Sweaty, sweaty, so sweaty

Tonight I had my first martial arts session in almost a year; I've been too lazy to go all the way out to the old training venue (right on the other side of Singapore). Partly that was because my body doesn't like being made to feel excruciating pain, and if that disincentive was combined with a nausea-inducing taxi ride, it was always going to be a hard sell.

But the new venue is in a building on Beach Road, just behind Raffles Hotel. That means that instead of travelling there after work, tired and grumpy, I can walk home from the office, stopping off to pick up a salad for dinner, eat, have a twenty minute nap and still be capable of catching a bus and arriving in time for the session. So most of the obstacles (apart from the clash with the stand-up comedy schedule) are removed.

The sweating isn't. Previously, we trained in the open air, outside an exam hall. Now we're inside, but there's still no air-con, just a single electric fan, and I was sweating like mad. I thought I'd be accustomed to it after all the running, but at least when I'm running the air blows past me. Stationary, the sweat never blew off, it just dripped down, pooling in my ears (which is a uniquely disgusting sensation) and dampening my dogi so much that it threatened to turn transparent.

Luckily, we had a drinks break after 45 minutes.

Unluckily, I'd failed to bring anything to drink with me.

Still, the second half consisted mostly of me being thrown on the floor, which is a good opportunity to take a rest from onerous duties like standing up. There wasn't too much being punched in the face today, or having the bones in my wrists ground to powder, so although I was on the verge of blacking out as I took the bus back to Chinatown, it doesn't feel like I've done any lasting damage.

This time.

This constant exercise will come to a crashing halt soon, sadly: in just three and a half days, I'll be on a plane heading across the Pacific, and my best chance of an aerobic workout is getting trapped in the toilet and having to punch my way out. Although I wonder if that would give me an upgrade, or a ban on future flying. Only one way to find out.