Muhammad Ali (1942 - 2016)

...boxing conditioning sessions, karate and piano practice...

Believe it or not, I think I've found a hobby to make money (more on that later). The hobby that's giving me my body back is definitely boxing -- although I'm going to make a concerted effort to give karate a chance this summer because I'm so abysmally bad at it, and I should allow myself to be really bad at something for awhile, to see where it goes. 

I love boxing because when each swing is deconstructed and I can get it into my body, it makes perfect sense. I feel as though I'm using my physical self to play a very elaborate and exhausting game of chess. If I can make my body outlast the other fighter, if I have enough stamina to outlast the fight itself, I may win -- but more importantly, I will outgrow myself.  That has happened in a thousand ways since I started boxing.  It can't be helped. The more you learn, the more your body remembers, the more you grow.

It's the same with the piano.  Right now, I'm practicing scales and fingering technique. It's so labor-intensive that it feels like I'm working with someone else's hands.  They just won't obey me.  I'm going to stick with it, though.  I'm convinced that I'm sticking every note into my voice and making it stay there by playing it and singing it and playing it and singing it, one at a time, over and over again.

So that's my summer: boxing conditioning classes and piano practice; getting knocked on my butt all the time in karate; writing a slew of songs and recording them; and playing music with all my projects, including Georgette and my original Black Americana songs.

Oh! And fun the Jazz Age Lawn Party, of course... 

Run for your life!

I buy the same size clothes every season. If what I have is doesn't fit anymore, I simply lose weight until they do. That's how I do a diet regimen. For some reason, I have to work harder than ever to get back into all the clothes in my closet these days. I don't care. I'm getting back into my clothes.

 I hate, hate, HATE running -- but I love the way it makes my body look.  I also love to eat -- so there's that.

My goal is to run a 10 minute mile comfortably, and to run at least 5 miles a day. So far, I'm getting my mileage in and I can run that 10 minute mile uncomfortably. It's definitely making me a better pugilist. I'm not faster yet and I don't have enough stamina but I have way more endurance than I did a few months ago.  And believe me, that's progress.

Baby steps.  If I were doing this 8+ hours a day -- like an actor that's training to play a fighter in a movie, for example -- this would be an entirely different conversation. 

The number one reason why I run? Exercise relieves stress.  And believe it or not, stress is almost as much of a factor in the aging process as the sun. Or smoking. When you're stressed out, your body pumps the hormones cortisol (otherwise known as the stress hormone) and norepinephrine (responsible for increasing your heart rate and blood flow, amongst other things) into your bloodstream -- and with that, BOOM! Your blood pressure goes up and your immunity goes down. 

Chronic stress could mean that your body doesn't heal the way it should, your arteries harden and the areas of your brain involving learning, memory and mood shrink drastically.  If you stay stressed, that could lead to depression, obesity, sleep disorders, skin problems, digestive problems and heart disease.  All of that is minimized drastically when you exercise.

Wow. And with that, I just described way too many black people that I know.

There's no real way to get rid of stress completely so clearly, its important to learn how to manage it. You don't have to run -- but for the the sake of your quality of life, please do something.

a happy epiphany

now that eating clean and not eating at night has become the rule in my foodie life and not the exception, it feels odd to not eat that way all the time.  the upshot is, i'm sliding into clothes that didn't fit me last spring, so the weight loss was gradual enough to stick.  maybe it's the change of seasons, but i find myself using clothes to measure the changes in my body instead of the scale. it's much more rewarding, much more satisfying and way more quantifiable than a golden number to hit that somehow "completes" me.

boxing everyday took inches off my frame but i hardly lost any weight. you're gaining muscle, my sparring partner/coach would say, waving me off. you're getting stronger. i was sad because i couldn't fit into my favorite little black dress. now i'm thinking, as long as i can wear all the clothes in my closet -- including that dress, eventually, if i keep this up -- who cares what i weigh.  and of course, all of this is making me very happy that i didn't toss out the vintage clothes that i love, simply because they didn't fit anymore. slowly but surely, i'm getting back into them.

so that's my happy epiphany for the moment. what's yours?

i'm the decider!

