Pow, pow.

It was John's last day in class; we took a bunch of photos.

I'm looking at them with mostly pride, but also with a tinge of embarrassment (see my hooks sail through the air) and annoyance (have to keep those hands up).

I've been sparring with these folks for several years now and just love knowing them, learning who they are through their punches.

We'll miss ya, John!

(Kiss my) kettleass

Some of you have heard me ranting and raving about the new weight training we've been doing in class recently using kettlebells. Months ago, when Leila first mentioned kettlebells and I asked her what they were, she replied "a form of Soviet Cold War torture." I now know that she is correct.

Kettlebell training is interesting in the sense that, in order to swing, lift, and position these very heavy weights, you must carefully orchestrate your body to work in tandem with gravity and your core muscle groups. It is completely useless to rely on your arm muscles to pick up these puppies. You have to power yourself using your breath, clench your center and gain a sense of which deep muscles to use and which to let go slack. Of course, prayer doesn't hurt, either.

Tonight was hard because we did repeated sets, which I don't think we have done before. We did sets of 20, 18, and 15 swings with the 45-pound bell. I did clean-and-presses with a 25-pound weight in each hand: 10, 8, 6. These were very hard. I know I'm getting tired when I start making ungodly umffing noises during the press. The umffing actually detracts from your power. My arms started warbling; I lost my center twice.

Kettleass class -- our pet name for it here at home -- is kind of addictive. Underneath my womanly layer of poof lie abs of steel. Hit me here. No, really, hit me.

I got totally killed in boxing on Wednesday.

Defense was decent, but my offense was pitiful.

We were doing 1s and 2s only. No hooks! She take-a my hooks away, I get a-killed.

*sigh*

I think I have a fractured nose. This is so exciting.

I felt it when it happened: In sparring, we were instructed to go for uppercuts to the chin. Mike is so much taller than I am, his uppercut starts at right about my snoot level.

I felt one uppercut graze my headgear right under my right eye socket. I pulled back, came back in and tried to throw a hook to the body. It wasn't that strategic, but at some point over the past few months I realized that if I stay low with Mike, my punches are more likely to connect. Going for any punch to Mike's head is risky; my glove most often ends up swooshing through the air, and then for a second I'm left open.

I felt another uppercut graze under my left eye socket. And then, blam! One up and pushed my nose back. It was a quick squnch, no more painful than a slap, but unsettling.

This was the beginning of the end of the sparring session for me. I had come out strong earlier in the class, with some good defensive slips and counterpunches. But I was getting tired. And I had yet to face Kora.

Kora is the uppercut-to-the-chin queen. I found that out for the first time last week. It came out of nowhere: An eye-goggling uppercut followed by a quick hook, and suddenly I'm dumb and wandering. My instinctive comeback is not to retaliate with the punches we are supposed to do (i.e. strategic counterpunch, uppercut her in turn), but instead to throw the fastest, hardest hook combinations I can muster and effectively push her across the open space and up against the (imaginary) ropes. And then we step back and reset.

I was distracted and unstrategic and Kora kept getting my chin as if there were a bull's-eye painted on it. Why am I not getting what to do back? We will work on this question next week.

In the meantime, my nose is slightly swollen with a faint tinge of blue on the side. It feels fine. No blood or anything. Tomorrow I'll see if it blossoms into a full-fledged bruise.

Next week I'll have to do better, or else face a similar outcome.

It's all so wrong -- and yet so right.

Concerning the Continuing Adventures of the Pampered Pugilist; Or, How I Learned to Take the Punches and Like It

The major development in my entanglement with boxing is that somewhere along the way I lost my fear.

I think it's probably because Maria got injured and doesn't come to sparring class anymore, so the threat of leaving with a black eye or a bruised jaw is greatly decreased. So I have started getting bold with my opponents.

At first, it was easy to keep Kora at bay; like a chipmunk, she alternately darted and halted, hungry and unfocused. I could kind of jab her around. However, Kora broke up with her boyfriend and simultaneously found her hook. When I felt that hit, I snapped to attention. Soon we will see what Kora is fully capable of inflicting onto others. She is naturally sassy and fearless, so this probably won't be pretty for me.

Mike is about six-foot-twelve, of unabashedly sweet temperament and indeterminate Scandinavian descent. When I first saw him on the bag, his arms seemed to take two full seconds to unfurl a punch, and when they made contact, the bag swung high and wild. One time, the bag spasmed, dislodged, and hit the floor.

I quickly learned that, despite Mike's enormous wingspan, you can never quite see him coming; he is a free-jazz boxer, with a rhythm all his own. So I learned to be light. He will lunge at you with a hook that could make the blind see -- using only half his power, because he is a gentleman -- and you have to sit, slip, weave, or pull your sorry ass back, and try to at least graze his chin with a right before he can fully retract his arm. And think light, light, light. After several rounds tonight, our faces were both purple-red and we were staggering. And yet I remembered: pirouette, pirouette, and mustering all my energy, I danced. That got me the hell out of that round.

