the problem with a good movie

As you know, I saw The Fighter the other day. And you know how good movies sometimes lead you to want to do things to improve your life? Well, I thought after seeing Mark Wahlberg's boxing-toned body, that maybe if I took up boxing, then I, too, could have a lean, mean fighting machine of a body. Mark Wahlberg is about 2 months younger than I am, so it's not like age is any more on his side than mine, right? (Seeing as I don't think I've ever seen anybody in my family with 6-pack abs, it could be a genetic issue, but I'm thinking mind over matter on that one.)

Anyway, as luck would have it, there's a boxing gym a mere two blocks from my apartment.

So I went over yesterday morning to check into classes and I was assured that there are plenty of out-of-shape, middle-aged woman who attend classes and that I should come for a trial class.

Which I did this morning with a friend.

Which nearly killed me.

Seriously.

You're lucky I'm even able to type this post, if you want to know the truth.

The warmup at the beginning was the worst part of the whole thing for me. It was led by some young fit boxer dude who kept yelling at us to go faster and harder and stop slacking off.

We had to jump rope first. I'm not really sure when the last time I jumped rope was -maybe in middle school when I did a Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser? And that was sort of lazy jumproping that you did just to get out of class for a couple periods. This was like serious boxer jumproping where you had to jump without skipping along - like the rope was supposed to go fast and you were just supposed to keep jumping without that little hopstep in between jumps.

Right.

I think it was at this point that I asked one of the instructors if they knew CPR - he said no - because I wasn't entirely confident that I wouldn't need it at some point.

Then we did some other aerobic warm-up exercises that ended with running around this gym. By that point, I really was just ready for class to be over because I could hardly breathe and I already hurt.

Before class started, we got our hands wrapped up in whatever that wrap thing is called that boxers put on before they put on their gloves. I do have to tell you that it's sort of like wearing a tennis skirt when you play tennis - you assume the role of a tennis player whether you really are any good or not. So putting this wrap on and then putting on those awful smelly used gloves after the warmup kind of makes you feel like you're a member of the Fight Club.

We learned how to do hooks, uppercuts, and jabs which we fortunately didn't have to practice on each other, only on the instructor.

We hit on a punching bag, did some push-ups, some leg exercises and then some final stretching before the class mercifully ended.

The gym, like a casino, doesn't have a clock visible anywhere. Unlike a casino, which doesn't want you to know the time so you'll stay there, spending more money and having more fun, the gym doesn't want you to know the time so you won't know how much longer the misery is going to last. An hour can be such a long time.

As we were finishing up, a woman came in for the next hour's class. I asked her how long she'd been taking classes there. She said it was probably her 10th class. I asked if it got any easier. She said no. Not a ringing endorsement, but because I need to do some kind of cardio exercise, I think I could get into this sort of class.

My continuation in boxing assumes, of course, that my body recovers at some point from the trial class - everything hurts right now - and that I can bring myself to actually pay for the privilege of this abuse. Right now those are looking like two very big assumptions.

Stay tuned.