Going a round in the square circle (+video)

Rotorua Daily Post sports reporter Ruth Dacey continues her participation column - taking her best shot at different sports in the area.

A poignant film theme tune, which I still play very loudly to this day to motivate myself, is the fist punching Eye of the Tiger from the classic boxing movie Rocky III.

And with my birthday this year marred by the sad passing of one of the world's greatest sporting figures - boxing legend Muhammad Ali and taking inspiration from local youngster Maea Hay, who took up the sport to stop being bullied at school, it was time for me to step into the ring and see if I could 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'.

I headed down to local gym Rotovegas, ready for my intensive 30-minute class, with owner Aaron Warren - a former New Zealand national champion who has been involved with boxing since 1985.

"You ready champ?" he asked. "I want you to remember technique is paramount - it is better to do a few things right than be throwing punches all over the place."

I was used to 90 minutes on a football field so this would be easy, right?

Wrong! The first drill was to help with hand and feet co-ordination and replicate the two-minute rounds that women compete in. It involved 30 seconds of high resistance gym bike sprinting, followed by 30 seconds of punching while still peddling on the bike, repeated for three rounds over six minutes, and I was amazed at how quickly my pulse had reached sky high levels.

"It's crucial to get your hands and legs working in sync," shouted Aaron, above my loud puffing and wheezing.

It was then straight into situps, crucial to help build a strong core. I was aiming for 60 with Aaron stepping on my toes making me reach up and do straight, hook and then upper cut punches at the end of each one.

It was agony on the last set - I stopped several times and was only able to finish because Aaron kept shouting "you can do it, come on don't give up".

I was going to throw up but I didn't have enough time as it was immediately on to 'mirror work'. I learned the correct technique for a jab punch which we repeated, what seemed like hundreds of times, until I had nailed it.

Next 'tyre work' - initially I thought I was going to have to heave one around the gym but we used it instead to work on 'the stance'. The tyre creates a bouncy surface which replicates that of a fighting ring. We ran through several punch combinations on the pads while I wobbled around.

Finally it was the last drill of the session, bag work, and I, with a face resembling the colour of a beetroot, had another thing coming if I thought it would be an easy finish.

I did a buildup of punches up to 10, as hard as I could muster with my now jelly-like arms and then just to finish me off I had to hit the bag as hard as I could before sprinting to the other side of the gym - 10 times.

At the end I collapsed, gasping for air, in a heap on the floor. I have never been put through such an intensive period of time.

But it was an exhilarating experience with my body tingling as the adrenaline surged through my exhausted body and hopefully I'll step back into the ring very soon!