[jam26]

I started boxing in January and it's the first activity I've discovered that I look forward to every day. It's also one of the most intense forms of exercise you can find.
I go about 3 times per week and each class is 1.5 hrs long. When I first started, I was tremendously out of shape but I have lost about 25 lbs since January and put on quite a bit of muscle, so it's been very rewarding.
We generally start with about 10 mins of skipping, run up and down four flights of stairs 15 times, then do some shadow boxing and technique before doing some sparring, working on the heavy bags and then doing situps and pushups.
It's definitely a high intensity workout.
I never had any notions of fighting but I've been giving it some serious thought lately. In fact, I am aiming to compete in an amateur bout in the spring. My school is in TO, so I doubt that helps you much. But I would advise to get involved with a real boxing club and not a boxercise class. I think it will be far more intense and the culture at these places is pretty interesting.