Battered, Bruised, but Better

I’m coming up on nine months of Muay Thai, and I feel like there’s a tale to tell. So gather ’round, kids. It’s story time.

As y’all know, I started Muay Thai classes because I won an auction at my son’s school. I had no intention of winning the auction. I just bid to bump it up in the “recent bids” rankings because I wanted to get the extra advertising for a place that had been so good to The Assistant. And I did bump it up! But the problem was that no one else decided to bid, and before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a month of Muay Thai.

%@&$.

It took me four months to work up the nerve to actually start the class. I was so convinced that it was a temporary thing that I didn’t even cancel my regular gym membership. Because this was so far outside my comfort zone that there was literally no way in hell that I was going to keep doing it.

Except I am.

What the hell happened?

Life Lessons

I’ve always been a thinker — possibly an overthinker, depending on your perspective. I prepare for things. I research. I study. I don’t do radical, crazy things.

But being a parent changes that. In some ways, you’re more conservative, but in other ways, you have no choice but to loosen up. The day you give birth, you’re 1,000% outside the scope of anything you’ve ever known in your life. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how much research you did. You’re thrown into the deep end and expected to swim.

And that’s been good for me. It’s forced me out of my cautious, introverted shell. Since The Assistant was born, I started (and apparently stopped) running. I ran nine half marathons and countless shorter races. I took spin classes. I gave yoga a valiant effort (though I never really enjoyed it). I did a few bootcamps. I hired and later fired a personal trainer who made me homicidal. And now I’m doing this.

Is it easy? Hell no.

Do I have my doubts? Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I always find some excuse not to go to class because I’m not good enough or strong enough or agile enough… and then I go anyway.

Am I any good? Bwahahahaha! Let me catch my breath. Let me see… no. Not remotely. But I work at it. And I keep going. And I keep trying. And maybe I won’t ever be anything close to “good”, but I leave with more of a feeling of accomplishment than I’ve had anywhere else in recent memory.

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