March 4, 2008

• I Just Want to Beat People Up

  When I was a kid, I watched wrestling on Saturday with my dad.  I'd wrestle with Rusty, the boy next door,  pretending we had a ring and audience.  Sometimes, we played Batman and Robin (tho' I was forbidden to watch the TV show).  Sometimes, we played war, shooting at each other with plastic toy guns or even using sticks for rifles.

  One day, Rusty brought over a book about karate.  The black and white pictures showed all the punches and moves, and we tried to practice them on each other.

  This was the early 1970s, remember.  In rural Arkansas.  I was about 10 years old or thereabouts.

  I asked my mother if I could take karate lessons.  No, she said.  We shouldn't be fighting at all.  We should be kind and loving to each other, not always studying on how to hurt each other.

  So all my adult life, I longed to take some version of martial arts training, but I had 3 small kids to raise, and I got fat, and we moved every few years (being in the Air Force), so I just never got to do that... I always put it off as a reward for when I lost the weight.  I assumed (wrongly) that I had to be fit first - that I would be turned away (or laughed at) showing up for karate class at 100 lbs overweight.

  Anyway, cut to fall 2005 when I'm 42 years old.  I hire a personal trainer at the gym I just joined.  He happens to be a kickboxer.  So for part of our training together, he teaches me to punch the focus mitts, move around the room, and I love it.

  "I just want to beat people up," I tell him.  He laughs.  He enjoys my enthusiasm.

  Cut to January 2008.  After attending BodyPump classes to get myself back into the exercise routine, I decide to hire my old trainer again, but this time doing only kickboxing. 

  "I just want to beat people up," I tell him again.  He's still amused.

  So for 12 1-hour sessions, he trains me in punching, footwork, defense, and I love it.  It gets my heartrate going as strong as the treadmill, but it's way more fun.  I can pummel the dummy, get out all my aggression, then sit in the steam room or sauna afterwards, feeling wonderful.

  My new trainer at a new gym is a karate black belt.  She's a tiny little thing and she loves how strong I am, how much heavy iron I can lift, how hard I can punch.  I love it too.

  I'm probably too old to ever be a contender for a title belt or go pro.  But who really knows what the future holds?  Right now, I'm just tickled to be beating up a rubber person until the sweat is pouring off me like rain.  It's glorious.

  • 8:28 am
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