I loaned my canoe and kayak to Chris a few years ago so he could go camping with his MAP buddies. When he returned I asked how the weekend went, expecting to hear tales of wild drunken cavorting in the bush. Turned out nobody had brought any beer, and the nearest thing to a decent drink in anyone’s kit was a protein shake from Popeye’s. I was disgusted at the time; but then time changes many things doesn’t it? And now, as Christmas approaches, can I honestly say that I’m looking forward to the reckless abandon that the season brings? Not really. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t begrudge other people their Christmas cheer, it’s just I find the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day too damned relaxing. Even if you really want to keep active there’s always someone whining at you to take it easy.
“What’s wrong with you; can’t you sit still for a minute? Here, get this Scotch down you and loosen up.”
But’s that’s the problem isn’t it? After a year of working out at Martial Arts Planet you don’t want to loosen up. All the effort has paid off: your one pack has segmented into six, your jellied butt has set into twin lobes of reinforced concrete, the tops of your thighs have finally parted company, and all the tackle in between has never felt in finer fettle. You look and feel magnificent.
And then comes Christmas, the slippery downhill slope, the mounting excuses to miss classes; you run around the mall instead of the gym, and gradually you grind to a halt. Evenings at UBfit become evenings at the bar, or at the trough, and you begin to fall back into your old ways – gluttony, sloth, and licentiousness. How does the old saying go:
Where indolence is bliss,’ tis folly, exercise…….or something like that.
And once you begin the slide into torpor the friends you’ve neglected in favour of a cleaner way of life gather about you like the Gadarene Swine, and you are led, as if by a nose ring, into the filthy habits of your disgraceful past.
An early morning run?………. What?…..ZZZzzzzzzzzzz.
Granola for breakfast?…..Pass me the bacon.
Herbal tea?……. I’ll have a Triple Venti Caramel Latte and an Apple Fritter!
So it goes on as Christmas approaches. Full fat milk on sugar-coated Frosties, poutine for lunch and the full turkey dinner. The server asks do you want stuffing, and you can’t resist the smart answer. One morning you splash rum into your protein shake and you know that rock bottom can’t be too far away. Yes, Christmas makes it all so easy, the great reversal, your world-class body greased daily with buckets of lard.
And then comes the reckoning; the hang-over after the debauch. It’s January 1st and you’ve slept past noon. You haul yourself out of whatever bed you find yourself in and scour the floor for your socks. Something obstructs your vision. You look down but a fleshy mass obscures your view. You blink but it doesn’t go away. And then cold reality exerts itself. The one-pack is back…. bigger…. rounder…… grotesque in its monstrousness. The porcine belly that you’ve laboured so hard to tame has burst from its abdominal harness to hang over your nether parts as if, over the course of just one week of partying, you have become pregnant with Oprah Winfrey.
You sit, horrified at the rapidity of your decline from sleek athleticism to flabby lassitude. You find your socks and attempt to pull them on, but your knee butts against your gut and you find your arms are too short for the task. You look in the mirror at the wreck you’ve created and despondency descends. Christmas, a week of revelry past, is a vague memory, the New Year’s party a blur, you’re left only with an unsettling sense of excess. But the effects of the holiday are writ large on your body, all the way from your jowly chin to arches flattened under the weight of your hulking mass. How can you face them at the gym looking like this? It’s the Land of No Excuses, remember? Will they take it easy on you? – not a chance! Will Janet hold back on the mountain-climbers? – get real! Will Chris skip the burpees? – you’ve got to be kidding! Is it going to hurt? – you can bet your life! You dread that Santa has brought Chris the books he asked for in his letter to the North Pole:
“Janet’s Manual for Ultimate UB Fitness”
“Girl-Fight: Janet Shows the Guys How It’s Done (Illustrated)”
“Warm-Up, Cool Down, and Janet’s Guide for a No-Wimp Work-Out in Between”
Just imagine if he’s read those over Christmas! If he ever gets the hang of Janet’s technique we might never coast through the Wednesday class again.
So, what to do as the festive season begins? Is discretion really the better part of valour? Is defence the best form of attack? Do we avoid the effect by mitigating the cause? If we exercise at all, would it not be best to exercise restraint? In short, should we make Christmas the season of self-denial??????
Thought not…….and make mine a double!
With best wishes for an indulgent holiday,
MAPDad.