Source: confident-beautiful-motivated.tumblr.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

i've turned a corner.

i don't know exactly when it happened. i don't know what triggered it. i don't know when all of it hit me, full on. maybe it was boxing. taking myself to my absolute limit physically every day definitely changed me from the inside out. maybe it was the clean program. so many days of deliberately eating unprocessed, healthy, organic food -- no caffeine, no salt, no sugar, no junk food, no corn, no peanuts, no dairy, no nightshade vegetables, no wheat gluten, no pork or beef or seafood -- for weeks on end. it must have shaken something loose in my soul. or maybe its all the vintage tea dances and parties and cool events and such -- glowy moments that transport me into another time and place, whether i want to go or not.

as if all of that weren't enough, i have an avalanche of unconditional love in my life that overwhelms the most mundane moments in my day to day world -- and he's right by my side.

apparently while i was beating myself up about not being able to do a military push up, my life pulled me up to this whole other level. something clicked when i read the quote above. like gabby, i made the decision to get off the couch and get physical. i made up my mind to eat healthy. i wanted to have more fun on my own terms. sure -- getting dressed up in vintage clothes and going to a tea social and dancing to music from the 20s and 30s isn't everyone's idea of a good time but it makes me very, very happy. so, nuts to you.

maybe that's the whole point: nuts to you.

it's a beautiful thing, to subconsciously focus only on the things that really matter until everything else grows strangely blurred -- and i'm left wondering why i cared about any of that stuff in the first place.

and that's another thing: there is something powerful and life-affirming to be said for gabourey sidibe having the guts to make that statement to herself, to decide that she is beautiful, when practically everything in the world is telling her -- and every other black woman on the planet -- that she is not. there's a reason why, in a recent allure magazine survey, black women were three times as likely to rate themselves as "hot" than their caucasian counterparts. that makes perfect sense to me.

i don't have anything out there in the world that's validating what i see when i look in the mirror, so i make my own world. i have my own beauty standards and regimens, my own beauty ideals. my own beauty icons. and as i surround myself with these things and more, my self-confidence grows and grows and grows.

did chris rock say it best? why yes, he did.



i know how -- i decided! -- but i don't know when i got to this stronger, healthier, happier, more beautiful place in my life. all i know is that i'm pressing on, the upward way. and i'm grateful.

it's working!

my permanent boyfriend gave me the hobbit in paperback last christmas. i found it recently and remembered that i promised myself to read the entire series so i stuck it in my purse, to savor on the train. of course mpb as read all of j.r.r. tolkien's work. and george r.r. martin. and every other geek fantasy writer on the planet. clearly, i've got a lot of catching up to do.

this isn't a competition, you know. i just want to be able to keep up with him when he wanders further into the geek forest than i usually do.

somehow everything goes faster in the subway when i have something interesting to read. or maybe i'm so distracted, i don't care that i've had to wait 20 minutes for the train. all i know is, i opened my book and started reading about those filthy, filthy hobbitses, got on the local and the next thing i knew, i was at 42nd street/times square. the thing is, i was supposed to get out at 50th street -- i was on my way to a matinee for million dollar quartet at new world stages, meeting up with friends and everything, and i was running late. what to do?

as the train came to a stop, i looked out the window at the uptown track and saw the express arriving, and i guessed that the local wouldn't be far behind it. so i did the unthinkable: i sprinted out of the train like a starting gun went off -- down the stairs and through a corridor, around the corner and through a corridor, up a flight of stairs and straight into the local train as it arrived.

as the doors closed and i gathered my wits about me, i stopped short and realized that i wasn't out of breath. not even a little bit. how did that happen? i can remember when i wouldn't have even attempted something like that. or if i had, i would have barely made it to the bottom of the second staircase, holding my side and gasping for air. i actually felt the need to supress a grinn as i mulled all this over. maybe its true, what a workout pal told me some months ago -- that you can make the clock turn backwards and if you work hard enough, you can make it stop.

i made sure my bookmark was in place and made my grand exit at 50th street, bounding up the stairs effortlessly and into the snow, which was falling sideways. wheeeeee! i was happier than a kitten chasing a leaky cow.

can i do military pushups yet? nope. can i make it through a boxing conditioning class without crawling to the showers afterwards? nope. but for me to move with such speed and to move that way so abrubtly means that something is falling into place inside me physically. it was confirmation, however slight. all i could think was, its working. all this sweat and muscle ache and falling down and failing up. it's working...!

"what do you do in boxing class, anyway?"

aside from pounding that bag, some simple stretches, variations on the push up, the sit up and the jump squat -- and of course running around the room and up and down staircases ad nauseum -- exactly what kind of excercise do i do in a circuit boxing class?

i'm glad you asked.

here's a few videos to illustrate some of what usually happens in an hour. i try really hard to do two sessions a day. there are some days when i'll do three, if things flow a certain way. the thing is, there is usually someone calling me out by name if i'm not giving 100% the whole time i'm in that room. and i'm in there for what feels like an eternity. for some reason, i have this bad habit of looking at the clock when i think a fair amount of time has passed -- probably because i'm sweating so hard i can't see -- and wow, its only been 10 frackin' minutes.

