Healthy Living London Editor, Eliza, was put through her paces by Kieon at Fitness Mosaic’s Saturday boxing class. There was skipping, there was sweat and there were punches thrown…
Kieon and Eliza getting ready to throw some punches.
It all happened rather suddenly. I was having a conversation with Fitness Mosaic on Twitter and the next thing I knew, I was rushing (late) into a Boxing class the following Saturday near Camden Stables. I barely had a chance to glimpse the sexy clean lines of the studio and ladies changing room before I was handed a skipping and told to get skipping.
Luckily, I’m good at skipping. Several years under the watchful eye of Floyd from Flobox had me able to not miss a step for many minutes. I can’t do anything fancy, mind you, but I don’t skip like I did at school. Whilst skipping, I took a look around the room – we were in a top floor gym that was more like a playground – a room’s length of TRX and punching bags looked promising. Even better, treadmills were sparse and there were medicine balls and weights instead.
This was also my lucky day – it was a small class, which meant more attentive coaching from Kieon, a K1 fighter with a special love for Muy Thai. Regardless of this rather frightening choice of career, Kieon is awesome – he’s chilled, knowledgeable and worked us hard. So hard in fact, that I had a hard time lifting my arms to wash my hair after.
After our warm-up, we paired up, one donning gloves, the other donning focus mitts (everything is supplied so there’s no need to go spending any money on accessories). There’s less of a technical focus and more of a fitness focus in Kieon’s classes, although I suspect that he’s more than capable of taking you through the details if you so wished. We worked on simple combinations of jab, cross, hook, working up to an extra cross by the end of that section. In between sets, there were either squats or burpees. Moving on from padwork, it was bag time where we mixed up rounds of speed and power, interspersed with sets of mountain climbers or more burpees.
See, they’re friends, really!
What can I say? It was an effective and moreover fun workout. There was a little bit of time spent chatting during the class (diversion tactic whilst we all caught our breathe) but the rest of time we were working at maximum capacity. I thoroughly enjoyed it – the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly (some boxing classes can be a little terrifying) and I really felt it after.
Mosaic Fitness is also an impressive establishment – there’s a great juice and snack bar downstairs, immaculate changing rooms, a beautiful spin room and a spacious studio that I peeked into before I left. Classes are varied, catering for all types of fitness bunnies, from pilates to HIIT to TRX. They’re also an advocate of getting kids involved in fitness too which I give them brownie points for.
Who should go to boxing at Fitness Mosaic: Anyone who wants to get fit fast and have fun
Don’t forget: A towel and water – boxing gets sweaty.
How much? £9 for a drop-in class or £49.99 for an unlimited monthly gym subscription to all sessions
Where is it? 81-84 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8AR
Leave a Reply