Kipworld

So, yesterday, El was looking for art classes. I asked her to check out the Actor’s Gymnasium for the clown classes I wanted to take. Turns out that this week was when all the new classes started and I’d missed the first class of a bunch of them.

Except capoeira.

Now, the first exposure I had to this martial art was through fighting games. Remember Blanka from Street Fighter II? He was supposed to be a capoerista. But it wasn’t until Eddy Gordo in Tekken 3 that people saw real moves in the games. Now, Eddy Gordo was and is a cheap ass bastard, but he looks amazing in motion.

Other capoeira experiences… There’s a really crappy movie that they play on HBO from time to time: Only the Strong, about an ex Marine who learned it in Brazil who goes back to his troubled inner city high school and starts teaching the worst kids the art and makes them all graduate and able to sing in Portuguese.

But the most impressive thing was seeing it in real life. When I was at Apple, Christian and I went into San Jose for an afternoon and there was a demonstration at this art museum.

There were young and old people doing it, but I was most impressed by the grace of these huge guys in their handstands and cartwheels. They seemed to hang upside down, before flicking out a foot or two. No wavering.

So when I saw that a class was offered, I pushed videogames and crap movies out of my head. I wanted grace.

I got pain.

I called the Actor’s Gym and asked if I could still sign up the day of and the lady on the phone said, “Sure.” I realized that I needed appropriate attire. “Should I just bring sweatpants?” “That’d be a really good idea,” she told me.

I had no sweatpants.

Class was at 7; I got out of work at 6. I figured that I could swing by TJ Maxx on McCormick and pick up some and then shoot over to Green Bay and I’d be almost to the gym.

TJ Maxx had nothing. The closest I found was in loungewear, but in sizes so large that if I were to lounge in such pants, I would never escape them.

I sped back into Evanston. Found a parking spot on Sherman in the town area. Went to the Gap. They had nothing. Ran over to Uncle Dan’s. They had fleece pants, but those would get too hot. I found asana pants, but they turned out to be for women (I should have guessed from the shininess). Finally I found salvation, I mean, pants, in the Campus Gear store. I paid a lot for the NU logo but I didn’t care. It was 6:40. I still had to go register.

When I got to the gym (zipping into the last parking spot), I saw Anthony, a friend of Lia’s who was in the Flying Griffin Circus. I registered and went to change into my new sweatpants and went into the gym. Anthony was taking the class too, so I saw next to him and stretched and waited for the class to begin.

The teacher told us to keep stretching as he talked about the instruments of capoeira. I was sort of bored and was worried that the class was going to be a lot of that sort of thing rather than about the movement. He took us through the instruments and then taught us the song.

Then he made us get up.

He put on a CD of music and took us through five minutes of movement: dancing in place, running, running while touching the floor, stretching. I was pretty proud that I made it through without feeling out of breath, since I’d been feeling like a lump lately. On my waiver form I’d put “Good” as my physical condition. Glad to not make myself a liar.

We learned the basic step, the ginga next. More stretching. Then came the cool stuff. We walked in a circle and then would cartwheel across the floor. I hadn’t done cartwheels in ages. They felt great. Then we had to cartwheel with our heads looking forward, instead of at the floor. Ok, getting a bit harder… Then we had to cartwheel slowly with our knees tucked. Oh, here came the burn.

The rest of class got hard. More ginga steps. Head stands (I suck at head stands, so I spent most of the time in a tripod). Running on hands with our feet tap tapping the ground to keep the weight over our hands (when I stood up from that, the world went gray and I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything for dinner). Walking handstand pushups (I could do these, because the time spent actually in handstand was minimal). Handstands to a bridge were my breaking point. I couldn’t flip myself over gracefully enough to catch into a bridge. He helped me a bit, but I was gone by this point. I wasn’t the only one to wuss out. I rested up a bit and managed to do one by the end.

I went home to shower. El came over and I sat there, drained. Couldn’t move.

This morning was even worse. My right arm would not work, so I had go through the morning routine gingerly.

But my tummy is no longer protuding.

7 more weeks of this.

I ache all over.

I’m really glad I’m doing this.