Glam Fighting…

Leading an active lifestyle and staying in shape have made fitness a recurring infatuation of humankind. And rightly so. The rewards at looking at your toned body in the mirror and allowing gorgeous angels to do likewise on the beaches of the world are reason alone.

For this reason the fitness crazes that whip through society are more numerous than strip malls full of fast food drive-thrus. Cape Town is known for its cool and current atmosphere and for the city’s people for having their skinny, sexy, bronzed thumbs on the pulse of what is cool and in.

The positive effect of this is guys are sporting truckers and girls the latest in short skirt fashion even before they have been made public in the like of Heat magazine. In short Capetonians are our national trendsetters. [It follows then that this is the reason the Mohawk just arrived in Durban]

As with everything there are negative effects. We have this mob of dumb idiots that latch onto any craze with reckless abandon as they live in the perpetual fear that they might be left behind by their more progressive neighbours. Hence we have flash-trending. This is the reason you can’t park within 500m of Caprice, you queue to get a drink at Pulse (plus the barmen are crap), the reason 500 Puma tank-caps were bought from the Waterfront before people realized they looked ridiculous and why people started watching OC and Desperate Housewives on a Thursday night rather than going watch how the VIP queue at Fez was always longer than the normal one...

Anyway the latest flash-trend goes something like this…

- Guy at Pulse bar to girl: “Wow, I’m lank tired…!” [definite bait]

- Girl: “Really, how so?”

- Guy at Pulse bar back to girl: “Cause I do Muay Thai, and it’s lank tiring!”

- Girl: “What’s Muay Thai?”

- Guy: “It’s this hectic new martial arts thing from Thailand that I do. It’s lank tiring. Basically it’s a combination of hectic fighting moves and enough cardio to make me ripped and tired. And I obviously learn to handle myself in a club. Clubs like this one. You see that Bouncer? Well my personal instructor and good friend Quentin Chong taught me a back-foot, reverse jump roundhouse kick executed to the rear of the skull that would drop him. Quentin is world-champion. He says I’m pretty good and with a few months training, at only R350 a month plus access to their full gym and new changing rooms, I could be ready to compete…”

I have no problem with people taking on a rigorous form of exercise. Actually any fat girl who takes up one as a hobby should have her efforts lauded with a rockstar free chicken burger. (technically she wouldn’t cause she is a chick and they aren’t given to chicks and the carbs wouldn’t do her any good) What I do have a problem with is people paying a gross amount of money to be taught how to hit a punch bag by a ‘world champion’ and then claim they are ‘fighters’. It’s like getting a virgin contract in Claremont and saying you’re a bodybuilder, it’s like watching a movie and claiming you’re a film critic, it’s like starting your own blogspot and claiming you’re a rockstar…wait that’s not the same.


I found this interview with the acclaimed world champion instructor on kungfucinema.com. I think it proves my point:

KFC: Do you think you could beat up Keanu Reeves in the 'Matrix?'
QC: In the movies, definitely not because he’s paid to win. If he’s on the street with no 'Matrix' powers, he will sleep very quickly.

I suppose this is the reason that said world-champ instructor uses his amazing talent and fighting skill to fuck up guys in clubs just because they accidentally bump into him, and then hit his mates for just being there, and beat up homeless bergies on Long Street because they asked for change…

I can think of a change worth asking for. How about you drop the charade and change your horribly unrockstarish approach of pretending to be something you’re not…