Relay

Maude Muto-Cangiolosi

I always wanted to be able to fight. I mean really fight, with fists and everything.

Sometimes screaming just does not work, and growing up in Manhattan I always wanted to be able to defend myself. I used street smarts to avoid potential dangers. Anytime I saw some weirdo walking toward me, I quickly crossed to the other side of the street. I learned to avoid eye contact while riding the subway. Believe me, this is especially difficult when the guy standing above you on the train has Playboy magazine open while he's staring at you the whole time.

There weren't too many times that I really had to be afraid in the city. I was lucky to grow up in "good" neighborhoods and go to schools that were in safe neighborhoods. That's not to say that I didn't make some stupid mistakes. How many times did I ride the subway home after 2 a.m.? And why did I ever think that it would be "interesting" to walk through Harlem (from my alma mater, Barnard) all the way up to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital?

As a high school freshman at the United Nations International School, I wanted to rebel. I hung out with the neighborhood kids after school and smoked cigarettes. Somehow I thought that by being with them I would learn how to fight and learn how to be tough.

I thought I was so bad when I bought tan chinos with brown piping down the legs and got white Converse sneakers with the laces specially tied. I snapped out of it when I heard that some of these kids crashed our school dance and got kicked out because one of them had a gun.

Our family was always very verbal (Italian and Greek backgrounds), and my brothers never seemed to wrestle that much, so I never did learn to fight. Now whenever my husband play-fights with me I can never get away. He tells me I should lift more weights and "get tough."

Well, I finally took his advice. One day in August, my niece asked me to come take a kickboxing class with her. Sure, why not?

It was harder than any aerobics class I ever took and made me sweat more than running three miles. But the best thing about it was that when I came home that night I could demonstrate my moves on my husband. Pretty good, he said, keep it up.

This past week I took it two more times (I think I'm becoming addicted). There are no weights involved, but my lats, deltoids, and triceps were very sore from it. I came home showing my uppercuts and roundhouses, and this time when my husband came up behind me I threw him a mule kick.

He screamed at me, "If you blow my knee out I won't be able to work."

All I could think was, Yes! I'm finally learning how to fight!

Maude Muto-Cangiolosi is The Star's classified ads manager. Her kickboxing teacher is Mark Tuthill.