Way of the Warrior (well in a suburban mother of three puffing for breath sort of way)

Right now my mind is alert and ready for action.

Hiiii-yaaaaaahhhh!!!!!

I suprised you with my stealth and aggression, didn't I?

Stealth, power, focus etc etc.

Yep that's my mind, down to a tee.

Unfortunately I can't say the same about my body right now.

I'm lucky that I can keep my head upright and get my fingers moving in order to type this post.

Yep, I just go back from a martial arts session. And boy was it a doozie.

Just for a laugh (that's my laugh), Corey came along and joined in the adult session with me tonight, as he hadn't been able to make it to the 10 -14 yr old sessions at all this week.

But I didn't get to laugh at him after all. He did really well and kept up with everyone. Even though it was a killer night.

The instuctor was determined to make us all work.

And sweat.

And beg for mercy.

Well, maybe not that far. But close.

I paired up with my boy for most of the night but that was a big mistake. Being in the position where your 12 year old son throws kicks and punches at you? Not one I'd recommend.

At one stage Corey was holding the kick shield for me as I did different kicks and every now and then he was supposed to swing it at my head so I could perform a cover move.

It seems that the term 'every now and then' obviously means 'every 3 seconds' to Corey. He was having way too much fun swinging a hard kick shield at my head!

I think he was just enjoying the chance to get me back for a long list of grudges he must be holding.

After tonight I'm not sure if him coming to my sessions is such a good idea. Purely for his own sake of course. I couldn't subject him to such errr.....hard training again. Ahem!

Each week there are two types of sessions.

The 'A' night is technique night where we learn all our new stuff and put it into practice. And the 'B' nights are fitness training nights.... and you guessed it - tonight was most definitely a 'B' night!!!

When I went on Tuesday to the technique night we were told we had to make up our own Free Form display lasting 20 seconds that included kicks, punches and grabs that we had learned so far.

And we had to give it a name.

20 seconds is actually longer than it sounds when you have to start breaking it down movement by movement, but I found this quite fun and within 24hrs had my routine worked out. It's actually closer to 30 seconds but I don't want to drop anything from it. I wonder if I get bonus points for extra length? Ha - not likely. Those instructors aren't that generous.

The hard part I found, was naming it.

I didn't want a cliched type of name or anything to obvious, or too airy fairy. Or too stupid and have everyone laugh or think I'm an idiot.

It had to be perfect and also reflect 'me' and the routine.

Hmmmmm..... it's actually really hard to come up with a name that I'll be happy to shout out in front of everyone.

I tried lots of different names. None of them sounded right. But I was determined to find the PERFECT name (hello familiar perfectionist personality trait that I'm trying to overcome).

In the end I thought 'how about I give it a Japanese name' and there began a marathon trawl of the internet for translations and suitable options. Thank goodness for Google. So many to choose from but again none of them quite right.

I kept looking and looking and looking until finally success. I found it.

I think.

Unless I change my mind on it later.

Oh, and I hope the translation is correct.

Nintai-ryoku.

It means perseverance.

Appropriate huh?