I didn’t have a photo of me from class, but this is pretty much what I look like when I’m doing Krav Maga.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I’m kind of dangerous now. I enrolled in Krav Maga, so you can pretty much bring it on at any time. Just kidding, don’t bring it on because I’ve only attended three classes so far.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, Krav Maga is a military self-defense and fighting system developed by the Israeli Defense Forces. It utilizes techniques from boxing, wrestling, Judo, Karate, and street fighting. It’s basically opening a can of whoop-ass on somebody.
Things are going okay so far. One of the problems I’ve encountered though is that I look absolutely hideous in the outfit they’ve given me for class. Everything is way oversized and I have such a small frame that it just does not work on me. I went up to the owner on the second day of class and had a conversation that went like this:
Me: “So do we have to wear the pants you gave us to class?”
Him: “Um…why?”
Me: “Because they’re falling off me.” (This is kind of a lie; the elastic waist is fine, but the rest of the pant is gigantic and extremely unflattering and I really, really cannot be seen in public like this.)
Him: “They’re supposed to be big. It’s so you can move around easily.”
Me: “Okay, but do I have to wear them??”
Him: (looking confused, because I have no doubt that I am the first person who has brought this up to him ever and he has his black belt in Krav Maga and I am positive that he just can’t even with me.) “Well, you should wear them every once in a while.”
Me: “Okay! Thanks!” (skipping into class)
The other problem that I’ve encountered is that I pretty much vacillate between hungering to be the toughest, most brutal student in the class and being scared out of my mind of some of the other students who are giant men.
For example, today we did a drill in which one person holds a bag (it’s like a cushion with handles) and the other person punches the bag. At the end of the drill, I see the instructor handing out Band-Aids. Some guys punched the bag so hard that they split their knuckles open and started bleeding. I was pissed because apparently I did not work hard enough; my knuckles were red and irritated, but not yet cracking. Fortunately, later in the afternoon, I did notice a bruise on my hand, which made me feel slightly better, but I can’t quite let go of today’s subpar performance.
There are also times, however, in which I’m terrified and want to collapse into a fetal position and start crying. Like there are these drills where everyone in the class has to attack you and it is literally a nightmare come true. The instructor also encourages us to look menacing during a particular drill if we are the attacker. When one of the giant man-students that is typically super nice and jokey with me turns into scary attacker man, I kind of have a panic attack. And end up saying something like, “Wow, you look really scary!” or something similar that I’m hoping will cut some of the tension.
Otherwise, I am really enjoying Krav Maga. It’s a great workout and it’s way more fun than doing a muted YouTube work-out video by myself in my house while watching The Golden Girls. I’m hoping my husband reads this post, as he believes all I do in class is run around on mats, putting myself in a fighting stance and screaming, “KRAV MAGA!” at the top of my lungs over and over.
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