discomfort zone
Saturday, December 17 - 2 & 7pm Sunday, December 18 - 1 & 5pm Tuesday, December 20 - 7pm Wednesday, December 21 - 7pm Thursday, December 22 - 7pm Friday, December 23 - 7pm Saturday, December 24 - 1 & 5pm
Groups are Welcome! (10 or more)
The Nutcracker experience is perfect for your corporate or club holiday event! Contact Joel Mann (702) 967-4938
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20 D e s e r t C o m pa n i o n N N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1
ously liked it enough for a return visit. It seemed like instructor DC Pacheco cut back the intensity of the warm-up, whether or not for my sake. I hope it wasn’t. There were none of the sprints, push-ups or long jumps that did me in last time; just some jogging and about five minutes straight of scissor kicks to work the abs to death. It was still challenging — but just-within-my-comfortzone challenging. After the warm-up, we got right to moving through a series of basic moves built on the standard defensive fighting stance. I was partnered up to practice moves with a stout young man about my height named Raul. But I was skittish, concerned about doing actual damage, especially when practicing groin kicks. “Don’t worry, I’m wearing a cup,” Raul told me. “I always do here.” Oh, good. I wasn’t. But I didn’t have to worry about that much. Raul’s been training in Krav Maga for about two years, and for him, this was pretty basic stuff, so he generously spent the class helping me work on my moves. In a way, though, that almost didn’t help. I already had trouble keeping up with all the stuff Pacheco was throwing out. This wasn’t rocket science. He broke it down into easy-to-digest chunks: Groin kick. Side kick. Jab. Throat grab. But I was over-thinking it, trying to maintain optimal positions while being unnecessarily mindful of my sparring partner’s well-being. I was intellectualizing what should have been a visceral, no-holdsbarred exercise in self-preservation. I was doing exactly what Offerle warned against. “Often people get myopic in their approach to learning Krav Maga by concentrating too much on technique instead of understanding the basic principles of Krav,” Offerle told me. “Learn the principle and the technique will come.” Easy enough for him to say. Pacheco sure as hell concentrated on technique. Why else would he be coming over to me every few minutes to adjust my stance, or punching distance, or kick angle? I felt uncomfortable getting close to Raul, let alone wrapping my hands around his thick, sweaty neck to execute a head butt or eye gouge. I wanted him to do something to provoke me, to force out the inner rage I’d misdirected at drywall and glass and high school lockers my whole life. But with Raul as my ineffective punching bag and not a single clear or present danger nearby, that trigger never manifested itself for me during the class. At the end of class, I approached Pacheco, who was winding down and taking care of
business as usual behind the cash-wrap in the corner of the studio. I perused the class schedule and the rate card. “So what do you think,” he asked me. I mumbled a response. “What was that?” “I’m up in the air about it,” I replied, not only unsure about Krav Maga itself, but also the pricing: $165 a month unless I make a long-term commitment, and my heart just wasn’t in it. Nor was my wallet. “I’m no salesman,” Pachecho said, grinning. “I’ll be here. Unless I get fired.” I thanked him again and walked out the door, feeling physically better than I did after my previous visit, but that’s all. I was hoping to get some sort of charge from Krav Maga, hoping it would stir some sort of inner bad-ass within me — or at least the inner guy who doesn’t want to get his ass kicked. That didn’t happen. I asked Offerle — a former professional dancer and restaurateur — what made him turn to Krav Maga. He told me he had read about the practice in an article on Roger D’Onofrio, the former U.S. Army Special Forces instructor who helped pioneer Krav Maga instruction in Las Vegas. But it was not until Offerle was intimidated by a few guys in his own restaurant (the gone-but-not-forgotten Jazzed Cafe) in 2004 that he took a much more active interest. “After the incident, I could not shake the feeling that somehow I felt guilty for not reacting differently,” says Offerle. “Here were two guys that, for no real reason, accosted me on my property — and I felt guilty? Never again, I decided. I enrolled in Krav Maga with Roger the next day.” Offerle says it was “love at first punch.” For me, it was “meh” at first punch. The promise of Krav Maga is that after your first class, you’re no longer a victim. But fact is, I was never a victim in the first place. Sure, I might have an epiphany like Offerle’s someday, something that will make something like Krav Maga grab me by the short and curlies and never let go, but I don’t think I’m missing out on anything should that never manifest itself. I started running again pretty heavily after taking that second Krav Maga class. And wouldn’t you know: After all that searching for a new challenge (and being subsequently let down by it), the road under my feet didn’t look so bad anymore. The boredom I was feeling had pretty much passed. And best of all, I didn’t have to wear a cup. It’s the little things.