Mar
6
Last night I repeatedly kicked a man in the groin. Later, I put my hands around the back of this man’s neck — a man who is not my husband, by the way — and drew his face close to my own neck while I kicked him some more. Then we high-fived and I petted his dog.
Let me back up.
So a couple weeks ago I somewhat impulsively signed up for a month of self-defense/combat classes. The gym uses the Haganah F.I.G.H.T. system which is “based on Israeli martial arts and Israeli military tactics used by Israeli Special Forces operatives in extremely hostile situations.” Because you know me, constantly being attacked by dangerous people wielding weapons! Why, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been folding laundry and HOLY FUCK REBEL ATTACK.
Ahhahahahaha. No, I don’t exactly know why it sounded so fascinating to me. Maybe because it doesn’t rely on fancy techniques with poetic-sounding names (instead of the Deadly Bird Nest Swaying In the Wind and Surrounded By Rushing Waters, you have, like, elbow strikes and kicks). Maybe because I turned 40 in February and I need a midlife crisis activity that’s cheaper than buying a sports car. Maybe because I like mixing up my workout routines and having different things to keep me engaged in physical activity. Maybe because it just flat-out sounds badass.
Also, there was a Groupon.
I went to my first class on Monday, and while I was super super super nervous the owners, a husband and wife team, were very cool and helped put me at ease about being the giant uncoordinated n00b. Each class starts out with combatives — punches, finger jabs, throat strikes, elbow strikes, knee strikes — then switches to partner work. As in, you’re partnered with another human being you have to pretend to be fighting. I don’t know why I was vaguely surprised by this, it’s not like it would be very effective training if you didn’t actually practice the moves on a person (“Excuse me mister attacker sir but could you sort of stand perfectly still for a few minutes while I … yes, just like that, great … I’ve only done this on a punching bag, so if you could just straighten up a little and not … great, and I’ll just wrap you in this soft rubbery surface so I don’t hurt my foot … say, is that Rapist Noir you’re wearing?”), but man oh man was it awkward. We weren’t grappling intimately on the floor or anything, but I had to practice stopping a guy and then getting one arm under his armpit and the other pressing down on his back so I could theoretically throw him on the ground.
Anyway, it was all very new and different and I came home feeling pretty jazzed that I’d done it, and then I went back to another class yesterday that was later in the evening and I was the only student there. I mean. The only one. Just me and the trainer. NO ONE ELSE. And I died. But I was already there and it would have been really weird if I’d just run away screaming and peeing, so I did the combatives with him — have I made it perfectly clear that it was JUST ME? — and then we did some kicking drills and then he told me to kick him in the groin.
You guys. Seriously. I was like, “I don’t think I can do that,” and he was like, “Yes you can. I’m wearing a cup,” and I was like, “No really I can’t because I can actually feel my cerebellum ripping loose from my spinal cord from acute embarrassment and I’ve lost all motor control,” and he was like, “Okay but you’ve got to get over that,” and I was like, “I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO BURST INTO LITERAL FLAMES,” and he was like “KICK ME IN THE GROIN” and I flailed a tiny terrified little superlight kick that barely brushed his crotch and I was like “OH JESUS GOD I AM SO SORRY” and —
Point is, this part was really hard. I had to mentally wrestle down at least 72921850650102395812434 panicked messages telling me that it was wrong to kick this nice man in the junk. Just thinking about it is making me cringe all over again. There’s the thing where you don’t want to hurt someone, of course, and there’s the … you know, the penis area thing. The thing where your foot is going between someone’s legs and touching their penis area. Yes there’s a cup but even the word cup sounds embarrassing all of a sudden. Cup. Cup. Gah.
Later we practiced this drill which I had a terrible time memorizing because each time he added another move to it I’d jettison the previous move — spit, kick, punch, box ears, headbutt, elbow strike, uhhhh, uhhhh, oh yeah grab neck, uhhhhhhhhhh — and then I had to practice it on him, which meant we were back to the groin kicking (Me: “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!”) and also the neck grabbing and pulling in close and oh my god.
His wife told me the awkwardness about physical contact goes away over time, and I believe her, but holy crap this has been a really unusual experience for me. Which is actually very awesome, because, you know, I pretty much never do unusual things. I think I’m really enjoying it — in a weird I-am-five-hundred-and-seventy-three-miles-outside-my-comfort-zone-and-my-internal-organs-are-shriveling-from-discomfort kind of way.
Feb
25
When I was a kid, I remember sitting in my grandparents’ living room looking at the Sunday comics with my cousin, and listening to how she would whisper-read each line to herself. The sound of her hushed murmuring gave my scalp this intense tingle, like all my hair was standing ever so slightly on end. It was weirdly relaxing, after I got over the minor annoyance of hearing someone somewhat laboriously work their way through a Peanuts joke out loud.
Since then, I’ve noticed I get that bizarre head-buzzy feeling from several different sounds. For instance: whispery voices, the muffled page-turning sound of books in a library, the sound of someone breathing near a microphone (but it has to be a certain kind of breathing, because most mouthbreathing is just flat-out unpleasant).
So today I was sifting through my various Google News categories, looking for article fodder, and I happened to notice the following title: “Does this video make your head tingle?” I clicked through to read the post, and found that it was talking about a specific YouTube video with nearly 5 million views. A YouTube video of a woman whispering, blowing, and making a variety of noises specifically intended for — and I quote — “relaxation, entertainment, and ASMR/tingles/chills inducing purposes only.”
Here’s the clip:
ASMR, I learned, stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It’s a “perceptual phenomenon characterized as a distinct, pleasurable tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in response to visual, auditory, olfactory, and/or cognitive stimuli.”
Related: remember this product? I actually had one once upon a time. It never worked for me, despite the ecstatic stock photo demonstrations.
Anyway, the fact that ASMR is an actual thing is mind-blowing enough to me, but get this — YouTube is positively roiling with heavily-played videos of “ASMR artists” who record themselves making sounds designed to trigger that head-tickling response.
Here’s one that is intended to “introduce you to the tingleworld” (!) with 30 different sounds:
Here’s a really strange role-play video, for those who like to imagine having someone whisper really really close to their face while getting a haircut (this would straight-up send me for the door):
And here’s a video for the “book lovers”:
Have you heard of rule 34? “If something exists, there is porn of it”? I don’t think these videos are technically PORN, but they seem maybe kind of in a similar category? Weird auditory porn? And now I feel so confused — like I am the biggest freakshow in the world, but also holy shit, there are millions of freaks just like me.
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