I'm not a violent person. Whenever you take those personality tests that evaluate what animal you are most like, I usually come up as some sort of canine retriever. I've never been in a physical altercation outside of kid-wrestling with my sister or sparring a bit in my Tae Kwon Do class which I never particularly liked. My husband on the other hand is a natural warrior. Built for speed and freakish strength. The heavy bag utters a cry of despair and weeps in the corner when he shows up (he has broken more than a few in his day). The heavy bag raises an eyebrow at me and scoffs a little. That is, until this weekend. The hubby wanted me to come to his gym (local martial arts school where he has free reign of all the equipment whenever he wants) and practice hitting the heavy bag to build up my upper body strength. Now, me and this bag... me and martial arts in general, have not had good history. I love martial arts, I'm just not very coordinated and I have had 3 knee surgeries and no ACL left to prove it. When I used to try and hit the heavy bag, I would be out of breath in no time and have sore wrists for days. Until now...
With my husband observing to make sure my form and technique was correct, I went to town on this bag. Punches, jabs, uppercuts, even elbows. And you know what? I wasn't out of breath even after several minutes of nonstop hits. The bag was moving all over the place like I was actually making an impact. He kept looking over at me waiting for the tell tale "I'm so done with this because I'm a worn out hot mess" look and it never came. I finally stopped because my hands were stinging pretty badly and when I pulled off my gloves, I had totally skinned my knuckles. And I felt glorious. All those push-ups and free weight exercises are finally starting to pay dividends.
Today, I see a bit of bruising starting on my hands, but it doesn't even really hurt much. I'm not saying that my non-violent tenancies are vanishing. I am who I am, I will never be an MMA fighter. I am happy, upbeat and generally trusting of the population...however, I would like to be ABLE to pulverize someone should they ever mess with me and/or mine. I like this feeling, I'm just gonna go with it :)