I ended up becoming a coach, and specializing in pads for combat and stand up. I was training in boxing and kickboxing with my friends. That started my brand where I had the nickname, The Pad Technician.

But it's a bit of a double-edged sword, because as much as I loved what I did, I was also pushed into it for the wrong reasons.

The bad experiences allowed me to learn to not do some things, as a coach. I learnt to be more empathetic, but also to see how people train in the gym – to see women and the perception of toxic masculinity.

It had its pros and cons. I just probably dwell more on the cons because from everything I've gone through, it took away what should have been the best and the fun of things.

For example, the women who wanted to fight or pushed to fight, couldn’t train with the men because a lot of the women didn't want to be hit.

And it could be for a number of reasons – a lot of them had certain jobs, where you couldn’t have a black eye. And a lot of women that were in the gym didn't really understand what fighting was or the sport, but the ones that did pushed, “Well, I want to train with the men because the men will hit me, the women won't.”

But if you take away the gender aspect for a minute, there are men that are in the gym who don't want to be hit, who can't because they're lawyers, or some of them are shy, some of them have been bullied, some of them have severe trauma, where they don't want to be around the fighting aspect, but they want to box.

So if you take away gender, the men would be no different from a woman with the same situations and challenges.

But because it's more of a male-dominated environment and the men were more commonly fighting, the women would then compare themselves to the men.

Continued…