One one things

I’ve never been much into fitness in the form of gyms, jogging etc. mainly bc when i was in school i was usually involved in some sport or the other, cricket, badminton and miserable attempts at football (my record remains 1 own goal and 2 hand balls, both of which resulted in penalties against my team) at interhouse level. Even in university i continued to play cricket during the summer and had to walk all over town anyway so fitness was never much of a concern. However after university i became more concerned about my health. One thing i would like to avoid in life is to get some horrible disease and die after many years of suffering, so i decided that i ought to get myself in tip top physical condition. I didn’t do a particularly good job at first bc, well, i’m fairly lazy. But eventually i managed to get myself SSC membership and began swimming on a daily basis, nice relaxed and reasonably fun too (specially secretly racing fellow swimmers, unfortunately,or fortunately, most of them are 60 year old businessmen who discuss the latest happenings on the stock market, and thus offer little challenge).

I’ve been swimming like this for close to an year and thought myself to be reasonably fit. That was until yesterday. One of my friends (yes, hello) coerced me into joining a gym with her in the quest for becoming ultimate fitness queen(s). (I kid..thankfully). So yesterday we popped along to one of these classes which happened to be a Boxing class. I’ve never boxed before, unless of course my limited karate skills count as boxing, so I was a bit apprehensive. I found myself panting after the warm up session, not a good start. But afterwards it gradually became interesting, fun even. Towards the middle of the session I really got into it and imagined myself in a ring fighting this guy and I punched hard, made sure my hands were up protecting my face, despite knowing very well that nobody was planning on hitting me. Ppl say that boxing is a beautiful game (or is that football?), anyway, something to that effect, and i’ve always pooh poohed them bc how could a “sport” where two ppl beat the crap out of one another be beautiful? next time someone would say that WWF is a beautiful sport, oh wait, that’s not a sport. But yesterday i realised that there is a lot more to boxing than simply being a glorified waliya. You need to be quick and agile on your feet, you need superb hand eye coordination, quick thinking and sharp reflexes. The more time i spent there the more i realised how graceful a sport it is, the deft dancer like movements, finding gaps in your opponents defence, outsmarting him with dummies and the fantastic feeling and sound of a well placed punch.

There’s only one problem. It’s bloody exhausting! After one hour I could feel myself gasping for water and breath. We staggered out and I could still feel the blood pumping through my veins. I had to drop into Arpico to buy some food for the dog and when I had to sign the credit card receipt I could barely grip the pen. My signature was made up of two blobs and thankfully the cashier didn’t bother to compare it with that on the card. Got back home and had a shower but I was still tired and fell asleep quite early. Even now my fingers shiver when I hold them out straight, probably due to keeping them clenched in those gloves for so long. Despite this I’m very keen on trying it out again next week. It’s great cardio and it should help me out the next time I find myself in a dark alley. Mohammad Ali, watch out.