“My real name is not Chocolate; it’s actually Sylvia. When I was training at my old gym, the Thai trainer could not pronounce my name properly, so he called me Chocolate because of the mole above my lip. It’s been my Muay Thai name ever since.

I started doing Muay Thai about four years ago because of peer pressure. I didn’t want to at first; I was very lazy. I used to party a lot and I didn’t want to spend my weekend doing exercises, but because a friend of mine asked me so many times to join her for a class, I decided to accompany her.

After my first class, I got very interested to do more. Seeing all the people at the gym motivated me to keep fit and take good care of myself too. Enough of all the crazy drinking and parties – I wanted a change of lifestyle.

I only became competitive after I joined Onyx about two years ago. I wanted to try something different after working at Toys “R” Us for 10 years, and I was always impressed with the fighters from Onyx whenever I saw them at fighting events. I thought that I could be like them, so I asked to be put up for fights.

My most memorable fight? Definitely the one in Sandakan last December. I represented Singapore in the tournament and won my first fight in the third round against a girl from Malaysia. I didn’t win the belt sadly; I lost in the finals against a Chinese girl from Australia. It was a really close fight, but I was very tired from having two fights in one night.

I do recover slower than other fighters because I started out quite late, but I really think that age is just a number. It’s really a mental thing, and whether you have the heart to fight needs to be tested in the ring; that’s where you get to know your limits and see how far you can go. I still hope to get another title fight and bring back a belt to hang at the gym one day.” – Chocolate, 32