the routine i'm in now leaves room for three trainers: gennaro (who may as well be a negro and who yells a lot), negro (who isn't a negro and who mumbles a lot) and jay (who is from long island -- nuff said). sometimes there is george and sometimes there is son of gennaro. no longer do i wander off with anyone i don't know. i don't want any surprises anymore.

i've made a lot of progress physically and i've lost some weight but i still feel as though i've got to get in shape on some basic level so i can get through the whole class without having to stop because i feel as though i'm going to pass out. or die. when i can zip through class comfortably, i will believe that i'm in shape.

until then, here's what i'm up against.

mountain climbers -- this sister gives a great explanation of the right way to do this one. unbelievable, the way it wears my upper body out, in short order.




bear crawl -- we have to do this around the room over and over, and we have to drop and do this over and over and sometimes, he (that is, gennaro) makes us leave the room and do this around the gym over and over. the closer to the ground you get, the more effective it is.




spiderman crawl -- an especially foul move for me because i don't have much upper body strength. and like the bear crawl, the lower you get, the harder it works you.




burpee or squat thrust -- named after dr. royal burpee, this basic movement is the foundation for the burpee test. now there are variations that have found many colorful and interesting ways for me to throw my legs out from under me abrubtly, or repeatedly spring off the ground in short bursts of energy. no small wonder. burpees require agility, speed, coordination and a ton of core strength.




body builders -- he (that is, gennaro) makes me do 100 of these whenever i'm late for class. they are beyond gnarly. this video shows otherwise, but we do a jumping jack that falls into a plank and then a push up and back again. and you know what? i don't walk out. i take it like a man and i do the 100. sometimes he'll stop me before i'm done but lately he's been leaning on me...




focus mitt work -- this is really important because its makeshift boxing against an unknown opponent. the trainer is like a choreographer, putting together combinations on the fly that force me to move with speed and power. in a perfect world, i get used to moving at the torso, blocking shots and letting my movements flow with technique and form.




shadowboxing with weights -- this is what i really feel the next day. throwing my arms out there, even with three pound weights in my hands, is a burning sensation that just won't let up. sometimes he (that is, negro) makes us run around the room and shadowbox with weights.



why do i love boxing so much? i seriously don't know. it's physically way more challenging than anything i've ever done. and maybe that's it, maybe the physical exhaustion and growth is impacting the rest of me so completely, i can't relinquish it. sure, it feels good to hit people -- but it also feels good to get good at it. i can look in the mirror and see wonderful changes coming on. that's a kick in the head.

i love it that boxing is genderless. it's not something that belongs to boys. it's all technique -- and to my way of thinking, that levels the playing field completely. the bottom line is, either you can fight or you can't.

where it takes me is anyone's guess. how long will it take me to get my true body? who knows. what i know for sure is that i'm going to get great at boxing because i can't stop doing it. i can't give it up.

why can't i do a push up yet?

i am struggling with push ups in my boxing sessions. i'm pushing myself off of the ground with everything in me and it's just not enough. my arms shake like i'm palsied. we do so many that after a certain point, all i can do is hold myself in a plank position and wait for the next phase. it's embarassing. i'm sick of myself and how puny i am. whenever i push my body to do more, it turns on me in a way that feels deliberate and calculated. it's as though its telling me, leave me and this extra chub on your backside alone! with every day, every meal, every work out, my body and i are slugging it out. it's fighting me for every freaking pound. i am not lying.

watching the first lady do push ups with desmond tutu was nothing short of breathtaking. that was all the motivation i needed to push against the floor as hard as i have to, a little bit more every day, to make it happen.

i do girl push ups - yes, they're modified push ups but no one calls them that (and yes, "girl push ups is an incredibly sexist name for them) - and today for the first time, i did them comfortably and easily, without feeling that tremble rise up and overwhelm my arms. that's probably because i started lifting weights on my arms and upper body a little while ago. weightlifting works.

here's the correct way to do them.



here's the right way to do what most people refer to as "normal" push ups. (they call them "military" too.) you may not be able to do them after watching this, but at least your form will be correct.



am i impatient? absolutely. but then again, when does anything move fast enough for me? am i having fun? you bet. i like the idea of learning something useful, not just working out and bouncing all over the room to break a sweat and lose a calorie.

ultimately, i want to condition and spar on a regular basis. i figure i'm at least 6 months away from attempting that. i know that i've found the thing that will keep tweaking me physically for the rest of my life.

i have to be able to make it through two hardcore boxing sessions a day - push ups and all - with serious mileage afterwards to believe that i can make it through a few hours with monty negro.

