What I needed from that class, from Krav Maga, from fighting at that point of my life was not to learn the techniques of fighting. I needed someone to say, “All that anger and aggression that has been in you for your entire life, and for the sake of civilization and your own notion of yourself to be a good human being, stuffed away and pretended wasn’t there and thought you could sublimate in alcohol and sex and words, you now have permission to let all of that out today.” And I don’t remember anything about that first class. I remember being extraordinarily exhausted and that we did knees. All I know is I left there feeling like something that needed to come out that I had never allowed to come out finally came out.
Photo credit: Janean Mann