If your testosterone levels aren’t high enough to make an alpha-mongoose at the height of his mating season stand aside in fearful respect, you can’t afford to stop reading this column.
How did you celebrate the last time you won a “Super Smash Bros” tournament? If a knife wielding maniac demands that you give him the rest of your Chick money, how are you going to rile yourself into a barbarian battle rage? After you read this column, the next time you find yourself in a situation that only a chest-beating testosterone machine can overcome, you’ll know to do the obvious. You’ll beat your chest.
If you think that this is simpler than I’m making it out to be, you’re both right and wrong. Baboons beat their chests before they snack on the faces of their enemies. How hard could it be? Every modern man, however, has lost that side of himself to some degree or another. The animal within has to be tamed so that he can stomach sitting on the couch and watching reality TV with his girlfriend. That’s why the first step to successfully beating your chest is to have the right attitude. Your fists should be flying into your chest like A-10 warthogs, guns blazing. If you’re about to make somebody regret the last thing they said about your mother, scream like a maniac while you’re at it. If you just brought home the W in the sweatiest game of Ultimate Frisbee to grace this campus in the past 100 years, then “wooo!” with the voracity of 1000 JJ Watts. The purpose of this display is not to look like your 4 year old cousin playing Tarzan. It’s purpose is to solidify your place as a member of the only species on this planet to invent grenade launchers, nachos and space travel. You’re a man. You need a way to express the fact that there is nothing that walks, slithers, crawls or rolls (in the case of the inevitable robot apocalypse) across this patch of dirt that can overcome you.
Once you’ve committed yourself to going at this thing whole hog, the technique is simple. Like wielding a katana, your movements must be smooth, yet explosive. Completely relax your arms except for your clenched fists. Then twist at your hips. Let your arms swing back and forth with the movement of your torso as you loosely guide your fists into your pecs. Once you’ve got the motion down, hit the gas and go full speed. Pound on your chest like it’s a vending machine with five bags of mis-dispensed doritos perched tantalizingly on the edge of their shelf.
If you’re wondering, or if you just tried it and made this observation for yourself, yes, this will kind of hurt. That’s half of the point. Beating your chest is like a more simeon version of a powerlifter slapping himself before he lies down for a big bench press. You’re simultaneously getting loose, warming yourself up and spurring yourself into an unstoppable frenzy with a little taste of pain. It’ll put hair on your chest, which will make it look even more awesome when you do this.
As a side note, while any kind of monosyllabic cry of power compliments a chest pounding like a powerful woman does a late night game of “Risk”, you’ve got to be careful with your timing. If you let out your mighty roar while you’re actually hammering away at your chest, you’ll sound like your trying to sing along with the radio while driving over a bumpy road. Get a couple of hits in and while you’re tapering off towards the end, let it all out. It’s the difference between William Wallace filling the glen with a bellow of freedom and your highschool valedictorian vomiting on himself at the beginning of his speech.
Finally, once you’ve truly mastered this masterpiece of dominance, you can also slap the ground with both hands if you so choose. This is an expert level move and will likely not feel so great on a pair of hands that wouldn’t be described as “beefy”. You’ll have truly captured the essence of a territorial chimpanzee, and only a fool or a worthy opponent would dare stand against that.
With this newfound knowledge, you’re ready to conquer the world. Go out, beat people at things and then be a really ungraceful winner about it. Climb mountains and let your fury slice through the clouds. Make people really uncomfortable after you move their ancient, impossibly heavy TV into their fourth floor apartment. Whatever you do, know that you’re in the winners circle, because when you’re beating your chest, that circle only extends as far as your own arms.