philly comic con, tony atlas and how to fight like a girl

played hooky from my life yet again today and skipped off to be with my permanent boyfriend at the philly comic con -- a minor epicenter of sorts for freaks, geeks, nerds, gamers, trolls, stans, lolitas and other assorted socially inept wierdos. attending these events for his company -- booth display and all -- is a part of what he does so well. it's the same comic cons every year. after awhile, all of it swirls into one huge geek prom, replete with costumes, festooned with comic book seller's banners, layered with overpriced greasy food galore. sometimes i come with him, sometimes i don't. this time around, i wanted to get out of the city, make a last ditch effort to find some civilized way to howl at the moon before spring officially ended and sprung me into another season that i wasn't heavily anticipating.

i wasn't giddy about leaving town. don't get me wrong. one night in philly is exciting stuff. the food is fantastic. the museums are incredible. its ultra family friendly. the downtown area is accessible and walkable in an uncomplicated way that sort of hearkens back to another era, the way i can trip down the sidewalk and look down a side street paved in cobblestones and see perfectly preserved row houses. the old and the new are juxtaposed against each other so comfortably. and the vibe is grounded and soulful. i get a sense of history all around me, and i LOVE any city that embraces that.

apropos of nothing, mpb asked me if i wanted to move to philly as we were walking through the downtown area to dinner, just like that. it's easy to see us living here. not that we would, but that's just how cool this place is.

the night before i was to arrive, mpb told me that tony atlas was at the comic con. there were a slew of blaksploitation folk there, too. richard roundtree. pam grier. oh, and vivica fox! but they were all eclipsed by tony atlas. was he really there? i think i started yelling into the phone.

tony atlas was a huge part of my childhood. when i was a kid, my whole family would sit around and watch wwf wrestling matches, gleefully yelling at the tv screen and carrying on. i can remember daddy roaring at the screen when tony atlas came into the ring, because it was understood he was going to wreck the place. all those tag team matches were crazy! i can distinctly recall him wiping the floor -- quite literally -- with hulk hogan.

at that time in the state of georgia, mr. atlas dominated the sport, unquestionably. he had been mr. usa and was a bona fide strong man before he became a professional wrestler. now that i think about it, it was a really big deal that a black man was conquering the sport the way that he did. but in the moment, i wasn't thinking about any of that. all i could really think (besides wow, i hope he doesn't kill that guy) was, he's so astonishingly beautiful, i can hardly look at him.

beautiful. really, that's the only word that can truly describe him -- then and now. just so you can get an idea of what i was seeing as a kid, take a look at these videos.

here's hulk hogan starting a feud with tony atlas as he does a few poses for the crowd. (when hulk called tony atlas "boy", i was ready to put my foot through the tv!)



and here's a big fight they had at madison square garden.



needless to say, i wanted to be just like tony atlas when i grew up. strong. physically powerful. fearless. inexhaustable. relentless. aggressive. i quite liked the idea of physically running someone down and beating the snot out of them, and not going to prison for it. i honestly believed that fighting really did solve everything. actually, i still do. it's just that nowadays, i let God do my fighting for me. but i digress...

it didn't dawn on me that i couldn't have any of those abilities because i was a girl. i honestly didn't think that any of those things were exclusively male. estrogen? testosterone? meh. i figured it was mine if i wanted it when i grew up -- like everything else i could think of. the only thing that was holding me back as far as i could tell was bedtime. that, and my parents -- constantly telling me what to do.

*sigh*

so anyway, yeah. tony atlas.

when i got to the convention center, i was absolutely giddy. i wandered around until i found him, sitting at a booth. for a fee (which i was more than happy to fork over), he autographed a photo of himself as i remembered him, and we took a picture together. we had a nice little chat. and then i floated back to my hotel room because for some strange reason, i couldn't sleep a wink the night before. later when i examined the picture, i couldn't believe how big his arms were. don't i look blissed out?


not bad for a 67 year old.

i skipped back to mpb's booth and blurted, tony atlas called me sugar! needless to say, mpb thought that was hilarious.

what did we talk about? how gender is irrelevant when it comes to fighting. there's no such thing as fighting like a girl. fighting is technique. either you know how to fight or you don't. how strong black women are. how they had to be strong for themselves and for their children, because in some instances, black men were absent. how strong his mother was and how she knew how to fight, for all of them.

i wanted to get some of that on video, but when i came back the next day, he'd already left. dejected, i went to the eastern state penitentiary and wandered around amongst decay and ruin and ghosts.

mr. atlas has an autobiography out called atlas: too much, too soon on crowbar press. clearly, a must read. God only knows what happened to him...

