FLAG

Warrior wrapping up his hands 👊🏻 5 weeks to go 😤

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The other day that quote popped on my feed saying that your clients will become your friends quicker than your friends will become your clients.. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Priscilla!

Pri first came to FLAG boxing class in January- fast forward 2 months and we’ve shared numerous runs, post- run cups of coffee, sushi eaten on my 30quid-pretending-to-be-posh rug, a cheeky takeaway at Pri’s, endless in-jokes, memes, daily WhatsApps, life stories, future plans, a hell lot of excitement when I set a local cafe on fire or when we were trying to figure out whether my landlady was alive (spoiler alert- she just enjoyed a good sleep after going out the night before). We just clicked the second we spoke and it’s the coolest thing ever. Having a friend who’s just as obsessed with staying fit as you are, whose standards are so high that you’re actually proud to coach her, who balances out your flaws, always knows the way home, punches your grumpiness in the face with a bit of sunshine and sarcasm, pushes you when it’s needed, is always in charge of planning because you’re the most go-with-the-flow-and-hope-for-the -best person ever, has an equally vile, merciless sense of humour and lives 2 minutes away? Sounds too good to be true 😭 I can’t thank you enough for putting up with me, 🥹 Also, you should join FLAG as a business because this photo is too cool not to be used on Dragon’s Den! 😂❤️🐉

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What you see as an individual outcome is almost always a team effort, whether it’s boxing, coaching or running a business. Behind every success story there’s a support system that’s the most significant make or break factor- be meticulously selective about who you surround yourself with 🥊

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Sting like a bee 🥊

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What do you want? How bad do you want it? How much are you willing to suffer?

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‘Your hardships, your challenges, your situation will either be the reason you don’t make it or it will be the story you tell when you do make it and you get to make that choice’ 🥊

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‘You’ve got to go after it, you’ve got to chase it, you’ve got to make it happen yourself because no one’s gonna gift it to you, you’re gonna have to work for it’ 🥊

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Iron sharpens iron 😤

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Rocky remake coming soon, best cinemas only! 😉
Sick photos:

Feed your focus, starve your distractions 🔥
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Wrapping up our hands to fight any adversity 2024 brings on! 💪🏻🖤🥊🏴‍☠️

The power in boxing comes from our legs! Although I’m a huge fan of compound movements (can’t really beat squats and burpees- not just for boxing but also a lot of other disciplines.. and even everyday functioning) but if your legs are weak, adding some weight sessions to your training can help. Leg presses, deadlifts and especially various split stance/ single leg exercises can all have great benefits for boxing, improving stability and power. One thing to keep in mind though is being patient and adjusting the volume/load slowly- you don’t want muscle soreness to impact your boxing sessions! 💪🏻🥊🏋🏻
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Whenever I pad someone for the first few times, they eventually say: ‘Sorry I’m sweating so much’.

Honestly matey, I’d be offended if you weren’t! 🖤🥊🏴‍☠️

Plus, just a random thought, if you’re so sensitive that somebody’s sweat grosses you out, how can you even touch tube seats or eat junk food? I’m pretty sure whatever’s in there is much more disgusting 👹

And before it gets twisted- I’m not saying stop taking a shower and changing your tops or lower your personal hygiene standards in any way 😁 but… you know the drill, let’s simply not get paranoid over nothing 🙃
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Don’t let adversity be the reason why you didn’t make it- let it be the story you tell when you do make it!

A year ago I was blind, bed-ridden, in excruciating pain, wondering if I’d ever see again. In a hospital room, surrounded by some of the best doctors in the country discussing whether they should remove my eye. My entire world collapsed in a split second.

That’s also when I realised how many people felt sorry for me, meaning: they were so quick to completely give up on me! And that’s when I refused to feel sorry for myself. Against all odds I made a promise to myself to spend every breathing minute fighting for this crazy dream because, for once, I ran out of excuses. According to all the logic, this wasn’t meant to work. Except I refused to accept that possibility.

That’s when FLAG was born. I had been a boxing coach & nutritionist for a while but that’s when I wrote 200 pages of my portfolio with only one, half-functioning eye to also complete my Personal Trainer diploma. That’s when I read dozens of pages of legal regulations I struggled to understand to register the company. Despite being the least technical person in the world, that’s when I built the website. All that while still being far too sick to run classes. That’s when some people called me ‘delusional’ and laughed behind my back. Just because they didn’t understand what it’s like to have a dream.

That’s also when the doctors started describing my case in hospital records because, apparently, such a great improvement in such a short time ‘simply doesn’t happen’ with the condition I had.

I was taking strong medication every 15 minutes, day and night, getting hardly any sleep but my none of that mattered because my sight was slowly coming back!

Whatever challenge you’re facing, you can either let it crush you or welcome it with open arms and use it as fuel to keep you going until you reach your destination. And the tougher it gets, the more you realise that giving up is simply not an option.

That’s the approach I invite the FLAG community to adopt during our training sessions as I truly believe it very much translates onto how we approach adversity in other areas of life 🖤🥊🏴‍☠️

The OG restring between the rounds!🥊
P.S. I truly love this photo by and just wish FLAG had its very own studio space to display it on the wall… but hey, we’ll get there! 💃🏼🏴‍☠️💪🏻

The more the business grows, the more people try to give me advice on how to run it. And one suggestion I keep hearing quite often is about ‘keeping it professional’.

The trouble is, ‘professional’ means different things to different people. For example, I heard I shouldn’t organise group outings in my private time because ‘that’s not professional’. I heard that I shouldn’t kneel down to do somebody’s shoe laces (even if that somebody’s wearing gloves) because ‘that’s not professional’. I heard that I shouldn’t bring treats to classes. That I shouldn’t stick plasters on people’s cuts for them. That my language shouldn’t be ‘so informal’. That I shouldn’t hug people when they come back from long holidays. That I shouldn’t keep letting people borrow my gear. That I shouldn’t be at the end of the phone 24/7. Because all of that ‘isn’t professional’.

Well, perhaps I view things differently and try to be professional in my own way.

What’s ‘professional’ to me is being on time. Not giving anyone special treatment. Not replying to texts while in charge of the class. Still taking body shots from someone twice your size while having period cramps (because how’s that your client’s problem?!). Bringing the same energy to the class no matter if you had 7 or 2 hours of sleep. Giving people feedback, checking up on them, making sure that everyone performs exercises correctly and safely. Just genuinely caring about what you do, really. That’s ‘professional’ to me.

And although one would think all those small things go without saying, I’d love to see more (so ironically called) ‘fitness professionals’ who actually hold themselves up to at least those basic standards.

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Join us for some pad work fun every Wednesday and Friday!💥🥊💪🏻
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Working around the clock! 🥊
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