The Greatest of Ease
An hour and forty-five minutes into class we were told to put on our pads. I’m looking to catch Robin’s eye. I borrow her pads because she has a pulled hamstring.
Master Davis puts his arm around my shoulder, which becomes a friendly sort of headlock and he half drags, half walks me over to our storage area. “I have got something for you!” he says.
YAY! My pads finally arrived! Now I feel all growed up! :P It feels totally different when they’re your own. The #2 is just the size and the circles (blue on the other side) mean “kick the shit out of me here, here, or here.”
Jen, an amazing black belt, has brought another bartender she works with to class, Sharon. She’s been with us for a full two months now, but is a dancer first and foremost. Last night after class was over she and Jen start playing around with the climbing ropes hanging from the ceiling. (every class we construct a Dojang in a basketball court at the YMCA, tres chic, eh?). So Sharon, the dancer, climbs up this fat splintery looking rope. Some of the strongest girls in the class are trying to do it, they can’t get as high. Sharon is explaining technique - that it’s not done how it looks like it’s done, not mostly arm strength.
I watch her feet more than anything. They’re doing a lot of work. Sharon begins coiling the rope around her body and turning herself over, upside down, ridgid, bend, ridgid, righting up, uncoil, coil through another way, flip!
It was incredibly cool. Sharon’s dance company, Arachne Aerial Arts, does a lot of stuff with ropes or hanging from trees. I called to her, “You’re a trapeze artist! It’s freaking wonderful!” and from a sideways horizontal position, counterbalanced with her right leg and arm wrapped around a rope, she nodded happily and vigorously.
My new hero!!
I wish I’d been kidnapped by circus freaks as a tiny child! I saw this quote in V magazine over the weekend and it charmed me. Look left, under READ.
wow...very cool, indeed.
“the circles ... mean “kick the shit out of me here, here, or here”
remind me never to wear polka dots in your presence.
polka dots were small, you’d end up getting poked in an annoying way, at the very most.
the scary thing is the only areas off limits for kicking and punching are below the belt, and the back. face, head, etc are all fair game… i need to get a mouth guard.
what color do you think i should get? black like the scary russian in rocky?
a black mouth guard would work well for intimidation...especially if you could paint white pointy fangs on it.
I’m just full of....ideas.
i *do* have custom fangs that fit like caps over my canines but they wouldn’t protect my teeth if i got hit in the mouth. hmm
black or red hehehhe
you’d mentioned being a vampire with realistic teeth for a past halloween.
how did you come into those?
I had this goth friend, Emily, freshman year of college. Regardless of my not being goth, we became close friends. She “knew a guy” who made these sorts of things and brought me to him before halloween. She knews lots of people who made lots of weird things. hehhehehe
the only pity is they’re starting to show their age :[
“knews”
wow. um, READ before you post mi, jeez
I thought the knews was intentional. When I played Rugby the girls in the front row would buy white mouthguards and black in where the two front teeth would be. That, or they’d write words like KILL on the front. The effect was having KILL KILL KILL running through your mind when they came charging after you.
i love it
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