Sweatin to the Oldies
When we do our clinching drill in Muay Thai, I always get paired up with Ronnie, who looks uncannily similar to notable rockster Rockin Ronnie Hawkins. The Muay Thai clinch involves each combatant wrapping their arms around each other and grappling for an offensive position to throw knees from. Most of the time, especially when you are clinching defensively, it looks alot like two people hugging very very closely and dancing very clumsily. Obviously, this can be very sexy depending on your opponent. Not that Rockin Ronnie isn't hot, but he is probably in his sixties and sweats like a fountain, a very stinky fountain. If this isn't problematic enough, he refuses to wear a shirt. Everyone else wears a shirt. So it ends up being difficult to do the drill properly, because Ronnie gets very slippery, and my arms slip and slide all over his sweaty back, and my shirt, which I have so considerately chosen to wear, acts as a sponge for Ronnie's pungent excretions. When class is done, my shirt is soaked with sweat, but only 30 percent of it is my sweat. The rest belongs to Rockin Ronnie. I consider myself a very clean person, so you can imagine the psychological damage that clinching with Ronnie inflicts upon me. I wash and I wash but I can never quite feel clean. I finally know how Lady Macbeth felt.