Quote

I have always been a martial arts fighter; it goes to back when I was eighteen. I was competing on the circuit, but when you're performing, you tend to pull punches because you don't want to hurt anyone.

Boxing is like chess. You encourage your opponent to make mistakes so you can capitalise on it. People think you get in the ring and see the red mist, but it's not about aggression. Avoiding getting knocked out is tactical.

It's not just the physical aspect of boxing, it's the whole fighter mentality that has been ingrained in me through the years as a competitive athlete. One of the hardest things you'll ever do is to box - to get into the ring and to face off with somebody whose whole goal is to knock you out, to hurt you, and to be able to fight back.

It's less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.

In boxing, you get hit, it's painful, then you sit on the stool when the adrenaline is gone and you feel that pain. And then you fight the next round.

I've been boxing ever since I was 16. I love surprising people who think a short, blond girl can't fight! Just because I look a certain way doesn't mean I'm weak.

The first thing I learned in boxing is to not get hit. That's the art of boxing. Execute your opponent without getting hit. In sports school, we were putting our hands behind our backs and having to defend ourselves with our shoulders, by rolling, by moving round the ring, moving out feet.

When I was 17 or 18, I realised I could do something with boxing.