hitting that wall

i went to a bootcamp class yesterday at noon. i did it on a dare, sort of. a dare and a handshake. m, the person in question, held up his end of the bargain, so seeing as how i've grown into being a man of my word these days (finally!), i showed up. i wasn't looking forward to it. boot camp sounds like something impossible will be asked of me physically. but he'd lost weight in the weeks since i'd seen him and he blamed it on boot camp so out of curiousity, i went.

the class was crowded with all types and filled to the brim with enthusiasm and dread. and one of the mommies was there. (and she'd lost weight, too.) i was genuinely surprised to see this much of a horde on a wednesday in the middle of the day, but stranger things have been known to happen. i threw myself into every move. while i was doing each one, i remember thinking, this isn't so bad. at least i didn't feel like my chest was about to cave in, a la gennaro's boxing class. when i woke up the next day, i could hardly move -- so of course, i went to that aforementioned boxing session. because i want progress. because i missed it. but mostly because the only cure that i know of for that level of soreness is a solid workout.

and then comes the blind fury, when i'm swinging my arms and doing those combinations and my arms are trembling under the weight of me with every push up, like i'm palsied. at least my midsection isn't doing that anymore. progress.

towards the end of class after negro wore me out with mitts and the room was clearing out, this dark haired girl looks at me and goes, you aren't sweating enough. she looked like someone had hosed her down, and she was beet-red in the face.

you look like i feel, i said.

it's not that you aren't sweating, she went on. you have this overall sheen going, and she waved her hand in my general direction and said, but it's not really sweat.

i'm glistening, i mumbled. that's what i do.

once i explained my boot camp handicap, we introduced ourselves. whaddya know -- her name is zoe (i have a niece named zoe!) and she's a musical theater performer (non-union) and a 20-something nyu graduate. we talked shop, had this running commentary going as negro and j were boxing that was hilarious and totally sexist and over the top and then we hit the showers.

she's got a non-union gig in new hamster, so she'll be gone for awhile. but she'll be in boot camp next week. and so will m. i liked it enough to go back. i'm sorry it took a dare to get me to do it.

i hit like a girl

i did two boxing sessions today. i've been away from all of that for awhile, so it was no easy feat.

after the first one, i felt a twinge of the overall ache that would definitely overtake me the next day. i realized that i had pushed myself harder than usual, probably because i'd been gone for awhile, and somewhere inside the excitement i felt upon returning, there seemed to be an abundance of adrenaline whipping through me. more than usual. but there was something more. my stance was cleaner. my technique was in place. i wasn't fast but i was solid. i put my body into every swing. even though i hadn't touched those gloves in forever, everything somehow fell into place when i did.

in the second one, i was hitting so hard and clean that the instructor george accused me of cheating on him with some other instructor.

wow. maybe i'm getting good at this.

at one point, as i was slamming my fist into my instructor's mitt repeatedly with rear upper cuts, i asked him if i hit as hard as a guy. without hesitating, he said yes. but what does that mean? there are way too many guys in the room who don't know how to throw a punch -- or take one. i want to be a hard charger and at the end of the day, that's beyond gender. maybe that's the real reason why i love this sport.

i wish i could remember how long i've been going at this, with this focus and intensity.

tomorrow at noon, it's an hour of a workout session called boot camp and then later in the evening, i'll see the one i call negro.

the flow of things

this is the trajectory.

i get out of the house as soon as i can, preferrably before 9am. it's frightfully cold. i zip to 18th street, drop off some goat soup to vito, hit up the container store for these under the counter baskets for my bathroom sink and my kitchen, then go to the apple store on the upper west side to take care of business, which doesn't take as long as i thought it would.

i run all the way back to harlem, to an at-home rehearsal with jon diaz for a solo show idea i'm growing in my winter residency about reparations called the big payback. a part of the reason why jon is so fantastic is because nothing i throw at him is ever out of bounds. i've got beef marinating for stew. as we rehearse, i cook it down while jon polishes off the last of that goat soup, which is shockingly good. he's never had goat before, but he says he'll try anything once. good man, that jon.

by the time i leave the house again, the stew is on a low boil on the back of the stove. over the course of the rest of my day, i will think about it periodically and wonder if i haven't burned down our apartment.

i actually make it to a boxing class -- on time. i push myself hard. my teacher, who is a total eastern european junk yard dog, is suitably pleased. afterwards, i stand under the shower and exfoliate my skin into oblivion. then i sit in the steam room until every ache in my backside disintegrates into nothingness. this is probably the best part of my day. maybe because when things are physical, i can see and feel the progress i make. although it's pretty obvious that i'm way better than i was when i first picked it up, and jon is so encouraging, i don't feel as though i'm making progress on guitar. i'm sure that i am because i'm playing. boxing is different. my body is reacting more and falling into position with less effort -- and my thinking while i fight is less deliberate. there's a flow to things. my stamina is increasing. i can last longer.

no wonder boxing makes me so happy.

i get home by 11pm. my permanent boyfriend had dinner with one of his best pals -- a guy i openly refer to as his girlfriend -- and he's sitting on the couch, having a glass of wine and watching the daily show. the place smells amazing. i tuck myself under his arm, against his chest and suddenly, i'm exhausted. but i can't go to sleep. instead of wine, i opt for coffee. after he goes to bed, i sit up and work on rewrites for an hour or more. clearly, i've got work to do.

