Muay Thai and Hallmark

Greetings;

Ok, so the last blog was pretty heavy, I know. But this one has a lot more pictures, and should be a little more entertaining. After all, Barack Obama is president. The world's problems now have an expiration date.

I know, I know, I promised to stay out of politics in here. And this isn't about politics. It is about the reaction. It was borderline scary. There were literally dozens of Obama Parties across the city. I was told that I (meaning America) was forgiven, and several folks, American, Korean, Canadian, what have you, seem to think Obama can walk on water. I don't care who we elected, I just don't have the much faith in elected officials. But they're happy, so who am I to judge?

I went to an Obama party, by the way. The food was good, and the company was very polite. After giving my last post another read I want to make sure I don't let the handful of wackos spoil it for all the amazing folks I've met.

So let's talk about Pepero.

Peperos are chopstick-shaped pretzel things, with one end usually dipped in chocolate. They're not bad, but nothing worth blogging about. Until, that is, it became November 11th. You see, November 11th (11/11... get it? 'Cause of the shape...) is Pepero day in Korea. The idea is that you buy Pepero and give it as a gift to friends and family. The 70 cent box jumps up to an even $1, and these things fly off the shelves like PS2 copies of Rock Band. Not only that, around this time of year you can find rare types of Pepero that is only released in honor of this "holiday". The variety is enough to make an American proud. You can buy these suckers in every way imaginable. And yes, Pepero is a brand name.

Hallmark ain't got nuthin' on these folks.





The other news of note is I finally started taking a martial art. A couple of the other foreign teachers started Muay Thai a few months back not far from where I live, and the timing was perfect. So, I started up about a week ago.

The gym is on the second floor of an unassuming building near a local women's university. What you're looking at in the picture is just about all of it. Forget the professional offices and large training areas tucked into pretty strip malls. This place is small, kinda dirty, and the office is an old desktop stuck in a corner. I love it. Oh, take special note of the girl on the right of the picture. See her? She can kill you. I don't care who is reading this, if you're initials aren't N.A., she can kill you. Even if they are, I wouldn't bet on it. She is one of the two females who train there. They are friendly, even if their English isn't all that good. They stand every bit of 5 foot flat, and weigh about 100 pounds soaking wet. But I watched that little girl jump 3 or 4 feet in the air and snap off two kicks, on either side of the bag. One of those would have knocked this much larger man on his butt. Two would have resulted in some kind of permanent damage.


This is Master Kim. Despite the unoriginal naming of an Asian martial artist, Master Kim is built a bit like Eli, only skinnier. Once, during a practice, he caught my buddy on the shin. It hurt like a sonofagun. My buddy limped away for a minute, trying to work it out. Master Kim laughed at him, walked over to a metal pole, and smashed his shin against it. Then he walked over and showed my friend his shin. Let's just say it isn't perfectly straight. But there is no doubt that this guy is the real deal. He offhandedly throws hits that I'm pretty sure would go straight through me. At the moment, though, I'm snapping off about 200 kicks a day, and then spending the rest of the day crying silently to myself during class. The thing is I'm just not far enough along to learn anything cool, which is fine. But he doesn't do the warm ups or cool downs with the class. He's usually wandering around cleaning up, or on his computer. The stretches are pretty freaking painful, and I'm grateful he doesn't speak much English, because I have rarely sworn as often as I do during these torture sessions. I mean, honestly, after 7 minutes rolled onto my shoulders doing random leg movements straight up into the air he still hadn't stopped hanging up the extra towels. And this other thing we do- we squat, knees to our chest, and bounce 3 times, then jump up just a little bit, and spin 90 degrees. We do this maybe 10 or 12 times, then crank out 20 or 30 push ups, then 60 or 70 situps.

I'm starting to think I don't need to be this bad-ass. My friends insist I'll be excited about it after a little longer. All I can think is how much I want to crawl inside a giant meat calzone and eat until I pass out... I'm considering Tai-Chi.

Seriously, though, it's really amazing. This has been a life long goal for me, and it's so unreal to actually be doing it. And when it gets to be too much, I just think about one thing.


I'm going to have a jacket and pants from the gym, with this on the back. And it won't be because I bought it at a flea market.











Random note for those of you out there who also do/did this kind of self-imposed torture- turns out I'm a southpaw in the ring, and I'm being trained as such. I'd love to hear any thoughts/advice on that front.

If your really bored, you can find more info on Muay Thai here.

Ok, I'm outta time. Much love folks, I'll write again soon.

-Al