Tina was there tonight. She is adorable, but every time I see her on Wednesday I have a flash thought: "Crap." She closest in line to being the second coming of Maria: tiny -- five-two tops -- and fast. And I now know for certain that fighting tiny people is far worse than fighting tall people, for when they hit, they don't hit the proverbial bull's eye on the forehead of your headgear. They hit upward toward your jaw, lip, nose. I took a few hard pops from Tina, but no bleeding or swelling resulted, so I'm grateful and high as a kite on endorphins.

And I made an appointment for a Christmas facial, courtesy of a most delightful and generous friend.

Life is sweet!

Easy Does It

If you'll permit me, I'm going to bitch a little, and then brag a little.

I hate doing these big workouts. I don't like having 18 pounds of dumbbell in each hand and having to lift, lift, lift and let it down slooow, and then lift lift lift once again. It is boring and makes me sweat through clothes. I seem to be in the shower all the time. I'm doing laundry all the time. I'm sore all the time. I'm frustrated all the time. I don't like being pushed, or criticized for taking too long of a rest. I don't like feeling as if I'm gonna upchuck when I do push-ups. I don't like being so tired all I can do is lie on the couch. I hate the fucking treadmill.

I like that my grey pencil skirt fits again. I like that I can do as many push-ups as a boy can. I like being on the couch with cats, Vogue, and blanky.

It's interesting that one pushes oneself to the point of being immobilized, and only then learns to sit still.

Learning how to box has precipitated crises that, appropriately enough, I never saw coming.

First I learned the art of wrapping my hands, how to hold the correct stance, and later, each punch in its perfect, rarefied form. I then learned to throw these punches in combination; and following that, pivoting, ducking, and pulling back. When I'm warming up, I'll call my own simple combinations and throw them, scooting back and forth across the room. Then Leila will call the punch and I'll hit her pads, the combinations gradually becoming more fast, intricate, and aggressive.

Saturday was a little different. I was told to do the more sophisticated combinations entirely on my own, in more rapid progression and without them being called.

This is a natural outgrowth of what I had been doing. Yet it's one thing to punch the air, scoot, punch and punch again, and quite another to come up with your own spontaneous ballet of punches and ducks and focus on an invisible opponent who has suddenly become more fearsome.

I started to feel self-conscious. I started forgetting moves: What was the name of that twisty one . . . . ? In the meantime, I was throwing simple punches badly. Like a cat who misses a leap and wipes out on the floor, I tried to slink into the next set and pretend it never happened. But couldn't conjure up what to do. Crouch? Pivot? I was being watched. I was punching at no one, dodging no one. This felt incredibly foolish.

"Go, go," Leila said.

Uh . . . 1, 2. Uh . . . slip, slip. Uh . . . 1. 2.

Hook.

Um, pivot.

"Don't think about it."

I never thought I would actively wish to be attacked, but I wished she would lunge at me and just tell me how to hit.

1, 2 . . . hook . . . ok, pivot.

"Faster."

1, 2, hook, pivot, 1, 2 . . . uh . . .

I can do this. I started welling up.

Pivot. Snif. 1, 2.

"Keep going. I know how you feel, just push through it."

Ain't that the way of life.

Leila finally took pity on me, raised her pads, and called a few. I rallied and went after her hard: THWAK THWAK THWAK. I was soaked in sweat and my nose was running.

What can I tell you. Sometimes it helps when you can see the enemy, and aren't just swinging punches in the air.

One of the perils of learning how to box is that you end up getting punched.

So far it hasn't been that bad -- more like getting bopped. (I'm the boxing equivalent of a pink belt, so I'm just dodging pads.)

However, the principle remains: you see a fist come flying at you, you duck. You come back up, you punch. You snooze, pow.

There is something uniquely humiliating about this. I'm slow. I don't like being attacked. I don't like being made to do something according to barked instructions, and then do it over and over and over until I get it right.

The indignant little girl in me wants to stomp her foot and say she's not playing. The indignant adult in me wants to say screw it, I don't have time. Both the girl and the adult want an ice cream cone.

Yet I hold on. I'm not sure if I find discipline secretly sexy, if I like that sweat-drenched, exhausted feeling afterward, or if I just enjoy the simple satisfaction of progress. (After beating the crap out of me, the woman I'm boxing with always cheerfully says how well it's going.)

I never thought I could do this. After many series of inelegant swings and bops, I've almost cried. You have to trust the other person and just plow through it.

I guess this is called taking your lumps . . .