2 dozen cookies
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 1/4 hours
Nutrition Profile
Diabetes appropriate | Low carbohydrate |
Ingredients
Lusciously Nutty Holiday Logs
Preparation
Tips & Notes
Make Ahead Tip: Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or freeze without the chocolate drizzle for up to 1 month. Defrost at room temperature before decorating with the chocolate drizzle.
Nutrition
Per cookie: 76 calories; 4 g fat ( 1 g sat , 1 g mono ); 0 mg cholesterol; 9 g carbohydrates; 1 g protein; 1 g fiber; 31 mg sodium; 36 mg potassium.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up, MAPdad was supposed to record the thoughts of a undeniably middle-aged father as his young sons take up the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Things got derailed when DAD, confined with his laptop to the front lobby of MAP, realised that more fun, not to mention grist for the mill, might be had by joining the kids on the mat. By kids, I don’t mean the aforementioned sons, but the odd collection of individuals who indulge in kid-ish behaviour during the regular UBfit sessions that run parallel with the Kids Jits lessons.
I thought I might devote one or two issues of MAPdad to UBfit, but having observed the goings-on in the classes, the subject became so compelling that I’m now at MAPdad 12 feeling I’ve hardly scratched the surface. Attempting to reflect on the totality of UBfit in 1200 words would be a task equivalent to that of describing the exhibits at the Toronto Zoo with the same brevity. There are the gazelles, the gorillas, hyenas, and baboons; you might catch an occasional hint of python, and the cougars are always worthy of attention. Such a diverse collection. Such strange oddities. Such bizarre behaviour.
Considering the peculiar cast of characters that congregate at the UBfit classes, it might seem superfluous to ask them to dress up for Halloween. After all, on any given evening one might walk into Martial Arts Planet and think they’ve stumbled accidentally into Madame Tussaud’s. I’ve often wondered why martial artists conform to the Gi as a common dress article given that, from a strategic viewpoint, one would not choose to pick a fight while tied up in a duvet, no matter what colour the belt. I suspect the answer might be that, left to themselves, their choice of wardrobes might lead to more conflicts than even the best martial artist could reasonably handle. Consider Rob, for example, and the black and gold-embossed mini-skirt that he sometimes favours on a Friday night……..no…..wait…..don’t do that……..a man built along Rob’s lines is entitled to wear whatever the hell he likes.
Anyway, there we were on the Friday before Halloween, the usual menagerie assembled, except that this time the leopards had changed their spots and the mutton was definitely dressed as lamb. Who knew that Janet, blonde in so many ways, was a closet brunette? Would we see an element of intellectualism creep into this class?……thought not! And Mike, who normally looks like the poster boy for the Vidal Sassoon Academy of Medical Law and Business Management, shows up in a hippy wig and a false nose. The nose lasted only through the first set of exercises, but no one noticed the difference when he took it off. First prize though, went to Tony, who presented himself as Superman and who, for the sake of verisimilitude, shaved off a beard and moustache of fifteen years standing; after all, the Man of Steel has never sported a full set. People were too kind to point out that neither did Clark Kent don a bath towel as a cape nor appear with grey head worn down to the nub. And while Superman is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, Mike’s performance with the skipping rope suggested rather more modest capabilities.
It struck me later that if the costumes suggested the alter egos of their wearers, a common theme was a hankering after lost youth. Janet the Jane Fonda of the Barbarella era, Tony the ripped and resilient super-hero, and even Mike, who’s closer to Daycare than Homecare, choosing to wear the badges of teenage rebellion rather than the trappings of respectability, his lawyer’s tie worn as a headband.
Last time I stated that this issue of MAPdad would be about WHY seemingly intelligent people would pay a team of sadists to put them through torture four times a week, but I think the Halloween class indicated this quite clearly. It’s not because we enjoy the pain (though there may be one or two masochists who really believe it when they say that was good!), it’s because even the most decrepit among us (and that would be me), wishes to believe that they are at least a decade younger than they appear. Surviving a UBfit class means that we are not quite ready for the nursing home, and there’s the hope that regular attendance will delay the inevitable day when even the Man of Steel places a diaper in his underpants before zooming off, faster than a speeding wheelchair, to save the world.
By the way, prize for best mask went to Chris, but was reallocated when it was found that he was not, despite appearances, in costume.
Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil, until soft, season with salt and pepper. Add Sweet Potatoes and carrots, saute for a few minutes, then add broth. Bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer until vegs are soft. Puree with a hand blender, then serve topped off with a spoonful of sour cream. Voila! easy peasy and YUMMERS!
