Easy McPeasy. NOT!

Last night, I endured one of the most ghastly and torturous ordeals of my adult life. Today, my legs feel like 2 gigantic lead poles. My arms radiate with heat, and if touched, reverberate with shock waves of tenderness. There is a raw, depleted, dehydrated feel to my soul.

What happened, you ask? Kickboxing class at NYSC, THAT’S what happened.

Now, I initially decided to take this class as part of my nascent Get In Shape New Year’s Resolution regime. I thought it sounded fun, girly, trendy. It proved nothing of the sort. I will now characterize it:

Right at first, we are ordered to run around the room. Easy McPeasy, I think! I am, after all, a runner. Then running is interspersed with “hop n drops,” which is when you jump and then squat, then push your legs out behind you so you are in push up position, then jump up and hop and squat etc. Then we do all sorts of kicks interspersed with running. Then we have to run up and down the NYSC stairs in front of all the normal people doing normal workouts, and when we get to the bottom, put our hands and toes on the ground and lumber about like apes, going around a table, then back up the stairs. Repeat.

Then back into the room for gruesome wall exercises such as leg lifts and squats. The teacher also delved into some military psychology lessons, such as saying that we all had to hold up our legs for 20 seconds, and if ONE of us dropped, the count started over at 20. Guess who was the only one ever to drop? The lone male in the group! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Then a horrible pushup exercise I can’t even describe, as I have repressed it.

Finally, we then adjourn to the punching bags, which we punch and kick forever. Easy McPeasy, you say! No way. It requires EXTREME energy to punch or kick a bag in any sort of satisfying way. And by satisfying, I mean, a way that makes that amazing THWACK sound.

Then sprints across the room, touching the floor at either end. And when I say sprints, I mean full out sprints. Then sprints interspersed with “hop n squats,” and also with the weird lumbering hands and toes thing.

Then one last hurrah at the bags, featuring punchpunchpunchpunch KICK! KICK! Punchpunchpunchpunch KICK! KICK!

After 87 minutes of all this, tears welled up in my eyes (I was doing the simian lumbering thing at the time, a particularly demoralizing position). I simply could NOT go on. Every ounce of H20, every calorie, every everything was used up. But then, I thought to myself (in typical schizophrenic fashion, as always during exercise): Are you REALLY the kind of person who leaves a 90 minute class after 87 minutes? Are you? A resounding NO filled my soul. I continued until the end.

Then I went home and threw all my stuff on the floor, shoved some food in my face, and fell into bed, without doing any pre-bed ritual. I was simply too wiped out.

I’ll be back for more next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!