My conversation with Mary Kom’s trainer
- I knew there was something about her!

From day one, ever since I saw this one lady from a distance at the bus stop while standing there to pick up my little girl, I knew she was “different” – from a certain angle.

And the first day I saw her, I believe she was in a dress of sorts, sort of like a nightdress except you could tell it wasn’t, it was one of those long flowing gowns ladies so love (hehe. I’m a fan of shorts both for myself and the ladies, but of course, it could be Gorilla Girl Sophia, or a certain “Princess” Joanie – they’ve all tortured me with the long dresses!) …

(I’ll leave the long dresses part out of this, hehe).

… and all I really made out in the distance was an Indian lady, and broad shoulders and somewhat powerful traps

The core wasn’t toned, I idly noticed, but certainly nowhere near the “rotund” status popular in the part of India I first saw her where men apparently walk around with beer guts hanging over their bellies and damn proud of it (though to be fair, the US South has cowboys who love doing that too, hehe, so who am I to say!).

But anyway, fitness levels all over the world – asinine for the most part, when people are slim they’re called “weak”, when they’re PHAT, the phat phockers who are even fatter claim they should lose weight and dont themselves. Insanity, madness.

Back to it.

I asked the wife idly that first day who she was, and wife giggled back at me.

I didnt get it.

“She’s a boxer!”

She didnt tell me to watch out. Hehe.

I added that part in.

But then I asked her more, she said she was a government employee, and barring a few other things, that was really all I thought of it (though I Admit, I’d love for her to hook me once, like a certain Angelina in 2019 who was learning boxing did – I asked her to practice on me – POW! Not quite as smooth as Marc, nowhere near, but like he did, she clocked me pretty good too, hehe).

Today, I saw this lady after a while.

“Long time no see!”

And she said yes, she had been transferred, I asked her her job, and then it hit me – I was thinking about some business related stuff I believe, then she told me she was an Indian government employee, a boxing coach, but what really struck me?

Madam’s trained Mary Kom, for a minute I couldn’t believe it, then I scanned the memory banks (the name, of course I knew it, but ..)

“Do you know Mary Kom”, the lady asked.

Not personally, obviously, I replied, then I scanned the ole elephant like memory.

She won something, I blurted out, and …

OK, Mary Kom – and then the lady  spoke about how she’s a world champ, won plenty of medals and so forth.

“I remember, pride of India from the North East”, I went.

And she is – in a country like India where the North dominates in damn near everything and is as male dominated as you can think, though the rest of the country is not, and the North East is almost China basically (no politics here, I’m NOT saying this in a bad way, I’m simply referring to lifestyle, freedoms, societal attitudes etc, hey, we all know this!) … to do something like she has in boxing, and remember, back in those times (Kom’s around 40ish, so is this lady, they started together)… thats an achievement and a half.

Tip of the hat to both you ladies!

Anyway, then she told me about “she’s a world champion”.

They dont have a “world” championship in boxing, I went.

Then it hit me.

“Ahhhh, amateur”.

But that dont take away from anything, my friend – anyway, y’all all heard about Mary Kom, I’m sure.

Whats more, this lady – who I knew only as “Hemlata” until now?

She’s even trained the lovely, gorgeous Priyanka Chopra for the biopic on Mary – Mary Kom it was.

“Have you seen it”, she asked.

Yeah, I went. “But I didnt like it!”

I didnt. It wasn’t realistic, though PC did a damn good job of trying.

She giggled.

And then I went on about how the boxing scenes weren’t realistic, and so forth …

But hey, lets be fair – the movies gotta SELL.

A lot of the boxing and related training in Rocky III, Rocky IV – utter tosh, anyone knowing anything about boxing knows this.

The start and end of the movie franchise which Stallone so wants back now are far more realistic in many ways – training included.

“You can’t learn boxing in six months”, she went. (referring to PC’s “skills” in the movie, she trained her).

“Well you can learn some footwork”, I went. “But ” …

… “You need 10,000 hours of practice to be good at anything. And boxing, man, its one of the toughest things along with wrestling that one can do!”

And it is – try fighting for a few rounds with proper form, defense (far more important sometimes than offense) – keeping thy shoulders up while doing so – it aint easy!

Anyway, lady’s been all over the world, but doesnt quite remember the cities.

Nah, no Rocky like blows to the head or anything. She just goes to train her pupils there and accompanies them to the competitions when the government sends her, but even so, this lady – in today’s day and age – kudos Madam, especially being from a conservative state like where she’s from with no training facilities for women at least back then, not sure about NOW.

She loves China, as is to be expected.

“Female dominated there”, I laughed.

Russia, she didnt like that.

“Male dominated”, I laughed again, but apparently it wasn’t that, it was the fact that all she saw was SNOW when she visited.

I advised her to go to Vladivostok the next time – hey, Russia’s a huge country, it ain’t always frozen everywhere!

Anyway … that was a nice conversation – and an interesting one to say the least.

And thats that. The lady whose trained both Mary Kom and Priyanka Chopra – quite the combo eh!

Back soon!

Best,

Rahul Mookerjee

PS – Any boxer will tell you that the pushups I teach you in Pushup Central, truly the one course of its kind out there on pushups are what boxers train – for hours on end. Any wrestler will tell you the 0 Excuses Fitness System is and should always be and remain the BASELINE for any sort of serious training.

Any elite “strongman” or true “Ironman” (or Iron lady, hehe) will tell you what I tell you in Advanced Hill Training and Animal Kingdom Workouts is the real deal.

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