Before the pandemic, back when I was in a shape that wasn’t complete shit, my primary source of exercise was going to a nearby boxing gym where the workouts were lead by an old professional boxer/muay thai fighter who happened to be a former navy seal. I was never good at making and following through an exercise routine on my own beyond maybe a regular run, but going to classes made it easier for me. I would do a one hour boxing class every few weeknights. Saturdays the gym would have an hour long bootcamp of intense exercise followed by an hour long muay thai class followed by an hour of sparring and or various boxing exercises. I worked up to a point of doing the first 2 classes pretty consistently and doing the sparring, while not consistently, I would do it more often as time went on. While I don’t think I’d have been able to fend off the kind of attackers I’d need to worry about, if there was ever a time I was building towards it, it was then.

I’ve really let myself go since the pandemic started, and the gym closing for while during lockdown didn’t help. Even though I’m not eating like complete shit now, I’m still way too sedentary and fat, and the chronic insomnia doesn’t help with that. I don’t think I’ve forgotten the form of how to throw a punch, but I’m really out of practice and my obesity limits my mobility and form. Maybe my immense mass could be useful in extremely rare situations, but even if that was true it wouldn’t be enough to compensate the handicaps.