Body Combat (Girl Power)

I was beginning to feel my energy return.  I scrubbed the bathtub and didn't collapse.  I wrote two pages, and kept part of one.  I cooked a full meal and then, the next day, cooked another.  I got up Saturday morning and said to myself:  Oh, Beth.  The time has come.  Body Combat at the gym.

Body Combat.  It's martial-arts inspired.  It's hit-the-air-like-the-air-is-your-enemy inspired.  It's jabs and hooks and upper crosses and more jabs, some shuffle to the right, some roundhouse kicks, some smack around that invisible punching bag. You take a run around the room when you're done, then you hit the floor for triceps and abs.

Was I up to this?  Could I even do it?  How silly does a dancer look, after all, when she's boxing an invisible bag?  Cha-cha hips don't work so well in this environment.  Neither does the foxtrot frame.

But I gave it my all.  I punched and kicked and sword fought with the rest of them, trying not to mess too hard with the otherwise fine mojo in the room.  The two instructors, meanwhile, gave their all back to me, recognizing my newness, praising my stamina (got to find something to praise), telling me that my form would come.  At Club La Maison, the instructors rock.  These girls were no exception.  You do something hard, they keep you going.  You feel like a fool, they won't let you.  No matter how silly I might look, I'm going back.  Combating myself forward.