Ordinary Extraordinary

Kick in the... head?

I had a good day today; read about it over at Butterlfy Fray.

Take It To The Limit

My quads are so sore that I'm walking like a robot and hanging on to the railing for dear life every time I go down a flight of stairs. I've been crawling out of my chair every 30 minutes or so to stretch (my officemates are a little puzzled) but it has done very little to unlock the rocks that have taken up residence where my nice, supple muscles used to be. This could make training slightly difficult, especially since tonight I'm in for 90 minutes of one-on-one time with Chief.

We've hit our crazy season at work and my boss had a minor meltdown about my leaving in time to get to class, so for the time being I've switched to twice-weekly private sessions with Chief. Ultimately this is a good thing, but his sessions are far more difficult than his classes.

Chief: I always feel like my classes are harder because we do a lot of jumpsquats and burpees. I don't usually make anyone do those in session.
Me: True, but I still think the sessions are harder because they're tailored to my weak points. At least in class, there are some things that come a *little* more easily.
Chief: Heh. Guess I never thought about it that way. Put your gloves on.

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to learn that, in a lot of ways, the mental aspect of Muay Thai is far more challenging to me than the physical; Chief is after me constantly to get out of my head, to stop thinking and analyzing and just do. The thing I struggle with the most is pressing myself to work not only to my limit, but also just a smidgeon beyond until the limit itself has moved.

Left to my own devices, I'll see my limit coming up ahead and stop a nice safe distance from it. I don't know when I learned to do that and I don't know what I'm afraid will happen if I get there, but some deep-seated instinct stomps on the brakes as soon as that line comes into view. It's like I'm willing to give up 95%, but for some reason I'm clinging desperately to that last 5%. Looking back, I see that this has been a pattern repeated in every area of my life for some time now.

Chief realized this about me roughly 10 minutes into our very first session (before I realized it about myself, truthfully) and has been trying to coax me a little bit closer to my limit ever since; I've fought him every step of the way. Because the man has the kindness and patience of a saint, he just keeps pushing me forward while completely ignoring whatever protestations I've offered. His standard response, delivered invariably with an impish grin, is Do I care? No, I don't care. Begin.

I've now been studying long enough that my session on Monday night was much more of a "standard" session - alternate rounds of strike drills and conditioning drills rather than short drills interspersed with basic technique explanations. Let me tell you: 90 minutes of striking and conditioning is no joke, especially when the holidays have kept you away from the gym for a couple of weeks - I was "done" less than 45 minutes in.

Here's the thing: During a private session, there's nowhere to hide. Even though the classes at our gym are usually less than ten people and Chief has eyes in the back of his head, I can still slow down or pause for a brief minute here and there. Not so when it's just the two of us, and doubly not so when we're the only two people in the entire gym. I have to keep going until I'm physically incapable of doing so; there are no other options.

Monday night was the first night that I cried at the gym.

About halfway through an exercise designed to strengthen both my balance and the muscles in the back of my legs, my legs felt like they were on fire and my arms were shaking from holding myself up. I dropped my leg in defeat and Chief simply asked me Did you hear the bell? Of course, I hadn't. But I'd seen that limit coming and I was doing everything in my power not to get any closer to it. When Chief came over to adjust my position so that I could begin again, to get my knee just a fraction of an inch higher, I simply dissolved into tears. Tears of anger at him for making me do it, tears of frustration at myself for not being able to do it "perfectly", tears of exhaustion, tears of pain, tears of fear. So I cried, and I clenched my fists around the bag, and I kept going until that stupid bell rang, goddamnit.

I have seen the limit. I have surpassed it. And I have survived! (Apart from the quad muscles, anyway.)

Onward, then, because that line just keeps moving farther and farther out.

x-posted to Butterfly Fray

Butterfly Fray

I have done it! I've finally gotten off my (very-sore-from-all-those-lunges) butt and created a separate Muay Thai blog.

Please join me over at Butterfly Fray for more kickboxing goodness!

Blue

How is it possible that an entire week has gone by since last I posted anything? Similarly, how is it possible that Thanksgiving is next week? Who put 2007 on fast forward all of a sudden?

