Pain & Krav Maga

I like pain, it reminds you you're alive. I like krav maga, it's fast, efficient, brutal and devastating. (I'll explain what krav maga is at a later date.) I'm training to be an instructor; this means an 11 mile run, a 13 mile bike ride and an ass kicking every day. But during tonight's class I paired off with a kickboxer with whom I hadn't trained before. Now I can't walk.

I was too polite when it came to sparring, and I let him state the rules. He said “no headshots, not takedowns”. I said “cool”, and regretted it immediately. My high right kicks are spot on and my takedowns are the best in the class. As soon as you drop a shoulder to me i'll be behind you with my fingers in your eyes, and you'll be staring blurrily up wondering what the fuck happened. I was in a kebab shop at 2 am recently, sober, and an idiot picked a fight with my best friend. He raised his fist to punch, but even before he'd finished recoiling his arm I had tied him in a knot and his friends were laughing at him.

But not tonight.

Tonight, that asshole kickboxer took shot after shot at the insides of my legs, each jarring kick perfectly placed, until I felt like I was standing on jelly stilts and the very effort of simply being in agony was more than I could bear. It was like trying to fight an army marksmen with a catapult from 500 yards and with my hands tied behind my back.

It was full-contact sparring, and all I wanted to do was give him a shin kick to the side of the head followed by a right hook, but I had to settle for shitty body shots instead because i'd given him the advantage (or more accurately, given myself the disadvantage). He was bigger than me and I like it that way because big guys are slow and full of confidence, and they can never keep up with my speed, but after the 7000^th kick on the inside of my knee I hit the deck and couldn't get up, and when I did it was only long enough to dump my bruised, sweaty ass in a chair and feel embarrassed.

Next time, we play by my rules.

And that's all I have to say about that.

The first of many. Maybe.

A little about me and why i'm here.

I'm John Yossarian. The sharper guys and girls amongst you will probably already know that's not my real name. When people ask me about my name, I tell them it's Assyrian, because I'm an asshole like that.

I have orgasms and write about them for a living, because I'm not talented enough to be a proper writer and because I like orgasms. I live a double life (hence the pseudonym), my family doesn't know what I do for a living and a get a perverse thrill out of keeping it that way. Whenever they ask me about my job, I tell them I sell alternative health products, which is sort of true I guess. (I sell sex toys.)

I expect this blog will only be read by a handful of people who already know me in one way or another; generally speaking if you're reading this then I already consider you a friend. Thanks to three or four of you in particular. It's ironic that you are one of my closest friends online, and we haven't even met. (Ironic in an Alanis Morrissette sort of way, not really ironic.) But I guess that's pretty common these days. It's neither good nor bad, and if you're ever in Southampton drop me a line and I'll crack a bottle. Just watch your step when you get into my flat; the last thing you want is to slip on a patch of ID Millenium, go flying and land sphincter-first onto any of the suspicious objects I have lying around.

Maybe that's not the last thing you want.

But mainly it's for me. I kept a diary when I was a kid and I get goosebumps every time I cast my eyes across over the wrinkled pages and read the amazingly inconsistent handwriting. It's a strange thing; to be able to watch yourself develop and flourish, and hopefully this ridiculous blog might do similar things for me when i'm finally the richest, most successful man in the galaxy and I'm able to read back with my ancient eyes this garbled nonsense. I'm sure i'll cringe if I actually ever do read this back; I imagine all i'll be able to see is the steaming, putrid arrogance emanating from every godforsaken word. If that's true, so be it. Because what is past, is prologue.