Kickboxing: Because I Enjoy Picking Fights I Probably Won't Win

“You look like you need to hit things,” my brother said.

I arched a brow. “Why?”

“Because you seem to have a lot of… energy,” he replied, which was a polite way of saying, you are insufferable and should find a hobby before people start fleeing in terror.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been told I had too much energy. My family calls it “dog energy”—leave me unstimulated for too long, and I’ll either run myself into the ground chasing a hundred different interests or spiral into existential despair. My default state is a restless hum of worry, like the nagging feeling that you’ve left the stove on—except there is no stove, just an ever-present sense that something, somewhere, is terribly wrong.

I’d tried the usual outlets—running, reading, ranting—but nothing ever quite burned it off. My brother, who considers himself something of an expert on my flaws, pushed me to start kickboxing. I figured, why not? It was either that or risk spontaneous combustion.

My brother, in all his love for me and his mental health, replaced the chandelier in our living room with a punching bag—much to our mother's utter despair.

That's how I signed up for Kickboxing at Kombat Hall.

Walking in for the first time felt like stepping into a world I didn’t belong to. The air smelled of sweat and determination, gloves smacked against pads with a rhythm I didn’t understand, and people looked like they knew exactly what they were doing. I did not.

I clearly love to put myself in rooms where I'm grossly outmatched.

The first punch I threw was weak—an apology more than an attack. My stance was off. My arms ached. My shins met the bag with all the force of a polite knock on a door.

But I kept going back.

My colleagues keep asking why I show up to work with bruises. “You pay to get punched in the stomach?” one of them asked. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

People hear “kickboxing” and assume it’s about violence, about aggression, about seeking pain for the sake of it. They can’t understand why anyone would willingly subject themselves to getting hit.

But kickboxing isn’t about violence. It’s about control. It’s about precision, discipline, and learning how to move with purpose. It’s not just swinging your fists wildly and hoping for the best. Every strike has intent. Every block is calculated. The chaos from the outside is actually a structured, controlled process—one that forces you to be fully present in your body.

Getting there, one misstep at a time.

The first thing you learn in kickboxing isn’t how to hit. It’s how to stand. How to hold yourself. Your stance determines everything—your balance, your power, your ability to take a hit and not go down. You learn that punching isn’t about swinging from the arms; it comes from the legs, the hips, the core. The body moves as a unit. When you throw a punch properly, it doesn’t just land—it reverberates.

Then you learn how to get hit. That’s the part people don’t understand. They see the bruises and think it’s just pain. But learning how to take a hit is just as important as throwing one. You learn how to absorb impact, how to breathe through it, how to recover without flinching. You realize that pain is temporary, but resilience is something you build. You stop fearing the hit. And once that fear is gone, something shifts.

I remember the first time I took a real kick to the ribs during a plank. It knocked the wind out of me. For a second, my brain screamed: This is it. You’re done. But then, almost automatically, I reset to my position, exhaled, and held my plank. 

My coach said, “Ushma is strong, she can take it.” And some days, that’s about all I need to hear.

Nothing builds character quite like getting kicked in the gut.

Kickboxing teaches you things in a way nothing else does. It teaches you that strength isn’t about being untouchable—it’s about knowing you can take a hit and keep moving. It teaches you that confidence isn’t loud bravado, but the quiet knowledge that you can handle yourself. It rewires the way you react to difficulty. Instead of tensing up, you stay loose. Instead of panicking, you focus. You stop backing away from challenges. You meet them head-on.

So yeah, I pay to get punched in the stomach. I pay to push my body past its limits, to feel my knuckles sting against the pads, to leave the gym exhausted but sharper than when I walked in. I pay to remind myself, over and over, that I can take the hit.

And honestly? That’s worth every bruise.

Contributed by

Ushma Pahuja

Ushma took up kickboxing the way she takes up most things—with curiosity, a slight disregard for self-preservation, and an unrealistic to-do list. She likes to keep her mind sharp, her body moving, and her bruises well-earned. When she’s not training, she works in strategy, writes satire, and convinces herself it’s all character-building.