BaBoom BaBoom BaBoom/DaDoing DaDoing DaDoing Part 1

It's been a pretty crappy fall. I won't go into why. Suffice it to say that I got caught in the great psychic clean out for upcoming 2012 (those of you woo woo types who know (the real, not media) 2012 will know what I'm talking about). And good thing I went to Belize earlier this year to learn myself what all the fuss over 2012 is. (Good thing I went to Belize for other reasons too.)

Anyway, one of the results of this has been less time hotarmacizing, as D calls it. Who has the energy? It's enough just to pry my eyes open in the mornings and realize, "Oh, I'm still here."

Damn right, and that "still here" may be the only thing worth holding onto. Though my arm muscles may deflate faster than Shihan's ego (which will never deflate, actually), at least I got them muscles. Or something.

D made me laugh the other day. I hadn't laughed in so long the sound startled me, like it was coming from somebody else. D was telling me about her theory of Ba-Boom Ba-Boom Ba-Boom and Da-Doing Da-Doing Da-Doing (rhymes with "boing").

You see, we inexplicably got on the topic of large breasted women working it in the dojo and naked men trotting around on a nude beach. Get the idea? She tells me she was discussing this after class one Friday with Sensei Mo. I would have loved to have seen conservative Jewish Mo's face as D dramatized this theory.

Anyway, I guess the moral is: Let nothing stand in the way of animating your spirit, whether through laughter or exercise, whether you are a deflated P'ster, a Mayan athlete about to be sacrificed, a large breasted woman landing hard after a flying spin kick, or a naked guy training for a marathon on Sandy Hook's Gunnison (gotta love that name) Beach.

Or something like that.

Shihan digs chicks including...

Poor Hot Arms missed a lot of classes this fall. Her old back injury resurfaced but as soon as she had medical clearance, there was Hot Arms punching and crunching, back brace and all.

This post is not about old Hot Arms but is instead about my friend, one p'ster.

This past September in yet another skirmish in my decades old war against fat, I embarked on a "boot camp" at the dojo which meant that I paid $99 for the privilege of taking 10 classes (which I could do anyway) and getting 3 one-on-one sessions with Shihan or Mrs Shihan. This was meant to jump start my new diet. After the boot-camp week, I could get a promotion. So, I scheduled 3 sessions of mitt work with Shihan. (He holds mitts; I hit or kick them and he critiques my technique. Ok.)

In my experience, one of men's favorite topics to talk about with me is women. Happens all the time. Dudes dig talking about chicks with a girl who's into chicks. Ugh!

On my second one-on-on with Shihan, he observed that p'ster and I were becoming close. Here I went into an internal panic pondering what he could be implying. I am as married as I am legally allowed and p'ster was in a relationship. And I was raised Catholic and didn't he know the idea of cheating even if I would ever cheat (not that I would; it would wreck my psyche forever!) sends me into a vortex of guilt at the mere thought, a la Jimmy Carter's lust-in-the heart type sinning. I understood where the man, Jimmy Carter that is, was coming from!

(At the first one-on-one session, Shihan and I just talked about chicks.)

After his not-so astute observation about p'ster and me, Shihan asked me if I thought p'ster was pretty. Talk about rock and hard places! Well, she is. Pretty, that p'ster. But I was not sure where this line of inquiry was going. After a very deliberate pregnant pause, I answered simply, "Yes."

"So do I," he rapidly admitted.

Then, he began to wax rhapsodic and poetic and all that dreck about p'ster. She has finesse. She is graceful. She is fast. She has is thoughtful. She is refined. She is European. (No, she's not! Her parents were!) And I, in juxtaposition, am a "bull in a china shop." Ow! Good thing my ego isn't fragile.

As I punched the mitts and listened to this nonsense, I realized poor p'ster had been catapaulted into the "select" few favored by Shihan. P'ster was now in Hot Arms' vicinity in his realm.

Eventually, the one-on-one with Shihan plus p'ster ended. He mentioned her again at the next-on-one session; but not so blatantly. He merely managed to work a mention of her into our conversations every 5 minutes rather than the entire time.

When I told p'ster about Shihan's lust, p'ster was blown away in disbelief. She had been laughing about his lust for Hot Arms too. Now, here was she now a lustful focal point herself.

This call was borne out when p'ster had to be away from the dojo for over a week. Upon her return, Shihan went out of his way to note that he missed her and that she was very welcome back into the fold. Prodigal daughter or no.

