Catherine Morris: If I Can Do This, I Can Do Anything

I have never been the athletic type, but I've always been into martial arts films. Wuxia pian films - the fantastical swordsman movies from Hong Kong - are my favorites. Those are the ones in which the actors leap across rooftops and fly high through the air, seemingly defying every basic law of physics. Midair, they'll cry something like "magical whirlwind sword" while casting their weapons toward the enemy, watching as it spirals and feints with a mind of its own.

I was watching martial arts films back when nighttime movie tickets cost only $2.50, back when Jackie Chan still spelled his first name ending with a y. But it took until the summer of 2000 for the films to take their full, cumulative effect: I wanted to train. I just didn't know which martial art was right for me.

After all, I was the type who put the "inert" back in "inertia." My personal motto had always been, "why run when you can walk?" (Or, in lazier days, "why move when you can lie down?") This attitude had fed nicely into my aversion to gyms, which to me seemed little more than meat markets where buff workout addicts checked themselves out in the mirror while performing bicep curls and leg thrusts.

On the other hand, I'd watched enough martial arts films to be scared of joining a serious training program. As I researched schools and styles, images flickered through my head of browbeaten students standing in rigid rows as their master systematically intimidated and humiliated them, eradicating all traces of dignity and ego and turning the students into efficient, lethal fighting machines.

At least that's what I thought martial schools were like. Turns out, it's only in the movies.

A flier showed up on my windshield one day announcing the opening of a new kickboxing center near my house. I'd noticed the building the center was located in, a former bank at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Clement Street, as I walked by and wondered about its history and its new occupants, the Tat Wong Kickboxing Center. The founder of the center was Master Tat-Mau Wong, who started six martial arts centers in the U.S. and Brazil.

When I visited the kickboxing center the first thing that struck me wasn't a fist (lucky me) - rather it was how easygoing the instructors were and the large number of females that were in training. For a woman, a martial arts course can be an overwhelming experience. Unlike lots of men, many of us ladies didn't grow up picking or avoiding fights on the playground. The use of our own force can be exhilarating, but it can also be downright scary.

At the kickboxing center, Sihing Chow teaches cardio and progressive kickboxing classes.

Cardio classes are fun because they combine the benefits of aerobics combined with the kick-and-punch moves of kickboxing, all executed to the beat of blaring music.

Progressive classes focus on martial arts training that prepares an individual to fight in competition or on the streets. In class, students pair up; one wears thick leather arm pads for the other to punch, kick and knee repeatedly. Once learning the basics, students start sparring. By the end of each class we are sweating and red-faced, gasping for breath and filled with energy. The excitement of playing this strange, powerful game is incomparable.

I've been training at the kickboxing center for more than a year now and it's safe to say I'm addicted. I have lost 15 pounds, several inches off my waist and hips and I now have more energy.

My old fears were unfounded. I now know if I can do this, I can do anything.