Current mood:	disappointed
Current music:	Rush - The Analog Kid

It was free and still a waste...
As most of you who know me well know, I've recently gotten into the art of kickboxing. Those of you who know me well also know why I've gotten into kickboxing, but that's another story ^^. Now, I've only had one kickboxing class in my life and unfortunately, it was embarassing. I forgot to eat breakfast that morning and so only 40 minutes into the lesson my energy totally crashed. But from what I got from the class, it seemed pretty good.

Now, the campus gym here offers kickboxing classes and the good thing is that all the classes are free this week. Now I don't know if it was due to the influx of students due to free classes or if all the classes are like this, but my experience can be summed up in 2 words:

IT. SUCKED.

First off, the class spent an hour doing nothing more than basic calisthenics. An hour! I mean sure, it's more than a good idea but a basic tenet to warm up, but we spent 2/3 of the class doing nothing but running around the room and doing stretching exercises.

Secondly, while I can tell that the teacher is competent, the students have major ego issues. The class is divided into 2 groups: the more experienced students and all the other students. While most of the experienced students are actually quite helpful, a couple are total assholes who it's clear know absolutely nothing about what they're talking about. Case in point: the guy who likened my knee technique to skipping. Whereas this guy can't even hit my own hand placed at waist level. Or the guy who said to me "You need to put your hips into it more. All you're doing is flailing your limbs." (yes, he did actually say this last point to me). Excuse me, but the first thing I was taught in the other class I took (okay, second, the first was "keep your hands up") was that power for punches and kicks comes from the hips. I was using my hips if you would have stopped to actually look instead of just taking a glance at me while walking by. Besides, I watched you and you suck too.

Third, I guess I can't blame them, afterall, they don't train competitive fighters like the other place I went to, but they have a bunch of techniques in kickboxing all wrong. The whole half hour (see my first point) that we practiced moves, all we did was practice punches and kicks on stationary targets. Which I guess is good in itself, but if you ask me (and this copies the way I learned in the other place), it's more basic to learn how to move around. Otherwise, you're just teaching us how to fight punching bags, not actual opponents.

But will I pay my monthly dues and go back? Begrudgingly, yes. Because I still like kickboxing and I want to hone my techniques. This is the only kickboxing class that I know is offered here. It might get better when there are less students. Besides, who knows, I might get the opportunity to kick those aforementioned students in the head and actually have a legit reason to do it.