Broken things inside me grind together like loose gravel as I stand. Or wobble, whatever.

I've discovered, with the help of the kickboxing instructor, why my knees have been hurting: poor technique. I am not sufficiently pivoting when I kick, which means that my legs are hitting the bag at an angle that is hyperextending my knee, over and over and over again. So now I pivot more, really throwing my hips into the kick, which requires about 10% more effort and feels about 70% more awesome.

Kickboxing yesterday was brutal. I walked in with a smirk, high off my performance from the night before, to find that I was one of only two students—the other being a guy who sorta/kinda works there and who has been remarkably encouraging when I'm huffing and sweating and positive I can't continue. This meant that I got the full brunt of the instructor's attention and that the workout rendered me blind from sweat in my eyes, doubled over in exhaustion. "Okay, this time, I want a burpie, six punch/jabs, two right kicks, two left kicks, burpie, until I say stop. Got it? Go!" "Now I want you to do touch-kicks for sixty seconds, a sixty seconds that will seem more like five or ten years and will leave you wondering how you will ever walk again. Go!" Needless to say, a great workout, and I subsequently dropped another two pounds. For those of you keeping score at home, that's 15 pounds I've lost since I embarked on this little experiment. I'm doing well.

I fly to Florida tomorrow for work, so I'm hoping to fit at least one more good workout in before I do. Although the hotel has a gym, I'm not altogether sure what sort of time I'll have to use it—but I'm relatively confident I can find half an hour a day to get on the elliptical and make sure my Baby Batman muscles don't soften. If anything, my four days away from the combat gym will let my knees heal up a little bit.

Yesterday, I was carrying around a bucket of water (I was soaking my feet) and had to run upstairs, bucket in hand, to show my wife my new muscles, bulging as they were from toting said bucket. I also lifted up my shirt and showed her my stomach, to which she commented, "Are you sucking in your belly?" I wasn't. I'm seeing results, and if you probe in just the right spots, you can feel tumescences there. What are those little bulges? you might wonder. Does he have a tumor? Is there an alien living in his gut, about to burst forth and shower bystanders with gore before scuttling off into the ducts? No, cherie. I will tell you what it is: I am getting a goddamn six-pack.