It’s been a few months now since I started UBfit classes at Martial Arts Planet, and I’ve come to know, at least to some extent, the personalities of each of the coaches. There have been five of them so far, rotating the shifts so that on a given evening I’ve never been sure who might be teaching the classes. This may have been a deliberate policy, keeping the MAP clients off-guard so that they never know what’s coming until it’s too late to back out. Not that it makes much of a difference in the end: Chris, Janet, Patti, Matt and Geoff, diverse in age, temperament and style, each of them personable and friendly outside of the gym, share a common characteristic once they get into hand wraps and crank up the volume on the sound system – a sociopathic lack of empathy. Put more simply, they become a mean bunch of bastards.
It’s truly amazing how this happens. It’s not like the situation with a drill sergeant who spends his entire life in a state of barely suppressed rage; with the UBfit coaches the personality change is a bipolar shift that happens in a heartbeat. It’s as if there’s some psychoactive influence in that lamentable kickboxing music that changes sweet bubbly Janet into a psychotic dominatrix intent on driving her clients into a state of respiratory collapse. Yes, the same girl who jokes along with you as you gear up before class goes through a Bruce Banner-like transformation as soon as the gloves are on. And no, you wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.
So, when I heard that Geoff was to run the Friday UBfit session, the news came as something of a relief. I’d heard of Geoff – the tall, mild mannered guy who teaches the yoga class. I hadn’t done any yoga classes at MAP, but I’ve got thirty years of yoga experience under my belt, and I know the score. Warm-up is breathing through alternate nostrils, which can’t really be classed as high energy exertion, even when you’ve got a beak like Mr. Wellstood’s. Then you move onto stretching exercises, hands and feet on the mat with your butt in the air, that kind of thing and nothing that might make you break into a sweat. And then you finish off with Savasana, which is a Sanskrit word for kipping down and getting a few Zeds. Perfect! I was going to like Geoff.
But then I’d forgotten the Bruce Banner effect. Sure, Geoff was all sweetness and light as he prepared the warm-up course, arranging bags and ropes and weights and medicine balls around the gym, as if toiling peaceably toward the common good like a young Mahatma Gandhi. But then he explained what the course was all about, and it was as if Mother Theresa had swapped her rosary beads for a set of nunchuks. It went something like this:
A full minute at each station with ten seconds to move between them, and did those ten seconds ever taste good.
And what about Geoff, the Yogi, Mr. Transcendental? He’s running from station to station, not shouting his mouth off like Chris would do, or laughing you into a hernia like Janet, but quietly urging you on, telling you it’s only a minute (only a minute!!!), encouraging you to give it all you’ve got for that mere 60 seconds before you move onto the next stage of the torture trail. And you know what? – the trick works. When Chris yells, you can yell back and tell him that’s all you’ve got; when Janet laughs, you can laugh too and use the excuse to take a breather. But when Geoff says….. You can do it. Come on, one minute, you can do it…….. not doing it is like letting down your favourite teacher at school, or handing your mother the straight D report card.
So, ten minutes into class and you’re shagged out. But Geoff knows it’s only in those specific muscles he’s targeted. So he gives you a break. Yeah, go lean against the wall for a couple of minutes, take deep breaths, recover; but make sure your back is straight and your thighs are parallel to the mat. That’s it – a ninety degree angle at the knees. No…..get those elbows off your legs, straighten up, back flat against the wall, that’s it, just another minute to go – the worst 60 second knee-trembler of your life.
Oh yeah, we’re here to do some kick-boxing aren’t we? Better get on with it because time is running short. So, two minute rounds, jab, than add the cross, then add the hook, then the body, double it up, and when the bell sounds give me 30 seconds of push ups. Now the legs: lead leg front kick, add the rear leg round kick, add the front leg round kick, double up the round kicks and when the bell sounds, give me 30 seconds of crunches. Now let’s put all that together: jab, cross, hook, body, body, lead leg front kick, rear leg round kick, front leg round kick and add some alternating knees just for fun. Getting tired? OK, go lean against the wall for a minute………no guys, not like that…………you know what I mean.
For the first 30 seconds the wall feels so good, despite the creeping agony in the thighs. For the next 30 seconds you can’t wait to get back on the bag. Then, two minutes into the bag, the wall begins to look like an oasis in the desert. These UBfit instructors, Chris, Janet, Patti, and now Geoff, would have been star turns at the Inquisition: torture to the point of torment in one area, then shift the pain somewhere else, a little at first and then ramp it up to excruciation before shifting it again; finish the round and go back to the beginning.
