Week Forty-Two

Event:  Took a boxing class

If you were to describe my body type, the following words would NOT come to mind:  Athletic.  Toned.  Muscular.  Yoga.  Pilates.  Gym.  Runner.  And that is precisely why I decided to sign up for a boxing class.  No, not a kick-boxing class, a BOXING class. 
Yo Adrian.  For real. 

Title Boxing Club opened up a new location near my house, so I called to see if I could attend a trial class before signing up for a membership.  The owner told me there was a basic boxing class on Saturday morning and I was welcome to attend.  Excited, Saturday morning I jumped out of bed, only to realize I haven't been to a gym in over a year and therefore none of my workout pants fit.  Super.  While digging through the back of my dresser drawer, I found a pair of black pants with racing stripes down the side (to give the illusion of long, pilates-type legs of course) and while now they fit like a tight pair of leggings, at one point in my life these were baggy.  Surely the dryer shrunk them...

Since the pants were a total train wreck, I needed to find a shirt that said "hey, look at me, I'm a runner, a gym member and a boxer.  Bring it".  Unfortunately, I don't own anything that even remotely resembles that, so I ended up wearing a shirt that I wore to a race a few years ago (one that I walked in, of course).  Hopefully my fellow boxers will be so distracted by my intimidating race t-shirt, they won't notice the high waters that are cupping my butt so tightly I have two sets of butt cheeks.  One set under the underwear, the other squirting outside of the underwear.  Oh for the love of squats, let's do this.

I walked into the gym, head held high only to be caught off guard when the owner asked, "Do you want me to tape your hands?"  Huh?  "Do you want me to tape your hands?"  Eh?  "Do you want to put tape around your hands before you put your gloves on?"  Oooooh.  I get it.  This is like Rocky.  And you people are for real.  Hell no I don't need you to tape my hands, I'm not really going to punch anything, am I?  (that's what was going through my head).  I passed on the hand-taping but quickly regretted my decision when she handed me a set of boxing gloves that were as big as watermelons.  And we're off.

We were told to stand next to our punching bag so I quickly found a bag at the back of the room.  There were about 25 people in the class, each standing next to their own life-size punching bag and that's when I realized three things:  1) All of the girls in the class were a size two.  2) All of the girls in the class were wearing skimpy spandex shorts and spaghetti strap tank tops.  3) All of the girls had their hands taped.  Shit.  I couldn't stand out any more if I tried.  Fat girl.  Fake race t-shirt with a hole in the armpit.  No tape on hands.  I might as well have worn my swimsuit.  Soon the instructor came in looking like a combination of Lil Wayne and a Navy seal and before I knew it he was yelling at us to put our gloves on and punch away.  The class was already into the third set of right hooks and upper cuts before I even figured out to get my second glove on.  Do you know how hard it is to put on (and velcro) a boxing glove onto your left hand when you have a boxing glove on your right hand?  I was both dumb and dumber.  This was not going to be my best day ever.

For the next 60 minutes we punched, squatted, punched, crunched, jabbed, squatted, ducked and rolled, hooked, squatted and punched some more.  Then we ran.  Then we did a backwards crawl on all fours, then we ran some more, then I ran to the bathroom to dry heave, then we punched some more, then I ran to the drinking fountain, then we ran backwards and I ran forwards to the bathroom again, then we did side running, and I ran and stuck my head under the faucet, then we did crunches and scissor kicks and windshield wiper kicks and I ran out into another room and hid, then we did jumping jacks and I ran out and laid my cheeks on the cold marble tile, then we did side running again and I ran to the bathroom, soaked 5 paper towels, squished them on my head and ran back in only to find more running, punching, squatting, crunching and punching.  At one point I threw my gloves off like I just won the fight and I walked out of the room.  I was down for the count.  A lady came and checked on me.  My face was 13 shades of red.  In that moment, I really did not think I would live to see Christmas.

During the rest of the ass-kicking, I found myself asking God for an oxygen tank, an earthquake, the ability to upchuck my cheerios, a fire drill, a power outage...anything to make the class end.  Thankfully, with minutes to spare in my life, we stopped punching and began the cool-down period.  I sat down next to my bag, unable to move.  Gloves off, I looked down at my hands and noticed my knuckles were purple.  Damn hand tape.

In the end, I fought the bag and the bag won.  And despite this being a complete TKO, I can't wait for the re-match.  But I think I'll wait until after Christmas.