...and that's my day.

i love boxing -- a LOT!

i'm not sure. maybe i'm really a sadist that's found a socially acceptable way to hit people as much as i want and for as long and as hard as i can without going to jail for it. maybe i like the way everything hurts when i wake up in the morning. i like it that the only thing that gets rid of that ache is pushing my body to the limit all over again. maybe this is turning my crank because i think i'm getting better at it. i don't know. all i really know is, i love boxing.

watching it is one thing but doing it, wow. doing it is like flying.

for the next month or so, my day will be too full to have boxing for lunch. that means i have to hit it hard for breakfast and once again in the evening, to give me that boost that makes me sail home so effortlessly.

look out soon for less than 30 seconds of video of me, sparring with george and getting a royal beat down.

boxing: a few gorey details

my boxing session only lasts for an hour but its grueling, punishing stuff. i do it every day. sometimes if i really want to wear myself out, i do it twice a day. it's relentless, it's non-stop, it's on-going. i am forever moving and moving and moving for that hour. in the moment that i stop to catch my breath, there's someone leaning over me, yelling at me, telling me to get going, lift my feet, swing my arms, don't stop.

in that hour, my body is pushed to its absolute limit. my heart is pounding in my chest like thunder. it's slamming up against my ribcage so hard, my teeth are rattling. the sweat is pouring down my face, trickling down my back, soaking my clothes. i have to take my gloves off and wipe my face with my wrapped hands, i'm so overwhelmed. i look horrible, like a crackhead that just got slimed. all i see when i look in the mirror is that i can't seem to keep my hands up, that my torso is lumpy and weak, that my shoulders are way too stiff when i move and that i don't flow with any combinations.

loosen up and dance with me, gennaro my boxing instructor will say to me. you like to dance, don't you, love? i nod numbly and try to smile but i can only grimace. my boxing stance has me crunching down on my stomach muscles, and i'm feeling them more and more. he wants me to bounce, so my legs are slightly bent and moving all the time. always ready to duck, to shift, to block, to pounce, to move. keep it loose, he mumbles, and he shakes his shoulders to show me what he means. he thinks i'm making a tough mean face with this grimace. he imitates me for a moment, looking for all the world like a bad little boy that smirks as he goes. i thought it was cute that he thought he could see through me. in that moment, when he's making that face that supposedly looks like me, i love him like a fat kid loves cake. when he's done with me and i can't lift my arms, i tell him so. he is elated that my arms hang useless by my sides and says something pithy about how that means he's done his job. at the other end of the room, peter the negro awaits me. peter, whom i sometimes refer to as monty, is blood-curdlingly merciless and exacting in the way he wears me out, with this monotone that he mumbles through -- and an accent that's so thick, if i had a steak knife, i couldn't cut it in half. by the time negro is through with me, i have to take my puny arms into the steam room and convalesce before i can make it home.

apparently i have no stamina, no endurance, no strength. no nothing -- just this urge to keep going. and i have absolutely no idea where that's coming from. maybe it's stupidity. like a cow that doesn't come into the barn when it rains, i don't have sense enough to stop.

just when i think i'm headed toward something concrete physically in that room, just when i think i've learned something new and maybe i'm grasping this somehow, i come out swinging and my every shortcoming rises up against me like some hydra-headed beast from beyond. and there i am, swinging and it's not fast enough, pushing and i'm not strong enough, gasping for air like a fish out of water and i can't stand it, i can't stand the way my own body seems to be caving in on me and constantly letting me down. except it isn't letting me down. i'm simply surrounded by people who are way better at it than i am and who've been at it longer than i have and i'm just impatient to get there.

of course, i'd feel better about all of this if i had enough upper body strength to do a real, honest-to-goodness all the way down to the floor all the way up push up. but i can't. i have to bend my legs and do girl push ups. and when i do, all i can think is, what happened to me? i used to be strong...

and yeah, my clothes are getting downright baggy on me. but if i could lose some weight during this entire process, that would be frackin' super.

still and all, there are moments when my body hums and something clicks and i get it right and i think, wow. maybe i'm getting something out of this. maybe i'm growing. maybe i'm getting better at it. maybe that's what keeps me coming back.