Other times, he asks after her and solicits her feelings after an absence. Oddly amusing but not to p'ster or me. Kinda creepy. I expect that Shihan's attention to her is burdensome and annoying to p'ster. So, poor girl. I am not envious. I am glad to be the "bull in the china shop" or the fat girl in the dojo. It's much easier.

Oh, and p'ster revealed that Shihan is such a guy. Ie: a "walking penis." Gotta love the girl

Hot Arms at the Expense of a Haggard Face: A Life Lesson

Maybe it is the real giveaway that you're now over 40. Maybe it's genetics kicking in--Grandma's naso-labial folds as deep as the plowed furrows on her farm, or Uncle Joe's paunchy chimpmunk cheeks, as red as the homemade wine he loved. Maybe it's divine retribution for all those hearts you shamelessly broke when you were cute and your features could cut air. (The fact that I was usually the one heartbroken is beside the point).

Maybe, just maybe, it's the fitness side-effect no one ever talks about: intense exercise makes your body look good but your face look like crap.

Since your face can't exactly do pull-ups or push-ups or punch the bag (and oye vey, in sparring it's often the thing getting punched!), it just sits there, like the kid who could never take gym class and just watched from the bleachers. Or, maybe more accurately, like the less developed of siamese (excuse me, co-joined) siblings, the one who just flaps there while the other one, bigger and stronger, has all the fun.

The other day, looking through my Gaiam catalogue, in all its wholesome organic capitalistic goodness, I saw a gadget whose ad claims it actually exercises your face. It lists for about as much as my grad school budget weekly grocery bill.

I'm considering it.

Maybe I should bring it to the dojo in place of my mouth guard.

Of course, after a week without food but continued kickboxing and hot-arming, I may not have much face left to work with.

But that's better than the flaps, right?

I've been in a funk about this face thing for a while. If it's true that you wear your life on your face, then by the looks of of mine you'd think my life is ready for the Salvation Army bin. Then last night I had an interesting experience.

I was in the drug store across from the dojo to buy bottle of water before class. As I stood in line in my uniform, the middle-aged guy next to me, resplendent in low-slug wife beater, hairy chest, beer gut, and shorts one generation too tight, asked me, "Hey, how do I get an outfit like that and look tough?" He was dead serious. I was almost flattered. No one has ever called me macho before. I kept my composure, however. With a Chuck Norris gleam in my eye and a cock to my head, I responded, "Go to the karate school." Then I added, wondering whose voice was coming out of my mouth, "Besides, it's not the outfit. It's the attitude."

As it turns out, there were also two baby dykes in the line in front of me. They kept stealing glances at me. I acted aloof (like I would have 20 years ago had I actually broken hearts just by being). The guy who asked for macho advice must have inspired their confidence, cause they were still outside when I left the store. The butchier of the two stopped me and asked shyly, "Are you a teacher in the karate school?" When I said no, I was a student, she persisted, as if she wanted some, I don't know, confirmation or something. Her friend smiled at me, eyelids, I kid you not, lowered. I encouraged them to check out the school for themselves, said goodnight and strode off like Shane in a gi.

Sure, almost two years in the dojo has made my body toned, sunken my cheeks, and made me look hungry (cause I am). It's also given me something else.

Now I've just got to just face it.

Shihan flirts with Hot Arms

Really. She flirts back too. At my belt recent promotion ,which had to be done as a make-up, I had to wait so Shihan could flirt and flirt. I noted same to to Sensei M. who said sarcastically,"So, we're not the only ones who've noticed."

Shihan's advise to Hot Arms (who's having marital problems): "Go to a hotel. Drink a lot. Negotiate your issues. Sign a contract. Drink more wine. Fuck all night. Wake up and read the contract you signed the night before."

He vouchsafes its veracity and effectiveness. Hot Arms's face was read. He gave me the same advise when I was on a rant about my partner being gone at work for over 12 hours. He doesn't flirt with me. There is a a certain sagacity in his advise. But his hand was laid admiringly and tenderly on Hot Arms' ever-hotter arms when he dispensed this advise to Hot Arms. He matter-0f-factly stated it to me. But who can blame him? She is hot.

Since we the above diatribe was mentioned when a bunch of us from the dojo were discussing the physical types to which we were attracted, I did say that if I and Hot Arms were single, and if she were gay and were to go for me, she would not be my type: she's long haired and longish nailed. Too girly. I like girls with a bit of a tomboy about them!

Hot Arms Give Out in the Portuguese Pastries Onslaught

Ok, so I haven't posted for a while, as D, my partner in this Hot Arming blog, points out. Truth is, I am just not that prolific, for many reasons, but mostly because of my contrarian nature: I instinctively recoil in the presence of all the written diarrhea that blogging, tweeting, and whatever else marketers are bound to call the "connectivity" that has encouraged it...but maybe more on that later...

