This week is simply going great. I'm logging some crazy mileage, I'm caught up on sleep, nutrition is good, work is ridiculous but I'm managing to stay on top of it all, and I'm feeling like the clouds have finally parted. Finally! All lights are green! This week I also decided that it was time to try something new to supplement my training and well...to just try something new, actually! So I joined a boxing gym. They told me to come on Thursday night for my first class because the gym's owner would be teaching and they prefer newbies to come on Thursdays.
On Wednesday after work, but before the evening's dinner plans ensued, with shopping list in hand, I went to pick up the required pair of boxing gloves and gel wraps. Now, I have always struggled with being a tall/large woman, but to my surprise, I felt happy relief when I discovered I could easily fit into a men's glove, because all of the women's gloves were pink. Yes, pink. The last thing that I wanted to do was show up as 'new girl' with pink gloves in some stinky boxing gym, so thank goodness none of the pink gloves fit my long fingers. I ended up leaving the store with 14oz bright blue Everlast gloves and yellow and black gel wraps that look like bumble bees, practically skipping down the sidewalk with excitement.
Last night I arrived at the gym, both eager and nervous. They gym is located in a very industrial area, the section of town that I would normally avoid at all possible costs from dusk onward. There wasn't really a sign or anything outside of the brick and mortar, just a blank metal door which took a lot of brute strength to open (so thank you, thank you, Google Maps!), clearly to keep out the types of people who roam that section of town during that time of the evening. Once inside, I was immediately hit with the acrid smell of diesel and oil and sweat. The air was warm and soupy-humid. Old school profanity-laden gangster rap that I haven't heard since I lived in New Jersey blared over the speakers. The guy sitting by the door acting as the "receptionist" pointed me around a corner. Following his instruction, I gingerly made my way over to the "women's locker room" which was merely a plastic shower stall (curtain an afterthought), a lone toilet that needed some serious cleaning, and a makeshift row of lockers acting as a partition to the rest of the gym. I parked my gym bag on top of a locker, grabbed my water bottle, gloves and wraps, nervously exhaled a deep breath and walked back out into the main gym. The previous class was still in session, so I waited along the painted cinder block wall with a few other students, 85% of whom were male. I was relieved that there were other women and I wasn't the only one. When I signed up for this I had some crappy vision in my head that I would be the only female there among a gaggle of gorilla juiceheads, but thankfully, this was not the case. I caught the eye of an older woman who introduced herself as "Sue". "You're new, right?" She half-stated-half-asked after introducing herself. I nodded and sheepishly smiled and thanked her after she voluntarily declared that she would be more than happy to partner with me for the class since it was my first, and to just follow along because they'll tell me what to do. I later found out that Sue is a competition fighter and 50 years old, although you'd never know it by looking at her. And I couldn't stop staring at her incredibly jacked shoulders and guns where most people's biceps are located.
Gulp. Time for class.
There were about 20 people in class which was in the main space that is set up like a giant dart board, with the bulls eye being the competition boxing ring in the middle of the gym. The main space surrounds the ring, and on it's outskirts dustily hang the heavy bags and then behind, hang the speedbags from an overhang lip, the weight racks, and other cluttered torture-equipment. We warmed up by jumping rope for 15 minutes straight. Yep, 15 minutes non-stop and at varying intensities as demanded. Fortunately, for me this was a very easy warm up - one thing in which marathon running has conditioned me for is a lot of jumping (due to the mechanical nature of running) while keeping my breathing controlled, so I can jump rope like a pigtailed-kilted-school girl forever. Then we did some conditioning plyometric drills for another 15 minutes before "gloving up". At this point we all broke up into pairs and our instructor walked us through the five combinations that we would be practicing. We took turns doing the combinations at different speeds as barked by our instructor for several minutes each while our partners held the bag and then vice versa as he barked and strode around the floor dishing out individual adjustments on form and "encouragement" on intensity.
To my surprise, although I haven't practiced any sort of fighting art in a few years, my reflexes were not that rusty. Although capoeira is drastically different and almost all lower body and core strength, it's three years in my life did really teach me how to evade well, keep a proper face block the entire time, keep moving constantly, and how to execute attack moves straight. Therefore, I was surprised to see that I could easily throw straight punches and hit my target each time - and hard, while instinctively keeping a glove up and moving. Thanks to my running cardiovascular strength, I had no issues with breathing or energy while moving. I was really doing this! After 30 minutes of bag work, we were all told to grab hand weights for more conditioning. Sue caught my eye and suggested that I go light since this was my first class. I grabbed two five-pound dumbbells, and although this seemed silly at the time, I'm quite glad that I did. The conditioning exercises were an insane variety of high-speed supersets involving shoulder, back and chest exercises alternated with squats and my dear, old friend - the clean and press. We did seven supersets and my shoulders were -screaming- during the last two. Needless to say, I think I might be stuck at the five pounders for awhile. I did find it slightly amusing to see some of the more muscled guys in the class also using the dinky five pound weights and clearly suffering as I was too.
Finally, as a cool down we alternated some ab work and speedbag work, so that we continued doing something at all times. The Speedbag is ridiculously difficult to master, apparently. All of the movies show these hefty boxers wailing on the the thing and it looks so easy, but this is not the case. Our instructor showed us newbies how to navigate the speedbag. It's easiest to learn by hitting it after it swings back and forth on counts of 9, then 7, then 5, then working to 3s which is what most the movies show us. When it was my turn I tried hitting it in 9s, and it seemed to be taking forever, so I stuck with 7s which seemed to come easily. I think the ex-spin class instructor in me helped me navigate this, as we were always counting in 7s during our classes. With the speedbag, I was pleasantly surprised that being the tallest woman in the class actually was an advantage - I didn't have to stand on the stupid wooden platform that all of the other women had to use, and I was the only woman who could do 7s - the rest of the lot were still stuck on 9s.
I left the gym sweaty and smiling.
Sure, I took it on the cautious side because I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm excited to return. So far, the recommended plan is to attend conditioning classes for longer than necessary/needed before I even attempt the sparring classes, and even then, conditioning should never really stop. I'm nervous because I want to make certain that I have proper form accomplished before I start interacting with another person (rather than the bag) in a ring. While this anxiety may seem premature, it's probably a byproduct of capoeira, which threw everyone into the ring of fire at the end of every damn class, whether you knew what you were doing or not, which led to many a demise. However, this boxing gym seems to be rather strict about perfecting proper form, which is emphasized over execution. Again, this is a stark contrast to "New in class?! Get in the roda!" as with capoeira.
This morning my body feels tired and I think I'll be sore tomorrow, being that I'm consistently a victim of the DOMS, which should make for an interesting Saturday long run. However, this did not stop me from cranking out a stiff sunrise 12 miler at a recovery pace this morning. We'll see how my weekend running goes after all of that!
Did I mention I'm excited? Oh. Right. So I guess then all I have left to say is, in the sage words of UFC: "Are you ready?...are you ready? Let's get it on!"
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