Then at last it’s time for the cool down. Some of that alternate nostril stuff? Hanging out in Downward Dog? Geoff’s the yoga man, he can at least grant us a few minutes of Savasana. Not a chance. We get to hang out in plank, and just as the abs start to give out he tells us to do a side plank, body straight, supported on one elbow, the opposite arm vertical. When we begin to sag, he directs us to shift to the other side. And all the time it’s the same mantra – You can do it guys. I know you can do it. Remember, this is what you’re here for, just a little while longer.
And then we’re done…… totally done. Now that Geoff has stopped urging us on, just the act of walking to the change rooms is about as much as I can handle. I sit on the bench wondering how I’m going to get up again. I try the Geoff approach in my head: It’s just two socks; you can put on two socks. Come on, two socks, you can do it. But it’s the guys changing for the advanced MMA class that provide the motivation to get out of there – it’s not a sight to linger over.
Fridays were always a particular challenge after that first session with Geoff, and there was always the forlorn hope that at least one time he’d go easy on us. It never happened. The warm up varied slightly from week to week, but the intensity never lessened. So why then this despondency now that he’s moved to Ottawa? How can the absence of scheduled torture create a sense of loss? Why do Fridays feel not quite the same? I guess it comes down to character. Geoff drove you hard, but somehow it was difficult to blame him for it, whereas Chris inspires a genuine hatred half-way through a tough session.
But in the final analysis it has to be said that we bring it on ourselves. Why? I wonder. What drives us to keep coming back for more two, three or four times a week? Why do we pay someone to make us suffer? More on that next time, but for now, farewell Geoff and best of luck to you. You’re a hard act to follow, but I’m sure there’ll be another sadist along to take your place. Kick butt in Ottawa, and if you ever spar with Mr. Harper, give him an especially big kick from me.
This is a hearty and delicious stew. The perfect comfort food for a cool fall day!
Ingredients
Directions
So, it’s the morning after your first UBfit session and you find that life after exercise is less comfortable than before. In fact, when you first wake up you think that death might be an attractive alternative. But why? You busted your butt, kept up with the game, swung and sweated like Joe Frazier in Manilla – how come you don’t feel like a world class athlete?
Simple………………you aint one.
The Alis, Fraziers, Foremen, and even those much lesser mortals that pose as fighters on the UFC tour, all got to where they ended up by training their cardiovascular systems to deliver oxygen where and when it was needed, and in sufficient quantities to burn the fuel required for extended extertions. That’s what fitness is all about – not just building the engine but the capacity to deliver the juice. It takes time, dedication and effort. There are no short cuts, and the only way around the pain is through it.
Why? Well, let me lapse for a while into Geek-Speak…………
To move a muscle you need to expend energy. The energy currency we run on is called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and we produce it, under normal circumstances, through aerobic respiration – that is, a respiratory process that requires oxygen. The starting point for respiration is a six carbon sugar, such as glucose, which is broken down to produce energy through two distinct, but co-ordinated, series of reactions. The first stage is called glycolysis (sugar-splitting), in which the 6 carbon sugar is split into two 3 carbon sugars, both of which are further broken down into a 2 carbon compound called Acetyl CoA. This breakdown releases carbon dioxide, but doesn’t consume any oxygen, so this part of respiration is anaerobic. Glycolysis doesn’t produce much ATP – just two molecules net gain per molecule of glucose.
Most of the energy from respiration occurs in the next series of reactions in which Acetyl-CoA enters a cyclical series of reactions called the Kreb Cycle, named after a dude who wore socks with his sandles. This series of respiratory reactions is aerobic, requiring the consumption of oxygen, and yields a massive 36 molecules of energy-rich ATP per turn of the cycle. So, if we can keep on delivering lots of oxygen to the cells, and the cells have sufficient sugar to burn, we can produce masses of energy through aerobic respiration and everyone is happy.
BUT………………………..
When you are unfit, when your heart pounds only on seeing the Boston Cream Donut of your fondest desires, and you attempt to use muscles that have remained passive and dormant for most of your life, the pathetic efforts of your atrophied cardiovascular system cannot keep up with delivering the oxygen you need to fuel your efforts. You pant and gasp but the oxygen delivery system can’t meet the demand. And yet you keep on working….. to a point.