I've been in a bit of a funk for the last week for a variety of reasons. We've been busy at work and my raise is still under negotiation, as it has been for the last 6 months. Money remains a constant source of stress, especially since my Treo committed ritual suicide during a meeting yesterday and I had to scramble to get a replacement. My knee is healing well, but I'm frustrated that I can't train as hard as I'd like to until I've built up more strength in my legs. The Fireman and I have been talking a lot lately, which is both wonderful and heartbreaking since it's very clear that we both want to be together but it's just not in the cards right now. Two of my friends are going through some icky health stuff and I'm worried about them. And, my friend James was killed on the 5 last week. Though we weren't terribly close, he was a shining spirit and the world is a bit darker for his loss.

Thanksgiving (my absolute favorite holiday) is only a week away and once again I find myself unable to treat a houseful of friends and family to food, drinks, and football. I love hosting Thanksgiving, but I haven't been able to do it for the past couple of years because of money & work issues. While I know that's not the end of the world, it still sucks and I'm bummed.

So, yeah. I've been a bit blue lately. There's a lot going on in my head and I've retreated while I struggle to sort through it all. There's a lot to sort.

I am so grateful that I found Muay Thai when I did - it allows me to shut off my brain for a couple of hours each night and that has been invaluable in keeping my sanity.

Muy Tired

This evening, after getting our asses kicked by the Boxing instructor:

Me: I am going home to to take a shower, and go to bed.
She: I am going home to eat dinner; I'm SO hungry.
Me: Oh my god, last night I was starving after class but I had no food at home so I had to stop at Ralph's. I was wandering around the market in such a daze, I just wanted someone to hand me something so I could buy it and get home.
She: Oh yeah, I know those nights. Those are the nights when you don't even have the energy to microwave something - you just look at the label and think "I have to stir and recover? Now way, that's way too much work."

Detour

The week before my sophomore year of high school, my class went on an adventure / bonding / team building retreat. It was, to quote Eddie Izzard, ...an activity center, where you climb a tree and eat a sausage and it's kind of… It builds your character so you know about sausages.

Though I'd been at the same school since age 5, I'd been well entrenched as an outcast for the past two years. (Ah 13, the magic age when girls turn on each other and boys turn into knuckle-dragging pack animals) When we were divided up into teams, I was paired up with the Most Hated Girl in School and her three henchmen - all in the name of making us "bond," of course. They were doing an excellent job of ignoring me and I was doing my best not to smack them all senseless until we got to the adventure wall portion of the day.

You know the one... 8' tall wall with no ropes or ladders... get your whole team to the top and revel in your newfound sisterhood.

Or, in my case, listen to the girls who hated me the most count to "3" and then drop me when I was almost to the top. I landed heavily on my left knee and felt the simultaneously strange and revolting sensation of my knee bending to the left, rather than to the front as is normal.  The only thing I could hear as rolled around in pain was the muffled sound of them snickering into their hands.

I learned some unpleasant lessons that day.

The diagnosis was a severe lateral ligament sprain with a little anterior cruciate ligament  stretching thrown in for good measure. I spent the next 8 weeks with my knee immobilized, hobbling from class to class and trying not to think about the fact that my volleyball, field hockey, and horseback riding careers had all come to a screeching halt.

I healed, eventually, but that knee has always been weak. Anyone's who's known me for a good amount of time has seen it go out when I've spent too many hours dancing, or been hiking too long without a break. It's always a reminder of that day.

I tell you this story now so that you may all appreciate my gut-wrenching frustration after my knee gave out again on Friday, in the first 5 minutes of my training session.

It was bound to happen. I've been working myself very hard and the joint is not yet as strong as my mind wants it to be. But as I lay on the mat, looking up at the skylight and waiting for the pain to subside enough for me to straighten my leg and assess the damage, I just wanted to cry; it was such a bitter pill. For a split second, I wanted to wave the white flag. For a split second, I wanted to just limp home and give up. For a split second, I was utterly defeated.