I love boxing and I don't know why

I love boxing and I don’t know why.

I love to hit my trainer and I love to hit other people in the class and I love to hit that bag. I completely and utterly LOVE it. So on the surface, I suppose it looks as though I’m physically attacking someone else. And I am, which is kind of a kick because that’s a felony in most states. And yes, it's fun. Big fun. But to me, it’s as though we are two opposing sides of a chess game and I am using my body to think my way through every move that the other side makes. If I’m crafty, I could anticipate their move before they do, based on the moves they’ve made before – just like chess. After a certain point, you can see how they think. And if you study their thought processes closely enough, you can see why they think the way they do. You can go as far and as deep as you want, one swing at a time.

Boxing, as it turns out, is a thinking man’s game.

There’s a lot of strategy involved. I suppose this is me blatantly stating the obvious but I’ll say it anyway: once you’ve mastered technique, it’s all mental. Or sometimes, it’s emotional. You can apply this rule to anything. Take singing, for example. The technique I’ve mastered allows me the freedom to let go and pretty much let God – or what some call inspiration – take over. The thing is, there are definitely a lot of mind games that happen before anyone gets in the ring and takes a swing at anyone else. And the movement, the swinging, the aggression – it’s constant.

Boxing, as it turns out, is dancing.

I can’t use my body for much of anything with this sport if it’s not strong enough to give a punch or take one and if I don’t have any endurance. Or coordination. As it turns out, I have all three of those things. I just didn’t know it. I am much stronger than I think I am – physically and mentally. Whenever I box, all of this becomes a little more apparent and a little more of that strength is revealed to me. And of course, all of that strength and self-discipline spills out onto every other part of my life. It's a way better workout than aerobics. At least I'm learning a skill I can actually use.

Okay. Maybe I do know why I love boxing.

double oy!

i really pushed myself in boxing class this evening, which means i'll wake up sore tomorrow and limp through a better part of the weekend, recovering. i'll be lucky if i can ride my bike to church on sunday...

drift overload

yesterday was crazy. or maybe it was just me.

there i was, popping gum absentmindedly and listening to boston's more than a feeling on my iswitch while i was waiting to be seen for a musical theater audition, swinging my crossed leg back and forth like a metronome and thanking Jesus that they only wanted 16 bars of two contrasting songs because that's pretty much all i had in me. i remember looking down at my bag and seeing my boxing gloves, knowing that i would go to class after this and feeling the muscles in my shoulders jump a little, just thinking about my feeble puny arms and all the pushups i wouldn't be able to do.

and then my mind just kind of trailed off...

i love boston. i would get through boxing class a lot easier if i could listen to 70s dinosaur rock. or even dinosaur jr. junior kimbrough. kim wilson and the fabulous thunderbirds, austin texas, the nation's capital, capital punishment, crime and punishment, dostoyevski, bee beards, hippies, beautiful hippies, the groovy murders, the east village, the lower east side, side by side by sondheim, musical, i'm here for a musical, an original new musical, why do i love musicals?

these shoes are murder, murder she wrote, angela lansbury, catherine zeta jones, tommy lee jones, men in black, the man in black, johnny cash, cash and carry, carry nation, sufferagettes, david bowie, bowie knife, knife in the water, water? whoa - i'm thirsty! where's the water fountain? the fountainhead, ayn rand, randy the cowboy in the village people, that beautiful indian, i wonder if he was gay, gay 70s disco, gloria gaynor, i will survive, i will survive this audition, audition the book, audition a musical about auditioning, a chorus line, i can't dance well enough to be in the chorus of any musical, i'm auditioning for a musical, am i up yet or what.

what am i singing. only 32 bars. i can make it through 32 bars. bars. bars of chocolate. chocolately klondike bars! what would i do for a klondike bar. not much, actually. i'd rather eat an apple. less work burning it off on the back end. work out, right after this! oh God please don't let me be late for boxing class...

the real girls in the room

today in boxing class i watched a guy that was much bigger and stronger than me hit the bag like a total girl. he didn't put his body into it. he didn't pivot. he just threw his arm forward repeatedly in an almost absent-minded way, like a little kid. he had this stupid grin on his face while it was happening, like he knew what he looked like. and he certainly seemed to care but it couldn't be helped.

oh, yeah. and he had chicken legs.

he had a friend with him, who was just as big and strong and goony as he was, and who hit the bag the same way that he did. his friend wasn't smiling. he was watching the women in the room and the way their punches landed with impact and power. neither of them were really working hard with all of the cardio that keeps you exhausted and out of breath and on your last leg. squats. sit-ups. push-ups, endless push-ups. once things became a strain, they backed off and did the minimum -- the way some girls do, that don't want to sweat their perms out or whatever.

