I first heard about Muay Thai from my college rhetoric professor Maam TP De Luna in 2005, when she narrated how she enjoyed her kickboxing class and how it gave her "that" high-feeling knowing that she can kick with such power/ strength.  As a student I wondered why women like my professor consider boxing and kicking when they can actually choose playing badminton or swimming or belly dancing--- something more "feminine."

Perhaps as a 19 year old, I was too worried about engaging in sports that are famously played by men.  A little shy perhaps to serve that punch or even raise my leg for a kick.  

But everything has changed now, especially with the way i view sports for men and for women.  I have realized that sports has no gender and anybody, even that shy lass in your class can be a badass kicker in that boxing ring!

So, while doing aerobics for almost a year at Jessica's gym in San Ildefonso Bulacan, last May 4, 2013 I finally decided to give myself a new kind of training for health, self-defense and personality development. I thought "I'm ready to kick some butt:)"

Kidding aside, I was really into this because I wanted to bring back my weight :)  But more than that, I wanted to train because I wanted to be really fit--by "fit" i mean, not just achieve an ideal weight, but achieve right endurance, strength, flexibility and body and mind coordination through self-defense/ exercise.

Kickboxing

Muay thai is a combat sports from the muay martial arts of Thailand (wikipedia). It combines a physical and mental discipline as it includes combat on foot referred to as "the art of eight limbs":  use of fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet (wikipedia).

Third: acquire self defense moves
more than just a form of exercise, kickboxing lets you acquire additional valuable knowledge of self-defense. This is particularly ideal for women and even little girls, pre-teens, and teens. 

Fourth: get rid of stress and aggression, consider anger management therapy

Kickboxing lets you release tension, energies that may be negatively disturbing your mind and your focus that somehow affects the way you move.  As you train, you would eventually feel a good sense of relief.  It lets you focus or concentrate on what you should do and gives you time to think about what you feel:)  

Fifth: Confidence from Within.
You know you can.

With kickboxing, you get to give yourself another level of experience and knowledge that adds up to that confidence not just in facing a dangerous situation, but with the things that you fear or situations that you think you are actually scared of.

Plus, it makes you feel good about yourself, your body---knowing that your muscles are not lazy and that you are sexy and beautiful from within:)

Fight factory Manila offers muay thai, boxing, MMA, jiu-jitsu and the like to men and women.  the gym is located at Thompson's Square in Tomas Morato, Quezon City.  The rate is 350php per session.  At first I thought that Muay thai training is much like aerobics where you can train for an hour and a half.  However, with muay thai, especially for beginners like, 3 hours would just be right per session as you would really have to take a couple of rest in between your warm up exercises, actual kickboxing training, abs work out exercises, cooling down, and finally, stretching.

You can actually enroll as a group (with your friends) or one on one.  Since I went there by myself and decided to pursue it even without a friend to accompany me, I get to focus more with the training as the personal trainer assigned for me really gave his time to see my lapses.

The warming up jumping rope exercise is really challenging.  I have been attending the training for the 3rd time now (June 8, 2013) and yet I still can't seem to get the rhythm of the jump and the rope I supposed to skip.

"Nagwawala na siya oh" they jokingly tell me as I tried my best to jump---as a result, the jump was too high that easily tires me.  Plus the rope was making too noisy taps on the rubber mat. It was supposed to be done smoothly and with less sound.  Anyway, this is one of the things that inspires me to continue kickboxing.

Try it.  If you are looking for a new sports to engage yourself in with the purpose of burning those calories, consider kickboxing!  You'll even learn valuable self-defense. 

After all, you are a woman, you owe it to yourself that you can protect yourself while being fit:)

you are not just lovely, you are tough:)