I sat up eventually, and Chief came over to see what had happened. When I explained, he told me in no uncertain terms that I would not be jumping or kicking anymore - I was so afraid that he was going to boot me from the class. Nope, instead he told me that we could use this "opportunity" to build strength in my upper body, my abs, and eventually my weak knee and that then I can jump and kick.

Never before have I been so glad to hear the words more sit-ups for you!

I'm still a little gimpy, but after three days off I was back at the gym tonight working on all of the things that don't involve my knee - trust me, that's plenty. Abs! Biceps! Triceps! More Abs! At least I finally got to break in my new gloves (which were waiting on my doorstep when I limped home Friday night, of course) with a few rounds on the heavy bag.

I'm trying to think of this as a detour, rather than a roadblock. I'm not so much a kickboxer right now as I am a boxer, but I'm working my way back up to the kicking one day at a time.

More Muay Thai!

I am so sore. Breathing hurts. Typing hurts. Hell, I think blinking hurts. And yet, I just can't stay away.

I have not spent less than two hours at the gym any day this week and yesterday I had a private lesson with Chief wherein he kicked my ass up and down the gym. Repeatedly. Right after he told me that I hit like a girl.

Since Chief is the first person ever to describe me as "too girly," I re-doubled my efforts and struck with full strength and speed for the first time since I started this adventure. It felt amazing. Granted, my hands and wrists are killing me today from doing that for 45 minutes straight, but there's something both empowering and freeing about unleashing the entirety of your strength in one well-placed strike. When I'd finally done it correctly once, Chief started to chase me around the room calling out combination numbers for me. I dropped my head, touched my gloves to my cheekbones, and for three 15-minute stretches I didn't focus on anything other than the pads he was holding and the numbers that he was calling.

I don't hit like a girl anymore.

I do, however, walk like an old lady because he also made me do evil leg strikes in which I hold one leg up behind me, femur parallel to the floor, and kick at the heavy bag behind me a couple of hundred times (No, seriously. We do things in sets of 50 or 100). Oh, my poor ass.

Are you guys bored hearing about this yet?

I can't help it - studying Muay Thai is such a strange and wonderful new experience for me that it's all I want to talk about. It's been a long, long time since I found something like this, something that I really love doing even though it's physically and mentally exhausting. I work my body to its limits every day and the first thing I think the next morning is "As soon as I figure out how to sit up without using my ab muscles, I'm totally going back!"

And it's not just about the physical exertion; there's something very spiritual about my training too. Maybe it's the fact that I've been in a bit of an introspective phase since my birthday, maybe it's just the nature of martial arts, but every time I leave the gym I take with me guidance for both my Muay Thai technique and my life as a whole. I always thought the "wise martial arts master veiling life lessons as training advice " was just a movie cliche... until Chief started saying things like this:

• Don't look down; the answers aren't there. If you look down you get blindsided. Look up. Look out. That's where the answers are.
• Hit it, hit it, hit it. You're stopping yourself short at the last second. Don't. Follow through. No mater what, follow through.
• Stop thinking. You're in your head too much and it's messing you up. Feel it. Just let go, and let yourself feel.

Hard to believe the man's only known me a week.

Something In The Air

I think they pump something into the air at the kickboxing gym.

In spite of the fact that I was so sore today that I could barely blink, by the time I got home from work I was jonesing for more time on the mats.

Generally, I am not the type of person who wants to go work out. I go to yoga because it's good for me, and it helps me stay limber. I go walking because yoga's not exactly aerobic and, unless I'm on site, I spend most of my day sitting on my ass. Even when I was training for the Honolulu Marathon I didn't want to go running. I did it because intellectually I understood that one cannot run 26.2 miles unless one runs smaller increments at regular intervals, but I didn't wake up in the morning and go "Oooh, I simply have to go running!" 

Work was uncharacteristically mellow today and every time I had a few minutes, my mind wandered to yesterday's lesson; my feet itched to practice the footwork and my arms longed to strike. I wanted to be back in the gym.

