Sixty-five Dollar Baby

Brought to you by Marshall Art, ninja sherrif.

To look at my forearms this morning, you'd think I'd been in a fight. And you'd be right. All in good fun, of course. I’m referring to my regular Monday night sparring session with ichi-ban partner-san. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say there's nothing like a good clean fight to make a girl's day.

I can see your nose wrinkling with polite distaste. You think martial arts in general and boxing in particular are a bit brutish. A bit crude. A bit, dare we say, unladylike. You're too polite to say so to people who do these things, of course; to each his or her own. But you're thinking it. Fighting is not nice. People who say that martial arts, fighting arts, are a path to peace are a bunch of hypocrites.

No, madam, that would be you.

My earnest request to boxing bashers: don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Boxing will save your soul. It saved mine.

Once upon a time, I was married. The marriage ended when I decided I really didn't like his girlfriend all that much. Off he went, leaving me holding the bag — by which I mean everything we owned, from the house and cats down to his clothes, toothbrush, and unpaid parking tickets. I was upset, as you may imagine. I wanted to hit something. Anything. Now.

Even in my fury, I knew that I'd better be careful with the hitting or I'd just cause myself more grief. So the week El Pendejo checked out, I joined the Eclectsis class at the T'ai Chi studio. Eclectsis is a modern, eclectic martial art that blends western boxing with southern preying mantis kung fu and street fighting. Yeahyeahyeah whatever. They hit things, right? I showed up early.

I figured class would consist of a few minutes of Sifu showing me how to make a proper fist and throw a straight punch, followed by a long stretch of me thrashing the holy heck out of some focus pads or the heavy bag, or maybe even one of the men in the class. I was totally ready for that. Foaming at the mouth for it, in fact. And I was disappointed. At first.

Sifu started us newbies out slow, so slow that it was a year before we did any sparring of any kind. We spent weeks and weeks making good stances and jabbing air before he put pads in front of us. We spent months and months polishing four or five different kinds of punches, learning the footwork, learning to read the pads and to hold them for each other.

That was all very nice, but it wasn't the real education. The real lesson was that you can't fight when you're pissed.

No, you can't. Anger will get in your way. You have to be relaxed and focused to box well, or to do any martial art well. You're not going to connect with the sweet spot on the pads, a target the size of a mini-muffin, if you're not focused. You're not going to remember your punch combos if you're mentally composing a letter to your attorney. And you're not going to dodge diddly squat if you're busy plotting revenge. If you're not concentrating in the moment, you're not in the game, and you will get your ass kicked, either by failing in your practice or by failing to defend yourself intelligently in the ring.

Well, I hate to fail. Hate it. Unacceptable. So I chose to apply myself to where my hands and feet were, how I was breathing, what I was seeing, whether I was being a good padholder. Though the class only met once a week, I eventually developed these skills enough for Sifu to allow me to swing at someone else.

Huzzah! I bought myself some gloves and headgear and started doing some sparring with my classmates. And let me tell you, the first time I got clocked in the head, I forgot all about whatshispants and focused my attention squarely on what was in front of me. No time for distraction. Time to concentrate on hands up, chin down, feet light, breathing deep. Time to parry and counter, time to duck and slip, time to assess and strike, time to reel and recover, yes. But no time for the ex.

So I learned about boxing. And I learned about myself as a boxer. And as a woman. I learned that I can take a punch and remain standing; that I am nimbler and quicker than you'd expect; that I can control the ring by standing firm in the center and letting the other guy wear himself out circling me; that I have an iron gut; that I have great balance; that shelling up will only get me so far, and after that, I will hit back; that hitting back does not make me a bad person; that no one is going to cut me a break because I have boobs; that I can hold my own among some very tough people; that if I slow down and let it flow, I'm actually pretty good.

Yes, yes, thank you for the After-School Special "I've learned something very important here today" speech, right? U go grrl, sing it sistah, etc., etc., etc. Yawn. Yeah, I know.

Well, I also learned about having a partner. This is the interesting part. I discovered that my sparring partner is not there to kill me. In fact, he does not give a belgian waffle who I am. It could just as easily be somebody else standing there panting; he does not care. What he cares about is the challenge of making good art (and anyone who thinks that the martial arts are not arts clearly has never tried one, because it's pure collaborative improvisation — physical jazz a deux). He cares about finding the opening, setting up the lock, landing the strike, thwarting my attack, all at top speed. He does not care about my personal feelings in the matter.

Because it's not about me. And it's not about him. It's about art and sweat and patience. Hell, hurting me is the last thing he wants to do, because then the game would be over. And the last thing I want to do is hurt him, because I'm lucky to have him there willing to do this with me. He's my best friend. I know what it is to hold someone's well-being in my hands and to trust him with mine, and it's made me a damn sight more considerate than I was before.

So you see, the boxing I do is not so brutish, not so crass. It's an exercise in trusting, both myself and my partner, and in being trusted, by both myself and my partner. It's a source of the knowledge that I don't have to hit things — or to keep getting hit — to prove I'm tough. And it's a source of peace, because I understand my power to hurt and the responsibility that goes with it, and I don't want to abuse either. This knowledge is better than a million dollars. It's priceless.

Today around the world: March 1 is National Pig Day in the U.S. Did you hear that, Six? Piggies!