Day 279: Never Have I Ever... Learned The Proper Technique To Break Someone's Arm Two Different Ways

"Is it weird that I've had the song 'Kung Fu Fighting' in my head all day?" I asked my colleague when we were on our way to Song's Kung Fu Academy so I could try out martial arts for the first time.

"No, that's the ringtone I have set for the people in class," my friend laughed.

Even though I felt like I had the basics regarding what to expect -- bow after I walk in the front door, immediately take off my shoes, stand in the back by the door, call everyone wearing a black belt, 'sir' -- nothing my friend could have told me would have prepared me for the 90-minutes of floundering I did in that class.

My friend did tell me that he wasn't able to let me know ahead of time what to expect because every day in this class is different. What he failed to tell me was that this is an advanced martial arts class. Half of the class, including my friend, were wearing black belts.

This explains why we were taking turns doing roundhouse kicks - you know, where you do a 360 spin in the air and kick at a target at the end - within the first five minutes.

You're kidding me, I thought, as I was watching the rest of the class dive over a pole into a somersault on a mat, including my friend, who amazed me throughout the class with his martial arts skills.

"Yeah I'm just going to crawl underneath it," I said to the instructor, who stopped me the next time it was my turn and told me to do the exercise correctly, but slow by just doing a kind of standing somersault.

After the crazy cardio exercises, we lined up in two lines, one in front of the other. The front line, which consisted of the most advanced students, then faced the back line so we could practice some moves and tweak our technique.

The guy in front of me who I just noticed at this point then became my partner. He was so nice and patient in teaching me the difficult techniques that it was hard not to immediately like the kid. And it wasn't until he kept reminding me to look at his face when I was throwing punches that I realized just how attractive he was.

"But I don't want to punch you in the face," I told him, as I was directing my punches just to the right of his head. I am not going to be the one to mess up that gorgeous face. Those dimples are really adorable, I thought.

And it just got worse from there, as I felt more and more distracted by this guy's charm, even though the moves we were doing were complicated, and we were practicing them up to the point where one of us had to tap the other to signal that it hurt too much.

"No, don't do that. You don't want me behind you," he said when I tried twisting out of a move with my back to him.

Oh I don't know about that, I thought. Ack, get your head out of the gutter. But the thoughts only got worse from there.

"Try this. Take my arm and pull it into your chest," he said, trying to teach me one of the two ways we learned to break someone's arm.

Babe you don't have to tell me twice... Ugh! Erika! Concentrate... No, not on those dimples! On the technique. "OK, like this?" I asked him, trying my hardest to pull his arm toward me while figuring out how to wrap my other arm around it and, after placing three fingers reminiscent of a mantis on his forearm, simulate bending it unnaturally so it'd break.

"There you go! Let's do it again," he replied.

And even though I felt like I barely treaded water and my thighs were screaming at me from sweeps (where you drop to the floor and sweep your leg out in front of you with the goal to knock your opponent to the ground), the sifu teaching the class told me "good job for keeping up," at the end of the class.

"So are you going to sign up for a class?" my friend asked as I was inhaling Mediterranean food from the restaurant across from the school. 

"Uh," I said, thinking about how uncomfortable I felt trying to keep up with those who are masters of this art. "I think maybe I'll try a beginner's class next time."