Kickboxing

Sometimes when I decide to try something new, I get really scared and it takes me a while to jump into it.  On a whim, my husband Chris bought us Groupons for ilovekickboxing.com and we finally decided that yesterday was going to be the day to try it out.  My husband was completely excited.  He has martial arts training and thought that it was going to be a piece of cake.  I, on the other hand, thought it was going to be grueling and painful.  Out of the two of us, I think I was closer to the truth.  After finally getting my hands and wrists wrapped, I jumped into the warm up exercises.  My left wrist wrap was being such a pain in the ass that I missed the running, so I had to start with the rope ladder that was laid out on the ground.  We had to do different footwork exercises within the sections of the ladder, it started out easy at first (minus trying to coordinate my feet to do what they were supposed to do), but it got harder as I went along.  At one point I had to leave the floor and down as much water as I could get, then I went and sat on the cool tile of the bathroom to try to slow my heart, I was pretty sure it was going to fly out of me.  I went back in the hallway and got some more water.  Chris came to find me and see if I was okay, I told him I wasn't sure I could do this and my eyes started welling up with tears.  He told me I was doing good and that I was already 20 minutes through it.

Luckily, when I went back on the floor, it was time for the actual kickboxing.  The bags were rolled out and the gloves went on, and I finally felt like I was doing something that I could excel at.  Our instructor, Justin, was very helpful and diligent at keeping us on the right track.  Some things were harder than others, but I did find that I prefer to do burpees than arm circles (those are killer, especially with the gloves on).  At one time during the arm circles, Justin was counting us down and my arms got so tired that I put them down for a moment.  Then I hear him say "17, 17, 17" and I realized he was going to keep doing that until I put my arms back up.  I didn't want to punish the whole group just because I was tired, so I put my arms back up and pushed through the pain.

The only thing I wish I had done differently, was to wear tighter pants.  The ones I had on kept falling down slightly during the burpees, even though I had them tied.  But I would go back and punish myself again.  Because even though it is hard to do during the workout, it is an intense feeling of accomplishment after.  I felt good, with my t-shirt sticking to my back, my heart racing, my doubts and fears, I felt good.

The people there were so nice and supportive.  They really want you to get the most out of the experience and the most out of yourself, but they understand that each person has to go at their own pace, and they don't judge you if you need to take a break.  It was also nice to have people who were willing to make sure that we were doing the moves the way we needed to when Justin was helping other people.

Bottom line, I will be going back for the other three classes that we got with the Groupon, and possibly for more classes after that, especially if it works as well for me every time as it did yesterday.