epiphany

Manly Man

I've lived my life as something of an unspoken pacifist, but last night I threw my first ever punch. In fact, I think I threw a couple hundred of them.

On Wednesday evening I began my first session of sanda (pronounced sen-DAH; both syllables using third tone, if you know what that is), also known as Chinese kickboxing. I plan on going to the class three times a week when possible.

Since I was going by myself, I had a friend write a couple of notes for me to start up the lessons. The one for the teacher said that I want to learn how to do sanda, but basically I'm clueless about both the sport and Chinese. The teacher seemed pleased that I was interested and didn't even make me pay for the first session (a month's membership is roughly $12 American).

I started out by running. And running. And running some more. I was the only one running. Everyone else was piddling around with less intense looking exercises (which I'm sure I'll hate and find difficult once I get to them). I finally had to stop and go to the bathroom. When I did, I passed a clock that showed I had been running for about 25 minutes. When I got back to the room, everyone else was running, so I had to join back in. All told, I think I ran for about 35 or 40 minutes, which is a lot longer than I've ever run before.

After that, we had a quickness game (which was fun even though I was miserable at it) and then did various punching and kicking marches down the mat. Then came stretching wherein I was reminded that I am roughly as flexible as an oak tree. The others then started into sparring, and the teacher took me aside to teach me how to punch.

We stood in front of a large mirror. He talked to me about what to do, but I didn't understand much (anything, really) of what he said. He showed me what to do, but it took me a while to get it. I finally figured out that I was supposed to be aiming at my own jaw in the mirror, practicing the technique he walked me through. I did that for a while, and when he came back, he wasn't very happy with the height of my non-punching hand. He stood in front of me just out of range and told me to do what I had been doing. With my second swing, I suddenly discovered his foot flying down toward my face, stopping about two inches away. "Ah!" I realized, "I need to keep my hands up to block possible attacks." My technique improved dramatically after that.

After forty minutes or so of punching my jaw in the mirror and a few brief corrections to my form, the teacher came back and told me that I was doing fine now. He led me over to a large punching bag (the huge, human-sized kind, not the little balloon-looking kind) and told me to have at it. I spent the next twenty minutes or so bruising my knuckles and giving myself a headache. I never knew that hitting something with your fist could make your head hurt.

As I was working on the punching bag, I could see an aerobics class in the next room. I thought about the significant mental contrast between the two rooms. While they were definitely working out and getting some good exercise, I was quite happy to be doing something that made me feel and look like a manly man.

Posted by at March 4, 2004 9:20 AM