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| The gym is approximately 600 feet from my apartment.... |
Last night I walked the dogs down to Magnolia in an effort to fake out this creepy guy who waits outside our apartment building to follow each of the women who have dogs. Once he grabbed my neighbor June's dog by the back legs like in some sexual gesture. He looks like a big baby man with big pot belly and fat lips and dumb as a bag of rocks look on his face (some kind of slow adult) as he stands there staring at both me and the dogs, I get a sudden surge of power and whirl and wildly gesticulate to him (because I remember men who follow women are generally cowards) "You are a very strange person and I don't want you anywhere near me or my dogs! I suggest you TURN AROUND (making a big finger swirl) and HEAD ON BACK HOME (and point straight back to the end of the street where he lives) and if you continue to follow us I will call the police" He just looks at me with a blank face and empty mind.
I know his pattern of walking straight down Cartwright to Magnolia and back so I purposely walk that way to see if he will follow me. I keep looking back. As soon as I get far enough away so he cant really tell what I'm doing, and he still has not moved from the point I yelled at him, I fake pull a cell phone out of my bag and make fake gestures as to what street I'm on, point to the guy, nod my head, act like I'm reporting a crime. I don't know what came over me but I really acted it out! I was the Meryl Streep of Cahuenga Street. When I turned around again, he was gone.
Fast forward half a block-- I hear some REALLY LOUD gangsta hip hop and club music blasting from an open doorway with a Thai gold elegant sculpted dragon framed door kind of off the side of a building along the alley. I venture over to peek in and see what I now found out is people practicing Muay Thai, which is basically offensive and defensive street fighting-- one of the most hardcore straight out Thai street fighting. No "Karah-Tay", no"Jiu Jitsu" or sophisticated martial arts, just beating people up to cool music. My eyes are saucers "I want to do THAT!!!" I ask a passing person by the door, do you have a card? and he hands me one very kindly with the hands pressed in Thai greeting "Sawat Dee Kah" and a bow and I thankfully know the tiniest bit of Thai culture to return the hands pressed greeting using the male form of thank you.
The card says something like "fight to win, fight to fit, fight to defend" I saw all these guys kicking, elbowing, kneeing, elbowing, upper cutting, straight push kicking, side kicking the other guy with big pads, and my mind just says "I have to do this"
The next morning (today) I could not wait to call them to ask how much it would cost to take a test class to see if I liked it. The trainer David--(on the far right in the pic below)
says "First class is free, here is the open class schedule, come by as soon as you can we'd love to have you try it and see if you want to continue!"
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| David far right was my instructor |
I showed up for the 2pm open class, it was 4 pretty regular expert guys on a random Thursday, and me. David says I'm going to put you on some separate beginner basic moves, but if you want to try to keep up with what we're doing, go ahead and join us! Not condescending, not supercilious, no ego, I felt immediately like part of the family. The guys introduced themselves with the Thai pressed hands and names, and I returned. There was no sexual weirdness, there was nothing but equality that I felt. David picked a very heavy big guy to be my practice/sparring partner, and he held all the pads and cued me "left knee, straight jab, downward elbow, upper cut left, upper right, left kick, okay now four knees in a row, etc. He coaches me on breathing saying I will get much less tired if I breath in and out and make a sound "SCHHHHHH!!!" for each punch or kick. and he was right. He says "so are you sure you never trained before? You're doing great some real hard hits". cause I punched and kicked REALLY HARD (personal energy reasons) what a compliment.
We did 3 minutes constant "on" and 1 minute rest in between. David the instructor says okay Marni one more this is what you're going to do and demonstrates, and I do 3 minutes of it. I feel like oh, this is the last one, thank god. That thinking went on for 45 minutes more. These guys who come three days a week say "oh my god I'm exhausted" and I''m like what? this is my first class and I have to keep up with you!!!??? The only thing that saved me was that I do daily horse riding exercising like lunges, push ups, and pliets and lifting my leg straight ahead of me parallel to the ground and back, otherwise I would have died with the kicks. I had to sit out two of the 3 minutes of total 75 minutes, but I figure that's pretty good for first time. There is no a/c-- so its about 88-90, I guess to mimic Thai conditions? cause that's what it felt like.
When David saw that I was really right on the edge, he said Marni go sit outside for this round, get some air, and come back in. Another guy who was not following our training was resting out there and said so what do you think? I said I think I friggin love it, its so "street" and even after one lesson I feel more confident to stand up in a fight, should one come up. I told him, "I ride and rehab horses for the soul calm healing therapy, and I guess this is the other side" He said simply, "Well, the warrior must ride to the fight, right?" Yeah!
So at the end of the 75 minutes I though it was over, and a girl had wandered in and asked how could she start training if she didn't know anything, she was very nervous (and flabby) and was there a certain class for beginners? and David calls out and said "look at this girl Marni," Marni how do you feel being your first time?" I said "I LOVE it and I'm coming back"..... she said ok.--they take all levels and train even world champion Thai fighters... its a great place.
So we had done these 3 on one off for one hour, and now he says okay 30 push ups, 50 crunches, and do the group lunge. The 3 guys grab me and form a circle all holding each others shoulders, gross and sweaty, and count 1,2,3-10, switch front foot all facing inward, 1,2, 3 -90, all the way to 100 lunges at thee end of all this f'ing killer workout.
I love that its so street and hardcore--you can use it to compete in official fights, or just fend off someone who tries to attack you. I'm hooked and I can't recommend highly enough.....
but I'm pretty sure even with my preparatory horse exercises I will not be able to move tomorrow.
I went to Happy Hour with my gals from BMB and Miti Takano from Brazil/Taiwan/Portugal says "oh Marni, that is the most hard core, I'm surprised you would try that!" she knows a lot more about these international things than many.
Oh p.s.-- I lost three press on gold toenails during the session, whomever finds them will be so grossed out, ha ha.
Muay Marni
1 comment:
Amazing! Now creepy, slow-man on street won't be able to lay a finger on you.
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