Using Your Aggression for Good

Have you ever had a moment of clarity when you suddenly see a situation for what its worth and your delusional behavior is highlighted in neon Sharpie? For me such a moment came at about 3:32 AM on Saturday morning. After two months of entertaining ideas of relocating to San Francisco to try to see if a relationship could work, I realized two things: 1. I fucking hate San Francisco and 2. Someone who ignores your phone calls but views your SnapChats isn't into you. I'm easily enthralled by grand plans and flattery. I'm also afraid of ending up alone with cats.

Once I finally came to terms that this so-called relationship was all in my head, I put my delusional ideas aside and decided to channel my energy into something worthwhile, i.e. an ideal bikini body for my inevitable move to warmer year-round weather. (What the fuck was I thinking with Northern California? It is grey, foggy, and damp like 83% of the time and the other 17% the sunny weather is extremely misleading because it's only 63 degrees outside.)

To shake things up a bit this week, I went back to I Love Kickboxing.

I really enjoy punching things. I don't know why I forget this, but every time I go back to kickboxing after a long stretch off, I am just surprised about how cathartic it feels. Back in my teaching days, I had so much pent up aggression towards certain supervisors that I would just imagine wailing on their faces while I was in kickboxing class and my instructor would praise my enthusiasm. To be honest, conjuring up the image of one AP can still get me raring to go, and I've done it in the past year.

So I'm back in this studio for the second time and I've got my boxing gloves on (my white Everlast gloves that I bought a bajillion years ago) and I'm getting into the warm-up. I'm weird about having things on my hands because it makes me feel confined and I'm being super-awkward with the moves, and suddenly I'm like, fuck this, I know four punches, I know how to kick, and I'm getting back into the swing of things.

We get into pairs and practice our punches, knees, and kicks for set periods of time marked by a buzzer. I'm not sure how these times are determined but it allows each partner to get a lot of practice in before adding more to the sequence. I seriously struggle with working with a partner because I get confused by the reflection of my moves. I want to do what she's doing rather than block her and then go. Don't even get me started on how confused I was when I had to start forcing her to duck and weave.

Next came my favorite part of the class - heavy bag work. And this is when I started tapping into that pent up aggression. What the fuck is the matter with people? I try not to say things I don't mean or make promises I can't keep. Hell, I don't even make references to ideas that I don't think I'm going to follow through on. Sure, I might change my mind or circumstances may change, but on the whole, I say what I mean. And as I questioned my sanity for even believing for one second that one drunken hook-up would lead to a successful long distance relationship, I attacked that bag like it was out to kill me. Left kick, right kick, jab, cross, round house, round house. My partner worked to hold the bag steady and I showed no mercy.

We moved back to the mats and took turns punching for a straight minute and then kicking for a straight minute. We alternated between the two for three rounds. I didn't miss a jab or a cross and my partner met each of my punches and when the buzzer sounded for the final time, I felt glorious.

I also got a snazzy new backpack.