Delicate Flower of Ferocity

It’s our regular morning get-together. You know, you need a little pick-me-up to start the day off right. Something hot and steamy for just us girls. Us girls and a heavy bag, that is.

By “heavy bag,” I don’t mean that giant tote with the powder compact and the travel-sized flat iron. I mean that big ol’ thing suspended from the ceiling, the kind you see in boxing movies. It’s for punching. And kicking. And generally being on the receiving end of chaos and mayhem.

You see it all, down here in the dojo. French braids. Fuchsia pedicures. Nose rings. Double pigtails. A variety of chemistry-enhanced shades of red hair. Yoga pants, called by that name only because ‘kickboxing pants’ has too many syllables. The only thing you don’t really see down here is acrylic fingernails. They don’t go as well with the boxing gloves.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are male students at our school. They’re even in class with us. It’s just that they tend to partner off with each other, and that means that for our purposes, they fade into the background. Sometimes there are half a dozen of us and only one of them, or rather, him.

It’s a brave man who walks into a room of women fighters and ragebeasts all on his lonesome.

If you haven’t trained with the competitive variety of female, then you haven’t seen competition. Remember that in any given yoga, spin, or Pilates class, at least some of the women have probably given birth. Once you’ve done that, you can do anything. Women are built for endurance and pain tolerance; otherwise, our species never would have made it. It’s a basic survival trait.

Never get between a mama and her cubs. That’s a law of nature. Certainly it’s at least as true for a woman as for an animal mother. Mess with her kids and any woman will end you. In fact, most of the parents I’ve met at my school have enrolled all their children, too. Give them a fighting chance, but let Mom get in the first lick.

We’re zero-sum competitors about other things, some of which would never occur to a man. Generally they don’t worry about whether they’re the prettiest or the cutest. I live at the beach, and it’s readily apparent that most men just put on swim trunks, shrug, and enjoy themselves being at the beach. They’re not going around giving each other side-eye and playing Who Wore It Best with their big ol’ khaki cargo shorts. They’re not making their own lives more difficult by trying to walk in four-inch strappy heels. When men compete with one another, it’s more likely about who’s the “biggest” or who earns the most money. Not who has more finesse with liquid eyeliner.

Not that there isn’t a place for the perfect cat-eye. One would simply have to reapply after practice.

We know pain. We’ve walked in the heels. We’ve worn the underwires. We’ve gone to work with cramps. We’ve tried all the crash diets. We’ve had various sensitive parts of our faces waxed or threaded, and someone explain to me the difference in sensation between having your upper lip threaded and being electrocuted. We know a heck of a lot more about the world of pain than we often realize, and if you test us, you can have a chance to find out, too.

I often practice with another gal, a single mom who’s a few years older. If she clears five feet or a hundred pounds, I’d be surprised. I mean, I’m small but she’s just little. I’m pretty sure she wears a size double zero. Kicks like a mule. It takes everything I have to hold the foam targets steady for her. More than once, I’ve failed and the target has popped me in the mouth. It just goes to show that you can’t always judge by appearances.

There are only two or three students in my school who look visibly menacing. One is a huge guy with a beard thick enough to hide a hand grenade. Who knows what he has going on. The other is ripped and has a crew cut, and you can see the whites of his eyes all the way around. He’s a beginner, even newer to class than I am. The one I’d be afraid of is the slender young blonde with the pink hair band. Or her friend, the one who takes conference calls during training without breaking her concentration.

Beware the multi-tasking woman. She can plan a wedding and kick you back into an alley without even adjusting her headset.

We’re so busy right now that we can’t even, so don’t start with us, okay?

Most of the people I see in training four mornings a week do not look like practitioners of the martial arts. It’s been my experience that elite fighters, and athletes in general, have left any sense of needing to prove themselves behind long ago. There’s no question in their minds about their relative rank or competence, so why should there be in yours? Did you really need to go there? It’s better this way, better to be placid and serene in your physical confidence. Stealthily chill. Here I am, minding my own, all on my loney. Checking my manicure. Don’t make me mess it up.

Here we are, every morning, lining up in our bright colors and our sweet smiles and our candy-pink boxing gloves. Eyebrows on fleek. Punching targets until sweat starts visibly flying across the room. Showing each other our pressure cuts and skinned knuckles. You thought we were fierce, and that was before you knew that we are in fact ferocious.