A roundhouse kick to evils of misogyny
Iwant to make one thing perfectly clear: I am, at heart, a pacifist. Never mind I can belt out all the words to Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and sound like I mean it. Or that I have a habit of pounding on the horn when the light turns green and the driver in front of me is too busy texting to notice. Except for a few times when I hit my sister when we were kids (trust me, she had it coming), I have spent my entire life avoiding violent situations.
Which is why I was surprised to discover that I really enjoy punching people in the face.
Not actual people, though, just the ones I imagine are standing in front of me in my basement, cowering in terror as I rain blows upon them. These nonexistent opponents are included at no extra cost as part of the fitness app I purchased last spring when my gym closed due to pandemic restrictions. I’ve tried a variety of workout classes since then, but keep returning to kickboxing. I enjoy it so much that I signed up for a month-long kickboxing challenge. For the last three weeks I have joined a trainer and 60 other people at 6 a.m. for the opportunity to pummel fictitious foes, giving new meaning to the phrase March Madness.
After a challenging year, I’ve discovered that smashing my fists and kicking my feet at nonexistent targets is immensely cathartic. Which is surprising for someone who, as a kid, would get lightheaded at just the mention of a schoolyard fight. Knowing that I’m only kicking virtual butt, though, allows me to be consistent with my pacifist principles. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t imagine certain actual people standing before me while I’m floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. I’m sure the Dalai Lama does the same thing.
It’s been empowering to channel my inner Rocky Balboa this month. In addition to boxing, we spend a lot of time jumping rope and doing abdominal exercises to strengthen our core. Pretty soon I’ll be scouting out meat packing plants that will let me punch sides of beef in their freezer so I can further hone my skills. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
The other day, after a particularly tough workout, I declared myself the heavyweight champion of our base
The other day, after a particularly tough workout, I declared myself the heavyweight champion of our basement, which isn’t as impressive as it sounds when you consider my closest competition for the title is a dead spider and our cat. But it was enough of an ego boost that I am now considering introducing my own line of indoor grills.
ment, which isn’t as impressive as it sounds when you consider my closest competition for the title is a dead spider and our cat. But it was enough of an ego boost that I am now considering introducing my own line of indoor grills.
As the moves we’re learning have become more complex, they’ve also become more satisfying, like when I grab my imaginary opponent’s head and smash it into my knee, a move first introduced to the kickboxing world by Mother Teresa. But then a confusing thing happened– we started learning defensive moves. These were things we should do to avoid being punched and kicked by our opponents. Suddenly I felt very woozy.
It was all fun and games when the battle was one-sided either because I was too good to be in danger or because my opponent’s hands were tied behind his back. And my opponent was always a he. Once I considered they could fight back, my illusion of invincibility was shattered.
Now I wasn’t so sure I was as tough as I felt. Would these kickboxing moves help me if I had to defend myself in a real life situation? Women have to make calculations about safety every day, whether it’s walking with your keys between your fingers, or having an emergency number cued up on speed dial, or wearing shoes you can run in. We do it without thinking because we have to.
It’s not always enough, though. Sarah Everard, a young London woman who was killed two weeks ago by an off-duty police officer as she was walking home, appeared to have made all the proper safety calculations.
When London authorities’ suggestions for ways women could protect themselves involved further restrictions on women’s freedoms, protests erupted.
We need to shift the burden of protecting women from violence away from women themselves, even though that may be as difficult to achieve as a roundhouse kick. Until then, I will continue to deliver blows alone in my basement as I imagine I am smashing the patriarchy and demolishing misogyny.
And for now that will have to be enough.