I didn’t start kickboxing to get fit.
I started because one night, sitting in a restaurant in Rickmansworth, with a group of mums, someone walked past me and took my phone — and with it, something I didn’t realise I’d lost until much later: my sense of safety.
It sounds small when I say it out loud.
The phone was replaced within days. Everything was backed up. Life carried on as normal...But I didn’t.
We’d met at Hartbeeps in Rickmansworth. The usual chaos of snacks, nursery rhymes and trying to drink a hot coffee before it went cold — and a few of us decided to go out later that evening. It was meant to be one of those easy, light, "I’m not just mum today" kind of nights. And then it happened.
For weeks afterwards, I couldn’t stop asking myself the same questions:
Do I look like someone who can be taken advantage of?
Do I look naïve?
Do I look… weak?
But the thought that really stayed with me - the one that sat heavy in my chest, was: What if my son had been there?
I was suddenly aware of my lack of ability to protect not just myself, but him.
And that shift was bigger than a stolen phone.
From the outside, I was absolutely fine. I laughed about it.I told the story like it was one of those annoying things that just happens.
I got a new phone and carried on.
But something in me had changed.
I didn’t move through the world in the same open, trusting way.
I became more aware of people. More guarded. Less… soft.
And if you know me, you’ll know that softness is a huge part of who I am.
It wasn’t fear, exactly.
It was the uncomfortable feeling that I wasn’t capable.
Walking into something that was just mine
When the Premier Kickboxing opened in Ruislip Manor, I booked a trial.
Not because I had a fitness goal.
Not because I wanted to lose weight.
Not even because I thought I’d be good at it (though I've been told I've got a good kick!). I just didn’t want to feel that way anymore.
I signed up a couple of months later and that was it — there was no going back.
What I didn’t expect was that it would become the one place in my week where I wasn’t needed by anyone.
Not “mummy”. Not “wife”. Not the person organising everything and remembering everything and being everything for everyone.
Just me. In a room full of people who knew my name.
And when I got busy setting up my photography business last year and missed three gradings, I started getting messages: Where have you been?...We’ve missed you.
That feeling, of being noticed...is something I don’t think many mums realise they’re craving until it happens.
My body after a C-section: the part no one talks about
For a long time, I thought I had recovered from my C-section. The scar had healed. I was back to normal life. I was doing all the things. So in my head, that meant my body was fine. Kickboxing gently, and then very bluntly, showed me that it wasn’t.
I could see progress in some areas. One push-up turned into five, then ten, then more. Squats got stronger. I could take punches to the stomach during conditioning and feel powerful doing it.
But some things just wouldn’t improve.
My plank was stuck at 37 seconds. Crunches were uncomfortable. Jumps felt impossible.
I told myself it was just my ability.It wasn’t.
After speaking to a certified Pre/Post Natal Trainer, I found out my deep core hadn’t healed properly. My back had been overcompensating for years. My body had been working around a weakness I didn’t even know was there.
And that hit me emotionally more than physically.
Because how many of us as mums think:
The scar has healed, so I must be healed.
We carry our children. We birth them. We recover just enough to function — and then we move on.
Kickboxing made me stop and listen to my body in a way I never had before.
Not to punish it.
But to understand it.
Strength that has nothing to do with fighting
Yes, I feel stronger now. I walk differently. I carry myself differently. I know that if I had to, I could defend myself in some way.
But the real strength isn’t in my punch. It’s in the fact that I am no longer the woman who felt small after that night in the restaurant.
It’s in showing up consistently for something that is just for me.
It’s in pushing through gradings that scare me. In earning belts. In seeing physical proof that I can do hard things.
The full-circle moment I didn’t see coming...Now my son trains too.
He comes to my classes in the holidays.I sit and watch his gradings. He watches mine.
And the most important part of that isn’t that we share a hobby.
It’s that he sees me as someone who has one.
He sees me try.
He sees me progress.
He sees me commit to something.
He sees that his mum is still growing.
What this has to do with my photography (even though it doesn’t look like it)
This journey has changed the way I see women. Because I know what it feels like to:
- look fine on the outside and be rebuilding on the inside
- live in a body that has done something incredible and not fully recognise it
- slowly find your confidence again
And when a mum stands in front of my camera and tells me she feels awkward, or that she doesn’t recognise her body, or that she’s “not photogenic anymore” — I see her differently.
Not as she is in that moment. But as everything she’s carrying. Everything she’s come through.
Everything she doesn’t give herself credit for.
Strength doesn’t always look loud.
Sometimes it looks like showing up to a photoshoot when you’d rather hide.
Sometimes it looks like booking the class.
Sometimes it looks like doing one push-up and coming back the next week to try again.
This was never about kickboxing
Kickboxing was just the vehicle. This was about: Reclaiming a sense of control. Learning to trust my body again. Having a space that belonged only to me. Showing my son what it looks like to keep growing.
And realising that healing isn’t a straight line — especially after motherhood.
So if you’re reading this thinking this is a post about fitness, it’s not.
And if you’re reading this feeling like you’ve lost a part of yourself somewhere along the way, I want you to know: You don’t have to start kickboxing. You just have to find the thing that gives you back to yourself.
Because three years ago, I walked out of a restaurant feeling smaller than I’d ever felt. And today, I’m grading for my advanced brown belt.
Not because I wanted to learn how to fight.
But because I finally understand how strong I really am.