TheBunnyBlog.com - July 1, 2007

I take Muay Thai classes on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. My Monday and Friday classes are taught by this totally adorable surfergirl I'll call Lilly, because her real name is just as cute and I love that flower. Lilly has really beautiful form, and so she teaches well. She goes around tweaking our punches and kicks this way and that, and because form is super important no matter your level, you'll see lots of the better fighters there working on their standup, flapping their shins into each other in the most simultaneously delicate and devastating way. Flick--BANG! Flick--BANG! They scare the shit out of me. I stay in the corner with the girls and my pigtails and my pink gloves.

Tuesdays are my "whatever days," meaning I'll go to the gym and hope somebody teaches me something. Last Tuesday I learned how to choke with my thighs and do something called "Ground and Pound." It means to literally ground someone and pound the shit out of them with your fists, knees and elbows. As you can imagine, it's cathartic as hell, and the only not-so-fun thing about "Ground and Pound" is the thought that you might be a recipient of it at some point in the future--some really awful point. Otherwise, it's a brilliant workout.

Saturdays are my beginner Muay Thai classes. They're usually pretty crowded with the kind of people who are there for the workout and have no intention of ever fighting. The scrappy guy that works the front desk teaches them, and he doesn't care too much about form. You don't see many of the real fighters on Saturday. I look forward to this day, as it is a nice little workout doing drills I've done before and know pretty well. There's no coordinating your body into a new series of moves you've never done before.

You can imagine I was a little surprised yesterday when I walked into my beginner's Saturday class and saw a new teacher. Instead of scrappy desk guy, we got "Dan," a six-foot-tall English guy with black hair in shorts and a wife beater tank top. He was lithe and confident and said something that was probably, "I'm your new beginnah's clahss instructah. Don't worry yourselves. I've fought in a few mahtches meself, so I know what I'm doing," but I'm not certain. His accent was thick. He demonstrated a "RunningMannish" activity against the wall, and we all lined up to mimic him. The Beastie Boys were playing. I was all but a can of Rave short of a true Junior High flashback.

We danced and Dan shouted orders I couldn't understand. A girl next to me with a brown bob and fake tits had no clue either. I didn't think she would have a clue, but I asked her anyway, because she was shorter than me by almost ten inches and I got to stare down her top.

"Yauwauna kehp yoh knees rehlly rehlly high heher," yelled Dan.

Huh?

I shouted to him over my shoulder, "Hey Dan, where you from?" in the kind of wavy way speech comes out when you're doing the Running Man.

"Nawtingham," said Dan.
"Nawtingham," I repeated. Dan laughed, and I decided he was very affable, even if he did make us dance like Kid N' Play.

It came time for drills. We did some regular combinations with punches and kicks and then some "clinch" drills. "Clinch" means you and your opponent are clinched in together, you've got his/her head pulled down, and you're tossing knees into his/her face. Its really very humane, the clinch.

Dan demonstrated our next drill at Dan speed, and it was clear that Dan had fought in more than just a "few matches." I saw whizzing hands and feet that looked like nothing to me. When slowed down, it ended up being this weird charge that began with a distracting jab, went into a knee/punch thingy and ended with a kick. This was when I began to dislike affable Dan.

The rest of the class was devoted to Dan's weirdo charge. It made no sense to me. It started fine, with a little jab. Shit, I could do that. Then a right knee, and that wasn't so hard, but then Dan did this weird, mid-air shifting of his weight and threw a right cross at the same time. Somehow he was set up for a left kick. Fucking Dan. None of us could get it, and we were all pleased when our last round ended and it was time for the fitness portion of class--a series of exercises chosen per instructors' tastes. Lilly likes us to do leg lifts and situps. Scrappy desk guy makes us do pushups. And Dan? Okay, now this is when I really began to hate Dan.

Dan made us do bastard squat thrusts--down, feet out, pushup, feet in, jump, repeat--until we all vomited. Maybe everybody else didn't vomit, but I definitely spit up my orange juice in the ladies locker room after class. While we were thrusting, good old Dan walked around and taunted us with English jibberisms, clapped and blew his whistle. "Come on, people," Dan shouted. "This is for the new you!"

"Don't make me laugh, Dan. I hate you right now."

On my way out of the gym I was sweating like a tweeker--or like me five years ago when I had problems with Ephedra. I looked around to see if I could find Dan so I could tell him I didn't really hate him and also thank him for making me feel like I was on drugs without actually taking them, but he was nowhere to be found. Instead, I ran into scrappy desk guy. He had a look at my sweat and he smiled. "You like Dan's class?"
"Dan's an asshole."
"Yeah, he's also the number one cagefighter in England at 170."
"What? Nuh uh."
"Yep."
"Get out!"
"He's 'Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy.'"
"No shit! He's got a name?"
"Bunny, he's a huge fighter in England. Why wouldn't he have a name?"
"I dunno. It's England. It's far away and stuff."

Of course I went straight home and googled him. For sure, my beginner's Saturday instructah, Dan, who's fought in a "few mahtches" is the number one cagefighter in England at 170. How cool is my gym?

I think if he had been shirtless and fierce with hair dye like in this pic, I would have known I was going to be totally befuddled and that I would probably puke. Now that I think of it, the big blob of coagulated blood in his right eye was a good clue.

Posted by The Bunny at 8:31 PM