So… the EXCUSES (in whiny voice):
- I’ve been quite ill.
- So has the wife and kids, and at different times.
- The bureaucracy I had to deal with for various aspects of our lives is absolutely unreal and crushingly busywork.
- Work has been busy.
- I’m just getting my mindset right…
Ok. Now that I have done the whining, here is the reality:
Finally, today, I put up the home-made punching bag. And it’s awesome.
The two girls helped. First the 2 year old (Aryan Girl), and then the 4 year old (Piglet), and finally the wife too all had to help me because I could barely lift the damn thing with all my strength. But in the end it’s gone up, and it works really well.
Now, the black one, which my wife found (after I failed to find anything like it) is really holding up well, considering we had rain, hail, etc. It’s looking like it really is an outside bag after all. Not light either.
It hangs a bit lower so the kids too can get to it easily and in any case it’s pretty tall, so works fine for me too.
On the red one, see that home-made plastic roof thing? Well, I was cutting it out from the side of an old water tank (a giant plastic cube) and there is s spot in the middle where it is really thick and the craft knife just wasn’t going to be able to be pulled through it. I was busy scoring it repeatedly hoping to get through it, when the 2 year old says:
“Dad, cut it from the other side.”
Nothing quite as cool and humiliating at the same time as being proud of your 2 year old being literally smarter than you in that moment. So I did as he said and then bent the plastic and it snapped perfectly.
Anyway, I tested it for a few minutes and did a couple of pull ups on the chin up bar nearby. So you could say I “exercised” today.
Kind of like the fatsos on the grave-sleds in Wall-E when they try to walk.
Also, after it was up and I gave the thing a few punches to get a sense f it, the 2 yo goes:
“Dad, don’t punch the bag!”
To which I replied:
“Darling, it’s meant to be punched. That’s why it’s called a punch bag.”
She scoffed and then goes (I swear to God this is what she said, and yes she is not 3 yet):
“I call it a dumb bag.”
Which made me laugh, and so I asked, “Why do you call it that? Is it because you think the people that punch it a dumb?”
To which she nodded in her inimitable smile with that cheeky smile, and mouthed silently the word “Yes.” basically like calling me an idiot but rather diplomatically.
I have no idea where she gets it from, she’s scarily smart that girl.
Then of course Piglet wanted to punch the bags too.
The weird thing is that I first read about epigenetic probably close to a couple of decades ago, and since then, I have noted that all of my children have some innate ability at fighting. Be it punching, kicking, or wrestling. I genuinely did not ask them to pose or anything that is just one of 3 random pictures I took of them, but look at Piglet’s form. Left hand loaded up, leaning into it, but not of balance and directing the bag (it was swinging towards her after having been pushed) ready to catch that left punch head on.
And the little one gives scarily solid Systema style punches to my chin when we play fight.
Anyway, bag is up. Chin up bar is up. And I have taken a little 9 sessions of Tai Chi style movements up from a video on my phone, so I have no more excuses.
So we’ll see if/how I do anything by next week.
Please post your own wins or loser losses, like mine has been for several weeks now.
This post was originally published on my Substack. Link here
