Suzanne Harrington: Muay Thai makes me forget about age for a bit

After some initial confusion – I forget which is left and right, and get my hands mixed up with my feet – my partner encourages me to give it a good go.

I am fast approaching the final year of that decade that starts with a five. Inarguably into the youth of old age. Fight back, screams all the advice. Stay strong, lift things, get sweaty — or prepare to slowly disintegrate on the sofa, like those ancient scrolls that turn to dust when you breathe on them.

But I am allergic to the gym and gym culture. I hate running and runners, the way they barge along the pavement, huffing and looking at their fitness watches. I’ve filed padel and pickleball alongside matcha lattes — overpriced nonsense — and hate swimming lengths alongside grim people with underwater headphones and condoms on their heads.

In desperation, I take up Muay Thai. The first time is horrific, surrounded by teenage boys who haven’t learned how to speak yet, but then I find a women-only group. The teacher looks like she has stepped off the cover of Vogue, and could kill you with a single blow to the throat. I am enchanted. Fitness, deadly fighting skills, and shiny shorts.

We warm up by skipping, which sounds harmless, but is absolutely not if the last time you skipped was in fifth class, while everyone else whirrs on the balls of their feet like weightless hamsters on a zero-gravity wheel. I’m gasping and stumbling over my own crubeens, with all the grace of a donkey stuck in a hedge.

Soon, I am getting punched and kicked, as Peaches blasts from the speakers. Around my torso, I’m strapped into a massive kick shield, like those comedy sumos in their inflatable suits, my arms and legs protected by pads. Just as well. 

My partner is decades younger, not a beginner, and tells me she does Muay Thai for anger management. She kicks like an enraged kangaroo, grunting as she makes contact. I try not to fall over or run away.

Then it’s my turn. Pads off, gloves on. After some initial confusion — I forget which is left and right, and get my hands mixed up with my feet — my partner encourages me to give it a good go. Punch me! she shouts enthusiastically. Kick! Kick! Hook! Kick! Teep!

What’s teep? I gasp, landing a kick that misses her shield and makes full contact with some soft part of her. She barely registers. This, she says, as she shoves me backwards with the sole of her foot to my belly.

We laugh hysterically and punch on. My favourite move is elbowing her in the face — not literally, she’s holding up pads — but the thwack of the hardest part of my elbow into what would be her nose cartilage is immensely satisfying. The hour flies by. We end with sweaty hugs and promise to see each other the following week.

The next week I buy a pair of boxing gloves. The week after, I buy a pair of those satiny Muay Thai shorts they all wear, and don’t even feel that ridiculous. All the gear, no idea, laughs my chap (it works if you say it in an English accent).

But I am determined. My Muay Thai partner and I are committed to kicking the shit out of each other every Wednesday, then falling about laughing when we are done. I ache everywhere. My feet hurt. It’s a distant universe from the serene familiarity of my yoga mat, but one that makes me forget, for at least an hour each week, that in dog years I am already dead.