Hit Me With Your Best Shot: We Try Boxing! (Kind Of)

Here we go, cats- our first fitness experiment is in the books! We picked our first class based on a long scroll through Groupon, and settled on Canvas Club Boxing. We both felt like this would be a good place to enter the game, since both of us have some experience with bag work (Jess took some kickboxing classes a few years back, and Lyn used to be a for real martial artist!) So what did we think? First, a run-down:

So early… so sweaty…

What Is It?

Canvas Club Boxing is a locally owned boutique gym that offers group boxing/fitness classes. It’s a smallish space that holds a small boxing ring, a section of like 16 heavy bags, and some floor space. Each 45 minute class (we took three total) was formatted similarly, but different every time. It started with a group warm up, then you and your partner would be put into one of three groups that you would rotate through every three minutes: working on some kind of drills in the ring with pads, working on the heavy bags, or doing some kind of floor exercise (like shuttle runs, medicine ball passes, pushups, etc.) The end of the class, just when you’re thinking “it must be almost time for the cooldown!”, would be some kind of group torture, like burpees or running down the alley.

inside the space: the ring, the bags and the wood floor were the main three areas used—along with a field trip outside in the alley

Things We Liked:

J: Right off the bat, everyone was super friendly and helpful! At 6:00 in the morning, a smiling face offering to help us was a great way to start. Plus all the other class members were nice and willing to help keep us on track, too. Generally speaking, the music in each class was great! The workouts were solid and the 3 minutes per station format kept it interesting- also I tend to dread when classes are the same/predictable, so I really appreciated it being different each time.

L: I’m definitely down for this kind of format. Switching things up after a fair chunk of time was a good way to get in a bunch of different exercises and not get too salty at any one of them. Except burpees. And it’s been a long minute since I hit a bad, and I still really like it.

Things We Didn’t Love:

J: While I totally understand that this is a boxing class, I really wanted to kick that bag! I was also a little annoyed that we were instructed to always be dominant-hand leading. How am I supposed to trick the Dread Pirate Roberts into thinking I’m a pretty good left-handed fighter when really I’m a great right-handed fighter if I never train my left side??

L: I really, really, really don’t like being pitted against other people in a class—especially people who aren’t even there. I don’t need to hear that Steve did 757 burpees in 3.5 minutes yesterday. I legit don’t care and also start wondering why I’m a terrible person who can’t also do 757 burpees in 3.5 minutes on my first day of class. (Jess and I are geminis—this has been established, right?) It’s not even that I’m particularly competitive against others, but I’m way too competitive with myself and its something I’ve been actively working on for my own self-preservation for a while. So it’s best for me to give me things to do and tell me how to do it and give me some goals or guidelines and then just cheer me on. I don’t’ want to be yelled at or told I’m not working hard enough when any normal person can see I actually am and when it just makes me feel bad. I’m definitely more inclined to want to do less reps but to do them correctly. So this was a major fail for me with one of the instructors.

J: Lyn, you totally nail this feeling about feeling like a jerk who isn’t as good as Steve! I do much better with personal cues like “see if you can do one more rep than you did the last round!”, because fuck Steve and his 737 burpees. He can keep them.

Was There A Hard Sell?

Nope! Which makes me feel like we’ll be back someday, honestly. They were so nice! Especially at 6:00 in the morning!

Off to breakfast- the best part!!

Would we do it again?

L: 6am is not my favorite, although once you’re up, it’s pretty ok. And there wasn’t really a time that worked for both of us outside of stupid o’clock. I really like the last teacher we had and would totally be down to talking class from her. If we went to the usual teacher—I would just have to steel myself to do me and not get shaken by triggering cues. As for the workout itself—I really liked it. A lot. 

J: Yeah, same- I really struggle with getting up and somewhere by 6am, but then maybe I like being up and having all this secret personal time in the day? I can’t quite convince my snuggled-up-with-cats self of this, though. Anyway, overall I really enjoyed the class and the instructors and would totally do this as an every-so-often fun class, but I wouldn’t want it to be my main form of fitness.

How Was Breakfast After?

Being on Monroe Street, we were rich with breakfast options!! Barrique’s is a reliable, solid choice with a good breakfast selection, but Crescendo let us down with spongy toast and not a lot of avocado. Bloom, however, was the clear winner (streets ahead!), from it’s exceedingly friendly staff to it’s perfectly poached eggs. Please bring me all the sweet potato donuts.

What’s next, friends? We’ve gotten lots of requests to do something in the aerial/circus realm, so maybe! Also: should we have a podcast?? Let us know in the comments!!

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