sparring with the boxing instructor made chicken legs giggle. i remember thinking, he's such a chick. i wonder if these two will come back?

george (my boxing instructor) is 100% right. boxing isn't the exclusive domain of men because they have more testosterone or whatever. it's all a matter of technique. either you know how to fight or you don't. the guys who don't know what they're doing are the real girls in the room.

i don't know why i want this so much. because i'm learning so much, all at once. because my body is changing. because it's fun, and when something is fun, it's not work -- especially when it is work. because it's a useful skill. because i have more stamina, overall. because when i do it right, it's like dancing -- and when i do it really well, it's like dancing and flying at the same time.

an impromptu beauty day

i must be pretty serious about conditioning class because went to modell's and got a pair of boxing gloves today, and a set of pink hand wraps to go with them. i just couldn't take using the gloves at the gym anymore. they're way better than nothing but most of them are falling apart. and as if that weren't bad enough, they have the worst stench imaginable. my hands reek when i'm done - like i've been handling rancid meat. i have to soak them in hot soapy water and antibacterial solution before i go home because i don't want to carry that funk with me on the train. when i don't wear my hand wraps, it's even worse.

and then of course afterwards, i paid my eyebrowist a visit, got a mani/pedi and had a salad at one of my favorite spots in soho. because evidently, i'm such a lady.

i'm supposed to have a beauty day once a week because i learned a long time ago that if i wanted to look a certain way, i had to give myself over to that on a regular basis. that's just a holdover from theater/musical theater, when i was doing 8 shows a week with one day off and i'd spend that one day off in a spa. now that the weather has turned great and i'm getting into the habit of riding my bike everywhere, i have to up the ante. i need to sit in a steam room after every conditioning class, especially if i'm going to ride my bike home. what am i saying. i need it, regardless. and a banya once a week? glorious.

egad. what am i saying? boxing gloves? eyebrowists? russian bathhouses? yes, new york city is turning into an expensive generic nondescript strip mall, yes, everyone is leaving to make art elsewhere, yes, i can't afford it. but hey - it's still new york city. even when things are supposedly pretty bad, they're still pretty good.

bring the pain

in an effort to burn a calorie in the most mundane moments of my life -- like when i'm in transit -- i rode my 15 speed mountain bike from my place in west harlem to a new york sports club on 14th street. and because i had to take it there physically, i took a boxing conditioning class that worked me so hardcore, it made my arms and legs tremble involuntarily whenever i stood still.

the beauty of it all is that i was never allowed to stand still, really. i had to stick and move and run and shift and go go go every nanosecond that i was in that room. because there was this jumbo sized freakshow of a trainer that was screaming over the music constantly, a most excellent trainer who decided that he liked me (how do i know he liked me? because he came up to me as he was telling everyone what the routine would be around the room and he said, i like you, love. you spar with me first...) and that meant that he had his eye on me for the whole hour. so when i wasn't moving, he made a point of calling me out in front of the whole class. he'd say stuff like, what are YOU doing, love? are you trying to HIDE behind that bag? give it to me! keep that front leg steady! put your body into it! all this directed at me as a bag worked me across the room, while he was sparring with someone else. now that's love.

what was worse? maybe it was the sweat that poured off of me so steadily, it looked like my whole body was crying. maybe it was the bad disco/house music. and when i say bad, i mean God-awful. don't get me wrong. i don't mind a big beat. but that thud-thud-thud eurotrash sucks. more fatboy slim, please. less haddaway. and no, they don't know who fatboy slim is. if it stays this bad, i may be wearing headphones during the next class...right about now/funk soul brother/check it out now/funk soul brother...

by the way, i zipped down the cherry walk along the west side highway to get downtown. the bike path is complete and it is pristine. shockingly so. maybe it was the sun and the heat or whatever but that 12 + mile bike ride was punishing, way harder than i thought it would be. so hard on the way there, in fact, i seriously considered taking the train home. but then i thought about all the cool vintage clothes and whatnot in my closet that i can't fit my larger than usual midsection into these days and i powered my way through it. when i got home, i downed my second quart of water, had a naked protein shake and sat still on my sofa, listening to my body hum.

yeah, i know. tomorrow i'm really going to feel this. it will be that low dull steady ache that makes me feel muscles i didn't know i had, in places on and in my body that i completely forgot about. if i keep this up, i'm going to need a banya. every week. a lot of banyas, actually. and when i say need, i mean require.

yeah, i intend to keep it up. God help me.

here's a little taste of fatboy slim for you, the uninitiated. long live the 90s! whoo-hoo!