What happens in this circumstance is that your muscle cells go into emergency mode and the anaerobic part of respiration, Glycolysis as discussed above, accelerates in an attempt to supply the ATP you need. Instead of producing Acetyl CoA for aerobic respiration, a significant proportion of the 3 carbon sugars produced in glycolysis are converted into lactic acid which, in high doses, is not entirely good for you. Don’t be fooled by the name, there’s nothing smooth and milky about lactate. It acidifies the blood and its production is linked to the gasping exhaustion you feel after Chris has made you do 30 seconds of head punches interspersed with burpies.
Yes, you managed to get through the UBfit session by struggling along with the fit guys, but you weren’t really keeping up – not on the inside anyway. All you were doing was going into an Oxygen Debt, accumulating lactic acid like a really painful overdraught, and having to suffer the bitter consequences of paying it all off. At the same time, you’ve put your muscles through a physical pounding, stretching and tearing fibres and connective tissue and causing inflammation that keeps you sore for days after. You may stagger out of UBfit tired and smiling, but try that grin when delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) catches up with you the day after – you may be tempted to say NEVER AGAIN!
So why do it?
Well, there’s good news. Keep at it, and aerobic training like UBfit strengthens and improves the cardiovascular system, making oxygen delivery to muscles far more efficient. You’ll build a sleeker engine through strength training, but endurance conditioning will allow you to keep that engine supplied with the oxygen it needs to run sweetly, so that in time you may never need to cross the anaerobic threshold again. Also, the dreaded DOMS will disappear. These aren’t related to lactate accumulation, as many people think, but represent temporary inflammation resulting from a good solid work-out. If you keep on using the muscles that hurt, working through the pain, they won’t bother you in the future, and they’ll be all the stronger for the experience. Wait too long before resuming the program and you go back to square one.
Bottom line……Man up!…….Woman up!…..but get on with it.
Like I said, the only way around the pain, is through it, but once you’ve pushed back the wall and learned to work within your limits, you’ll find that those limits become less restrictive each time you work out. Eventually, you may even want to invest in a device that allows you to determine exactly when you have reached the anaerobic threshold, and one that tells you exactly how fit you really are.
Think I’ve been writing this blog for free? Keep watching this space for my first commercial break…………
The alarm goes off at 7.00 am and I awake from a paralysed slumber. I reach over to hit snooze, but somehow my arm doesn’t want to obey my brain and I fumble about before giving up, eyes still glued shut, as blather from the K-Rock morning morons invades the bedroom. I’ve chosen K-Rock deliberately. Nothing is more guaranteed to drag me out of bed than hearing Radar Love for the twentieth time in ten minutes. But today something is different. It’s not just my arm that won’t do what it’s told, my whole body refuses to budge when I ask it. For a panicked instant I wonder if I’ve had stroke and that I’m going to be lying here until the neighbours begin to complain about the smell. I try to lift my torso, let out a wail and fall back against the pillow. My stomach muscles, the former six-pack of a lost youth, have been replaced by bands of agony that anchor me to the bed. I try rolling to the side, but this brings into play other screaming muscles of whose existence, until now, I’ve been blissfully unaware.
Better to just lie still – after all, it’s the weekend, and I know from bitter experience that the activities of a Friday night can have terrible effects on the proposed activities of a Saturday morning. But, like I said, this is different. My mouth feels fine, not the vaguest hint of sweaty sock or cat litter, and my head seems to be functioning about as well as it ever does. There’s the fleeting recollection of dreams, but they’re just the usual stuff that I grab for as they disappear – playing pool with Scarlett Johansson wearing a mini-skirt and a rash-guard (her, not me, thank goodness); gnawing at a plateful of rare steak with my hands bound behind me; losing both arms and having to write with a pencil held in my toes, scrawling my name over and over again so that my legs are cramped and my abs are in agony………
Gradually the images gel; the rash-guard, the bound hands, the bloody steak, writing with my feet…………….OK Scarlett doesn’t quite fit but I won’t complain about that…….it’s not a hangover, and it’s not fair! I gave up my ritual bottle of red on a Friday night so that I could throw myself around at MAP, and I feel worse now on Saturday than if I’d chugged back 2 liters of the vile stuff that Prince Edward County has the balls to call wine. The symptoms are similar: an inability to rise, intense pain throughout the entire frame, an overwhelming desire to fade back into sleep and allow the weekend to proceed without me.