I haven't posted because there's been little to report since my last post, other than Hot Arms recently enthusing about the merits of the "kickboxing boot camp" she, and many others, finished a couple of weeks back--for an extra $100. Although many went and are continuing to go this route, as long as the dojo is offering it, I still think it smacks of buying a black belt faster. But who knows, I might change my mind. The other notable Hot Arms moment was witnessing her doing pull-ups, putting my feeble quivering attempts (I think I rose a centimeter) to shame. So, the Hot Arms program gave me nice tone, but hasn't really addressed upper body strength, which most women are woefully lacking in. Alas... That occasion was only buoyed by the spectacle of watching Hot Arms and her class partner, who I'll call Y, Hot Ams' tall, blonde Slavic doppelganger, pulling up in tandem, sweat sheening their hot arms and only slightly dampening their long, pony-tailed hair. D and I stood watching, separately stupified, until D glanced at me and remarked, "Now there's a sight!"

Indeed.

Thus, it was with this memory and my toned arms that I left the dojo for a two week trip to the land of my ancestors: Portugal. My girlfriend, who had never been there and has been pestering me to go since we got together, accompanied me.

Everyone remarked on how thin I looked, which, ironically, like other women conscious of their (over)weight, I cringed every time I heard. My family over there, people in general it seems (apart from the soccer gods), are not exactly what you'd call athletic. Certainly, they are not obese by American standards (although, self-admittedly, they're getting there), but they do love their three squares, liberally punctuated with coffees and pastries.

So did I.

Can pastries stimulate that primitive part of your brain that says, "Your hot arms melting into flab is a good thing. You'll need it to survive"? Apparently so, because I never did grow nauseated at the sight of one more "pastel de nata" (traditional custard pastry) or a galao (steamed milk and coffee) or even straight up, liberally sugared cafe. Not to mention the three squares: seafood, seafood, and more seafood, and even a few vegetarian lapses into hamburgaos (big ole hamburgers--but only because the cows are locally reared, grass fed, and therefore, as my friend Catarina noted after we passionately discussed not eating meat one night and then the next day at lunch gave into our cravings, "happy cows."). (It was to be one of my several lapses as it turns out).

What did I have to show for all this when I returned to the dojo? Well, let's just say now I can see the genetic connection to my family...in the arms.

Hot Arms and her kid and meds

Hot Arms and I partner last week in Kickboxing last week. After class, she and I get to talking about our very bright, quirky sons. She asks how the meeting with my son's psychiatrist went and I tell her he has ADHD and we put him on meds for school but are giving him a break on weekends and over the summer. But the drug is miraculous in focusing my son for school and homework. She says her kid is having transition and focus issues and since he is entering first grade, he needs to transition and to focus better. I rave about the effect the drug has on our kid as confirmed by kid and his teacher.

Hot Arms is a pulmonologist. She works whenever her husband does not. She avoids him and she worries about her son. Like I worry about mine. She takes medications for her medical needs like I do for mine. Reluctantly, I give or rather, my partner dispenses, what is basically speed for our 6 year old son. Well, it fires up the correct, in scholastic terms, parts of his brain. I give her the name of our psychiatrist and wish her well. I tell her if something is needed, it should not be denied.

Women warriors

I sparred Hot Arms today. She's fast, she's good but she's a newbie. And an uber-perfectionist. She was beating herself up for not being better than she is. This was her third time sparring. She is intense.

She does look fetchingly sexy when she sweats, spars, removes her headgear. She could have anyone she wants. I guess she's not ready yet for extra-marital activities (of course not with me. I'm married and besides, she seems to have a thing for p'ster). I came home and did 50 chair dips. She inspires.

On another issue: p'ster kicked and pummeled me mightily after I kicked her in the nose. We were sparring and it was implicitly consensual. "A wake up call", p'ster said with ice cold fury. Her dark eyes dilated black. Her face blazed amazon ferocity. She was primal anger pounding my face and my head and my ribs. She mesmerized me and I froze. I understood fundamentally, she craved vengeance and I was compelled to acquiesce.

Shortly after this, the boy sparrers separated us. It's always good to work with different people and frequently, necessary.

After class, p'ster confessed she was very pissed off. She has a lot fire of deep within. An epiphany for her. Calling upon it as needed and controlling it is challenging; but oh, the strength and power she will wield! Go p'ster. Uzz!