these days I work out in the evening just before the light is away for the air is nicely chill then.
I promised Anna to take the bike and make one hour trips through the waterland every evening but I decided I’d better work out one hour and really get me all tired, sweating and painful the next morning. I basically do warming up, crunches, pushups, then stretching and when I am really warm I do some KungFu training. Whatever I can recall from the time in Maastricht is being done: Basic stands, punches, blocks, kicks and forms.
Somehow I want a sand-sack badly to have something to beat up :P

Why am I doing this? Because it makes me feel good. Balanced. Happy.

Well, I am a lazy person. I don’t like to do things that I don’t feel like doing.
But when I only sit around and [s]waste time[/s] do what I feel like doing I get melancholic and thoughtful. I begin questioning my existence, life, the universe and everything. Noone likes me when I am in this mood – especially Anna :P

It’s a downward spiral that can only be escaped by hitting it – hard.
In that case, I have to fight myself in order to help myself. Pretty ironic ;)

That’s where martial arts come into my life.
I don’t know who it was to drag me into that kungFu school back in Goettingen but I think it was after reading too much Ranma1/2 ;)
Such a delight.. gaining strength and mental discipline – forcing oneself to train hard and frequently. Enjoying the exhaustion at the end of the day.
Then in Maastricht, the same but with more focus on kickboxing. I got myself a set of protectors and went into semi-contact. Then I moved to Amsterdam. :P

I still have to find myself a proper dojo here but this is what I need. Contact sport. Facing an “enemy”, looking him in the eyes and going for it.
Scary, I admit. But it’s such an adrenaline boost when you stand there facing the other one, slowly circling around each other.. looking for a way to get through his defenses knowing that he is doing the same.
Note: this is “semi contact” – we try to give the enemy a “tag” on the body to get points. full contact is not only ugly and leaves nasty scars, it’s also extremely stupid.

Then there is the discipline part.
Walking a form over and over again (a form is a series of punches, kicks and blocks that “simulate” the attacking and defending of various enemies, like a choreography) is tiresome and tedious but it helps improving oneself.
Discipline and repetition – over and over again. But after some time you get used to it and use it to get into the flow of it. Unfortunately I can’t remember these forms very good and it takes a lot of time for me to memorize one.

One drawback there is:
Since I know how it feels to be “in shape” (I’ve been overweight all my childhood, I really enjoy looking strong ;) ) and since I know how to use this body of mine as a weapon, I get these “flashes”…
A flash happens for example when I encounter a potentially hostile situation somewhere. (like: a junkie on crack encounters you on the street and you don’t know if he will ask you for one euro, mug you with a knife or rape your wife)

Instead of trying to avoid the situation my whole body begins to tingle. It fills itself with hate and anger. It’s as if my veins pump poison instead of blood all of a sudden and all my senses are getting ready to kill.
I mean “killing” because I get ready to do so. Visions of blood and breaking bones come to my mind and I begin to shiver.
The last time this happened (with the junkie, in Maastricht) I saw myself smashing his head on the curb till there was nothing left of his head.. scary.

So do I have these feelings inside myself and just had them covered well or do these feelings arise because I all of a sudden _am_ willing to do such things to people? Probably I will never find out.

But what I know is that it’s good to get exhausted from time to time, it clears the head, freshens up the spirit and (most important) makes you look sexy :)