I Always Know My [Krav] Is Near

Wow. I've felt pretty lately.

Thank you to my friend Nick for making sure I was able to share in the glory of this video:



I can't even begin to say what is my favorite part of this. It's just one whole piece of ... awesome?

On a related note, I was dragged out to a Saturday morning Krav class last weekend by Claire — a sort of bittersweet last chance to use each other as punching bags before she officially moved back to France. I never do Krav on the weekends, in part because I generally don't have a reason to be out that way on a non-work day, and mostly because I'm lazy and like to sleep in on the days I can. Like, sleep in until noon. And the classes are at 10, 11, 12 and it takes an hour to get there from my tiny apartment via MUNI. Incompatible with my personal sleeping goals.

However, I think that I will be going again tomorrow morning. And why? Because after Krav I have a whole range of possible options to cross off my Big Eat checklist.

Is it a bad thing to use food as an incentive to work out? Wait, isn't that what half of us work out for in the first place?

Good. At least I'm on par with everyone else.

Immaculate Conception

This was the view of Twin Peaks last night, as seen from Market Street:



I promise you, it's completely unedited. No fog was removed from this picture ... because it wasn't there. Beautifully amazing, I know.

My vacation is just a taste away, and to begin the festivities early I ended up going for a drink and dinner with my friend Claire from Krav.

We went to Contigo, a relatively new restaurant in Noe Valley that I've often walked by, but never tried. We were lucky: walked in without a reservation, and just as we'd decided a 20-minute wait for a table wasn't worth it, two seats opened up in the front bar area just for us.







We ordered appetizers of squid (yum!) and tripe (the most tender and melty tripe I've ever had). I got the halibut so that my friend could have the very last order of skirt steak. I'm thinking I got the better end of the deal (though trust me, the steak was awesome ... the halibut was just better, and more of it).

In other words: highly recommend this restaurant.

And sorry — I had to show off a little gratuitous bruising from this week of Krav:



I'm liking September already.

Daffodils Should Be Available Year-Round

And carnations should only be used for funerals. Here's a hint, by the way: don't give me a carnation. (My mom's family has a big ol' superstitious aversion to carnations, and while I may not believe in heaven or purgatory or ghosts or seven years of bad luck, I do believe in family superstitions.)

(One day I will might write a book about my family. And there will be a chapter devoted to these superstitions.)

Today proved that 24 hours can make a big difference — as can a change of scene. After nearly four days cooped up by myself in my apartment, wallowing in my sorrows, violently coughing up phlegm, watching Veronica Mars and eating pancakes, I was near ready to ... well, joking's not a good idea, but I was in a pretty bad state of mind. I have two paragraphs of a depressing blog post started in my "Draft Posts" file, and thankfully I don't feel like finishing it.

This tells me I really should get out more, if a day at the office and then an hour spent punching things at Krav can give me a complete 180 on my mood. That's all it takes? Imagine what something fun and indulgent can do.

By the way: I am trying. I promise. It's just hard because, dammit, I know the difference.

And there's a quick burst of rain passing by my window, telling me it's time to shut things down and lie there listening until I fall asleep. I'm coming, Tlaloc.

The Cure for Most Kinds of Pain Is Chinese Food

Not to count my chickens (on the subway or otherwise, Geof), but as of now I am a "yellow belt" in Krav Maga. Yellow belt in quotes because, really, it's just a naming convention — Krav doesn't have belts, there's no special ceremony, really just a certificate and the ability to take classes involving more intensive techniques.

I'd like to say that the test was the most grueling experience I'd ever put myself through ... and that's probably the truth. Three hours of more-or-less continuous movement, including the hour-long warm-up and two hours of actual technique testing. It's like a marathon ... a marathon of slamming various body parts into a hard vinyl pad. Or having your partner's limbs slam into you.

What I'm most impressed with is not that I knew the material so well — can't help that when you've been attending the classes regularly for 8 months. It's that I actually was still upright at the end of it all, and ready for some more. I guess adrenaline really does work. (It also really works to dull pain: I barely felt the clip to my jaw my partner gave me accidentally during a chokehold. Though I did feel it in my femur every time she round-house kicked into it, through the pad.)

Right now, however, I really feel like I had a bad drinking binge last night, completely with a mild auto accident. Ow.

And now I get the opportunity to take more classes, ones that will actually involve the purchase of protective gear (shin guards at the least are required, apparently ... my poor legs). All to train up for the next level test, the "orange belt", which is apparently longer and more grueling than this one was.

Yay?

Exercising my Options

After an initial humiliating experience in the Conditioning class at my Krav Maga studio (which, I notice, I failed to mention on my blog at the time in a stirring act of self-censorship), back at the end of September, I was finally convinced to attempt it again by the instructor about a week and a half ago. Thought I'd only be able to make it halfway (the first time I lasted 20 minutes), but the instructor and some of the other regulars in the class talked me through the entire thing, until I found myself at the end of the hour, trying to support myself with my weak, shaky arms through Downward-Facing Dog and the cooldown stretches. Yes, walking (or any movement, really) was difficult for the next four days, but I was so damned proud of myself. You'd think I'd won the New York Marathon or something, instead of just making it through 60 minutes of full-body movement.

I went again this past Thursday, partly to convince myself that the first time wasn't a fluke, and mostly to try and make this into a part of my regular weekly routine. The Cute Guy was there, and he and I finally had a conversation while waiting for the class to start. Found out that he delivers wine for a living (access to wine = big plus!), but we also spent most of the 20-minute conversation discussing his new '07 Toyota Camry (car talk = somewhat of a minus). Not that he'd ever be interested in someone like me — I'm probably lumpier than the type of girls he'd generally go out with — but for some reason talking with him made me feel much more like a regular and a part of the "Krav Krowd". I made that term up, by the way. But if I do somehow become popular at the facility (hahahaha), I'm totally making a FB group called that.

In other news: Today I missed taking the Krav Maga test to move up to Level Two. I think I was ready for it, but I was also supposed to help my grandparents move out of the house they've lived in for almost 60 years into their new apartment at a retirement community. I was kind of torn, since I really feel like I'm ready to move on after about seven months of going pretty religiously, but you know how it is — sometimes you have to put things off in favor of the more immediate need ("family first", yadda yadda).

Except it turned out they didn't need me, so I should have signed up and just taken the test, anyway. Now I have to wait three months until the next one. Not that I'm peeved or anything. No way.

The day turned out to be not so much of a waste. My sisters called up to see if I wanted to hang out, and I drove down to Mountain View for a few hours to do breakf- err, a late lunch at Sizzler and shopping at Cost Plus.



Call me crazy, but any time spent with my nephew just seems to make life better. Does this mean I'm getting old?