Muay gulay

about an hour into muay thai last night, in mid-pushup, my arms suddenly wilted into gulay (perhaps steamed bok choy, for that local touch) and simply refused to flex. this morning, while i can still rely on my arms for basic functions like opening taxi doors and resting on tabletops as i type, if someone put a gun to my head and made me do a pushup now, it would be the end of me.

yes, i do muay thai now, to fill the void left by boxing. serendipity played a part in my new choice of sport -- there's a muay thai gym called punch academy about five minutes from the office. since marlon's always wanted to do muay thai, and i figured whatever i was doing to lose weight (read: not much) was not working, we bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago and signed up for forty lessons.

if you've never worked out and been drenched head to toe with sweat within half an hour, you have to try muay thai. i don't sweat much, but i was a veritable geyser of perspiration in my first lesson. after that first class, marlon and i staggered out the door and plopped down at the next-door kopitiam for dinner. we just sat there panting and staring at each other for a good ten minutes, not knowing quite what hit us.

so far, all my lessons have turned out to be the same. it's positively boot camp, which is probably why i see boot camp bodies all around me whenever i go to the gym. perhaps, after thirty-seven more lessons of muay thai, one of those will be me. and perhaps gulay-ness is simply the first step.