Sadly I can't go sign my paperwork until tomorrow or Friday, so no gym for me today. Instead I dug out my jump rope, my yoga mat, and my shuffle as soon as I got home and hit my front walk. I jumped, I high-stepped and shadow boxed, and I did the dreaded push-ups and crunches. 45 minutes later, I collapsed on my front lawn sweaty but energized.

I looked up at the moon for awhile and watched a bat closing in on a moth. I felt my breathing return to normal. I willed my limbs to work long enough to let me stand up.  Once I finally managed to drag myself back into the house,  I was surprised to realize that it was 8:15 and I'd missed the first 15 minutes of Pushing Daisies.

This situation is getting serious.

Don't Look Down

Don't look down; the answers aren't there. If you look down you get blindsided. Look up. Look out. That's where the answers are. -Chief

I had a bunch of things to take care of today, so I took the day off work. I ran a couple of errands, tidied up the house, did some laundry, the usual stuff.

Oh yeah, and I took my first kickboxing lesson.

Let me clarify: I went to a boxing gym and took a 90-minute private Muay Thai lesson with one of the first Americans to be certified by both the World Muay Thai Institute and the Muay Thai Institute of Bangkok.

Holy crap, I hurt in places I didn't know I have. No wussy cardio kickboxing for me*! I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow.

I've wanted to try Muay Thai for awhile (like... twenty years) and last week I just got it in my head that I'd procrastinated long enough. So I did some research, found a gym that looked promising, and signed myself up for a trial lesson. I'm kind of glad that I didn't think about it too much; if I had I totally would have psyched myself out and not gone.

Fortunately I did go and I had a great time. Well, as great a time as you can have when someone is making you jump rope for 10 hours minutes at a stretch and making you strike while holding 15lb weights. (Hello, first lesson. What the hell will I have to do in the second one?)

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I went in with my hackles up.  Gyms do not generally welcome fat girls with open arms and I was walking into a place where pro kickboxers & mixed martial artists train, so I was ready to fight for my right to be there, for my right to try. Much to my surprise, the people there could not have been nicer. Not only did everyone know each other, all of them were also genuinely friendly and welcoming.   

(I should also mention here that the men were all ridiculously, brutally gorgeous. It was all I could do not to get distracted by all the abs and quads and fall flat on my face.)

My instructor, whom I'll call Chief from now on, is both the Chief Instructor and the owner of the gym (and is probably under 35, and also distractingly handsome). After he introduced himself he spent a few minutes talking to me to learn a little bit about my background, as well as why I'm interested in Muay Thai and what I want to get out of my training. The point, apparently, was to determine how to teach me because he says that he's never taught two students the same way.

After he'd made that assessment, he kicked my ass for 90 minutes.

Aside from the jumping rope and the hardest push-ups ever, he also taught me how to strike, how to hook, how to knee, and how to do the basic footwork combinations. I like to think of myself as a fairly graceful and coordinated but people, I have never felt less graceful than I did today. Boxing footwork seems like it should be easy, but it's really not. And boxing footwork plus strikes and hooks? Forget it - I was arms and legs all akimbo. I looked like a complete idiot for most of the lesson, but I was surprisingly ok with that.

Once Chief had reduced me to a sweating, panting pile of jelly-filled limbs, he invited me to stay and train with the class that was about to start. I knew I was hooked when I actually contemplated it, even though I could barely lift my legs to get back up to street level.

Did I mention that the gym is down two flights of stairs? Such a cruel joke.

I think it's safe to say that I loved it - my only concern was how to pay for it. It's a private gym so it's a bit pricey and we all know that I'm broke. Going without food didn't really seem like much of an option so I was stymied. Thankfully, my Dad came through with a solution and made me a deal: he and my mom will split the cost with me if I promise to stick with it for at least 6 months. (If I don't stick with it I get to repay them, with interest)

So that's it then. I'll go in on Friday and sign all the paperwork.

And I won't look down.

_____
*If you read through the Wikipedia page, you'll notice that Frank Thiboutot developed cardio kickboxing because Muay Thai is too dangerous to be done in a health club environment. Yeah. That's what I just signed myself up for. I may be insane.