The Cycling Undies

As I’ve got older I’ve managed to pin down and identify many of the hang ups that existed in my life and sometimes even move past them. Most negative crap that we grow up with comes from incidents in childhood after all. Fighting, talking to girls, loneliness, fear of isolation & betrayal are all things that happened to me when I was little and I’ve more or less comes to terms with them and have now evolved past their control.

However….

Something I had always put down to a flinch response based on extensive bullying at school, turned out to be something very different. Far from being a psychological hang up my constant physical trepidation in nearly all situations stemmed from one thing.

The wrong underwear.

To elaborate….

Living on the coast of Rome (2 miles from Fiumicino airport in fact) I have found public transport to be a pain the arse so I invested in a bicycle. I cycle to and from work and on the weekends I can sometimes clock up 50 miles in a day. I approached a friend of mine for advice on how to keep healthy while biking and he listed the following things as essential.
1). Tubeless tyres.

2). A saddle with holes in it.

3). Padded cycling undies or cycling shorts.

I couldn’t afford the first two (the tyres mean that unless you cycle over a running chainsaw you won’t get a flat, the saddle means your arse and man bits get ventilated) and asked him if he really thought the shorts were necessary. After a pause he replied “Errr…how come you’re cycling 50-ish miles in a day and you don’t already know this?!”

I had noticed some discomfort with cycling but had adapted my micro postures in the seat to be as comfortable as possible. For some reason I never got saddle sore and never needed nappy cream after a long ride. My mate said “You’re telling me you’ve been cycling that far and you never considered this?”

So, I went up to the local Decathlon sports shop and spent €8.99 on a pair of cycling undies. After washing them and letting them dry (echoes of my grandmother warning me that “some dirty tramp might have had his tassle in that!” when the subject of second hand clothes came up) I put them on and went for a spin. 

Lo and behold. A much more comfortable and pleasant ride than ever before.

Reason?

I have very large testicles. I’m not boasting it’s just a fact.

The undies were so comfy that I wore them for the rest of the day and I realised about five hours in to having a foam lined crotch, that I was feeling a lot more secure and less vulnerable. On a sub conscious level I felt “safe”.

I realised today that the constant tentativeness I felt in daily life was through having to always be aware of not banging my junk on anything or sitting down and squashing one of my nuts. I had been this way for so long that I had ceased to think about it and it had become part of my muscle memory. Along with how to wash my hands, tie my shoelaces or even ride the bike. Things that we do without thinking because we’ve done them so often that they are just “stuff” we do. 

I never felt this way in Krav Maga training because, as anyone who’s trained more than once knows, the first time you get kicked in the bollocks/ fanny when you are unprotected is the very last time you forget your groin guard. My daily life however was full of “keeping safe” without even knowing I was doing it. Distance, positioning, even walking up a flight of stairs. Fact I was able to balance my balls on a mountain bike saddle for over 500 miles of riding without sustaining any type of injury or pain is truly a marvel.

I’ve also started becoming quite flexible through daily yoga and the revelation that my inability to kick high came from being tight in the legs was apparently obvious to everyone except me. 

Overall the simplest things are usually the ones that help us to see the flaws in life. By buying a pair of padded boxers for less than ten Euros I finally got not only a smoother and less stressful ride on my Leopard 500 but I also feel a lot more confident in public, solely due to having an adequately protected scrotum.

Sometimes what holds you back is right in you face.

Or not, in this case.

The CBT

In the UK, if you wish to ride a motorcycle, you must receive a day’s instruction with an approved school on the finer nuances of controlling a bike. This is NOT the test for the licence, no, no. This is training on how to learn.

To explain.

Years ago, those wanting to buzz around on a Yamaha would simply buy a 125cc model, bung L plates on it, strap on a helmet and off they went. Problem was that, without a rudimentary knowledge of how the bike worked, a lot of accidents (many fatal) occurred. 

So…to solve the issue of motorcyclist pizzas littering the highways of the country, the government introduced a thing called CBT or Compulsory Basic Training.

It’s a course of about 6 to 7 hours, with approved motorcycle instructors, learning how to brake, use the gears, apply the clutch and ride with a basic level of proficiency when on the roads. It reduces your chances of making stupid mistakes and teaches you the fundamental things and the more subtle ones such as a “lifesaver glance” or “counter steering”.

I did this course in August 2016 with a school based at a civilian airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon. The 60-something instructor named Bob was top notch, reassuring and friendly and took us through the day with basics, a theory test and finally a trip out with him to Stratford for a couple of hours. We had radios with earpieces and every so often you’d hear Bob say “Lance, turn your indicator off” or “Gerry, move away from the white lines please”.

Despite having what are known as Grandfather Rights on my car licence, meaning I can drive a bike up to 50cc without CBT or a test AND I can drive a shit load of vehicles that you now have to be tested separately for, I thought the day’s training was fully worthwhile and took away a LOT of my nervousness about using a motorbike when I went backpacking a short time later.

The certificate is valid for 2 years, meaning that in August of this year I will need to retest if I want to ride a bike again. But…and this is the crucial point once more. This only allows me to ride with Learner plates on the machine. I would still need to, at some point within the 2 year window, take both a theory test and a practical one, to prove that I am road worthy and competent using motorcycles from 125 to 600+ cc.

Only then would I be granted the coveted ‘A’ licence for a motorcycle, meaning I could ride Harley’s, Honda’s, and Yamaha’s to my heart’s content.

Which brings me to…

I haven’t touched any training with KMG since I failed the final test for the General Instructors’s Course last July in Melbourne. This isn’t out of a desire to sulk or say “fuck you”, but only down to the fact that I live 16 miles from the nearest club, in an area with limited public transport and I only have a bicycle to get around on. I still fully intend to graduate and gain the black, instructor’s T-shirt but for the time being I am not involved in that world. It’s been recommended to me by a national KMG chief instructor that I repeat at least part 2 (or 2 and 3 depending on location) again before retrying for the final assessment, even though the form I signed after failing had “no retest or resit required” which meant that I had, in theory, only to retake my G1 grading again. Skill fade will be a serious issue, especially with 9 months living a life bereft of Krav. The only way I can train is to watch the videos of P1 to G1 techniques with Eyal Yanilov that break down the various moves required for the techniques. This will give me some knowledge as a foundation for when I go back. It does not however help my teaching skills (but I’m an English teacher as a main job so my daily work will help with that). I recently asked an E5 level instructor what he thought about me using the videos as a basic tool to try and keep my skills fresh. He replied that while it would help, it wouldn’t be enough and I needed to get back into training before trying for the GIC again

What I realised after this conversation is that at this level (wannabe instructor) I need to not only learn, but have a basic knowledge to enable me to learn, a CBT of Krav Maga to build upon. It won’t be enough to learn how to perform a forwards roll or a overhead stick defence, I will also have to be able to teach those moves. The CBT would be watching the videos and copying them so that, when I finally return for the 12 days of GIC 2, I will be able to build upon what I know, and be able to break them down so I can instruct others on how to do them.

CBT for motorcyclists was designed to give a basic proficiency so that the core skills could then flourish under a learning process. The same thing exists with Krav Maga. I want, very much, to become in instructor but I need to keep a foundation at all times of the rudimentary knowledge so that I can come back and learn again on the higher aspects. 

Learning how to learn. Or in this case, learning to learn to teach.

Latest Krav Maga book. OUT NOW. Ruck & Roll.

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Sequel to 2105's WALK IN PIECES.