while mouthing, “For @&$! Sake” at the wall.

After an epic search for shoes that were eventually repatriated with their owners’ feet, I managed to deposit my wee humans at their grandmothers house, and set off for work. As I wheel-spun out of the retirement park I raised a hand in farewell as the children’s faces disappeared from the rear-view mirror in a triumphant cloud of dust.

The rest of my day was then an exhilarating mix of one-to-one client sessions, rounds and rounds of sparring, two boxercise classes, one long run, and an entite tub of peanut butter icecream (low calorie obviously!)

All-in-all a fairly satisfactory start to my child-free weekend ... or so I thought! Because despite my overwhelming joy at having the entire house to myself, I also noticed a persistent ache in my chest. While soothing myself that this was merely an ice-cream induced bout of indigestion, it was my ever-alert mummy senses that told me differently. With a slow - and slightly horrified realisation - it dawned on me this dullish ache was in fact an unwitting case of missing-babyitus.

Damn you motherhood ... Damn you!!! 😩 #motherhoodlife #fitnesslife #boxinglife

Follow: @deborah_goldman_roberts

Website: www.honeysboxing.com

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#honeysboxing #boxing #boxercise #personaltraining #sparring #weightloss #padwork #boxinggym #toning #workout