But then again I don’t feel that terrible sense of remorse that comes with the dawning of the day after; my brain, though tired, is slowly shaking itself back into life without a dose of aspirin to facilitate the process, and, most importantly, I can’t recall having said a thousand things on a Friday night that I really should have kept to myself. In fact, lying here, I feel as if I’ve earned the right to do just that, to lie in bed for as long as I like, not wallowing in self-pity but with smug satisfaction. As the blood begins to flow, I even begin to find a perverse pleasure in the pain. Sure, when I finally pull myself erect (I mean drag myself upright) there are knitting needles embedded in the muscles of my calves and thighs, and I shuffle to the bathroom as if I’m learning to skate on the floorboards. But there is a gratification in all of this, in discovering the sources of pain, in learning that I’m not nearly as fit as I thought I was, that there are a hundred muscles which UBfit has brought screaming into life. They need my attention, these muscles. I’ve been neglectful and there’s a debt to pay – an Oxygen Debt – and I’m going to use UBfit to get my account in balance.
Sounds weird? Maybe, but I’ll explain next time.
“Everyone grab a partner!”
I look around. There’s an obvious shuffle away from the sweaty guy with the blood-bespattered feet, the girls relieved at finding they’re present as an even number. The kid on the cement bag teams up straight away with someone who might as well be his great-granddad. That leaves me as the odd man out. Chris rolls his eyes and has no option but to play Robin to my Batman.
“OK, straight punches to the head, 30 seconds on with the partner holding the bag then switch. GO!!!!”
I remember the criticism from 5 minutes ago. Don’t swim. Straight jab with the left, the action coming from the left hip, crushing the bug under the right foot. Left hand back to chin as you launch with the right, pivoting the right hip, raising the right heel…….or something like that. It all gets a bit complicated when the brain is deprived of oxygen. I hit the bag with a big left, reset to chin, and cross with the right, keeping the head steady and the chin tucked. I think I’m doing a great job. But Chris has other ideas:
“Faster; one, two, one, two. Get as many as you can in the 30 seconds. The guy has dropped his gloves. Nail him quick and hard before he can recover. Come on, move it.”
That’s more like it. Less of the technical stuff and down to basic street fighting. Whale away while the going’s good and hope you can finish him off before pay-back time. Thirty seconds through and my arms are just about done. I begin to understand Ali’s strategy during the Rumble in the Jungle. Let George Foreman pound away for eight rounds, soaking it all up on the ropes, then nail him with a combo when he’s punched himself out. Brilliant!………….except for the first bit. Mind you, I begin to appreciate what it takes to keep the punches coming, to keep the hands up for three minutes at a time over 15 rounds. Holy cow, no wonder those guys look like they’re stuffed with ball bearings.
Chris takes his 30 seconds to show that he can punch three times more quickly than me and five times harder. I’m not impressed. Ten years of this and I’ll be way past him. But for now I have to deliver rapid body punches for the next 30 seconds, again all from the hips, elbows in and gloves angled to get in under the ribs where it hurts like Bejaysus.
It only takes one good one and you’re down. I remember Jimmy Green, the runt at school, digging a bony elbow into my solar plexus as I was throttling him from behind. I sniggered manfully as I pushed him away before finding myself a quiet corner to die in. End of my bullying career. How Ali managed to take all that pummelling from Foreman during the rope-a-dope in Zaire I’ll never know, but I can appreciate just how shagged out Foremen must have felt after hundreds of all-out body punches with Ali taunting “Is that all you’ve got George?”
“Is that all you’ve got Steve?” Chris is reading my mind. At half the weight, almost half the height, and pasty white, he’s no Ali. But then again, I’m no George Foreman either.
And yet……………there’s an undeniable “what if?” that has come creeping into my mind since putting on the gloves. Yeah, it’s one thing to beat up on a padded bag and imagine all your enemies, ancient and modern, soaking up the punishment you’re dishing out, but what if you were really in the ring with someone intending on putting you down? It’s OK to knock that tennis ball against the wall, but don’t you really want someone on the other side of a net. Playing patience passes the time, but it’s not high stakes poker. Penthouse was OK for solitaire at 15 but eventually……Anyway, you get my meaning. Is this how it starts? Can the road to UBFit lead to duking it out in the ring?
THWACK!!!! The 30 seconds has passed and Chris hits the bag before I’ve got a hand on it. The padding gets me square in the face, nose first, and I’m blinded for a second by the blow. It’s distinctly unpleasant. I imagine the hit concentrated on the end of a fist belonging to someone who knows what he’s about; not some girly-bag, but a few square inches of concentrated force with 160 pounds of body weight behind it.
No, UBFit does not lead to cage fighting; at least not for this puppy. Rub my belly if you like, but leave my nose alone……………
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