Please do! :)

I shall report back from Rooney’s :-)

That sounds awesome! I have done classes and been the only woman (and encountered some quietly sexist stuff; some men not wanting to partner me, some men not wanting to hit me, and some men hitting me very hard when the class is meant to be going easy, just to see what I’ll do) so I’m also interested to hear about this.

I do a boxing training class at Danceworks near Oxford Street on Tuesday evenings which is superb, but there’s not much sparring involved. (It’s woman-friendly, I go with a group of female friends. And it’s set to a pumping d’n’b soundtrack!) As of next week I’m going to start ladies’ boxing group classes in addition (more sparring focused, hopefully I’ll get to go in the ring at some distant point in the future) at Rooney’s Gym in London Bridge, which comes very highly recommended.

‘It’s not just overweight people who’re afraid to go to the gym for fear of being laughed at or mocked by regular users. “As a scrawny, spotty and flat-chested kid, I was an even easier target for the standard crap.”‘

As my friend then added, ‘bullies will find a target regardless of body shape, I don’t think one type is more of a target than another.’

I think so much of sport is down to confidence levels – I think I could have been good at PE if people hadn’t laughed at my skinny, unshaved legs and asked when we were changing why I bothered with a bra and all that crap (the insinuations that I was male still get under my skin). I think that if I could at least have enjoyed PE at school, I wouldn’t have such a loathing of exercise now.

And Zoe, I couldn’t agree more about running on grass! It even feels nicer.

When I was young and unfit and a couch potato and horribly fat I expressed my bitterness by labelling all sporty/exercise-y people as vain and shallow and mocked them relentlessly.

Nowadays my reluctance to ever set foot in a gym is more because I am stingy and think paying for exercise is ridiculous (I am not a bodybuilder, I do not need special machines), and also because it makes me sad that the ‘modern lifestyle’ means that we have to actively seek out what should be the most natural part of our lives – moving around enough to not balloon like whales. I cycle to work – it’s perfect as it SAVES me huge amounts of time and money and means I do not wallow in chronic back pain like I did for 3 months when I used to commute by tube.

Also do beware of too much indoor exercise – playing squash can rather increase risk of heart attack – too much exertion, not enough oxygen! I do rather wish people would run around outside.

Oh and FFS if you must run run on grass, not concrete as you will fuck your knees!!! I always want to shout that at joggers but I think that might seem rude. Maybe in a blog comment it’s less rude.

It’s horrible how one or two mean comments can put you off talents you *know* you have. Glad the article was some help – and yes, go get ’em! Whooo! *cheerleading*

Excellent! Yes please! I got a punching bag for Christmas (but it still isn’t hung up yet) after finding another friend’s punchbag…. theraputic, but I haven’t known where to start with finding lessons that are cheap/local/lady-friendly.

If you are in London I can recommend you some boxing/boxercise classes that are incredibly friendly, btw.