Anyone whose known me for any length of time can imagine how little I like being treated like a girl when it comes to Martial Arts.  I don't mind being knocked down, hit, whatever.

     Well, OK, to be perfectly honest, I'm a little bit of a girl when it comes to take-downs and throws.  I don't like that at all...but I don't expect that to stop someone and I certainly think I need to get over that, so bring it on.  Anyway, here's a little story about how great my fellow Kung Fu-ers are about not treating a girl like a girl when they're in the ring with her.

     I was at Kung Fu on Sunday (yesterday) and we were in sparring class.  We were fighting point matches as opposed to the more traditional continuous sparring that we usually do.

     I was fighting Joe, who is the biggest guy in the school.  He’s got really good control and everything, but he likes to hit in the head, and I have a tendency to be sort of weak with taking head shots.  I get punchy pretty quickly.

     Anyway, I had already taken a couple of good tags that day, and I’d started with a headache…so when he hit me again, I was  little off balance, and started to go over.

     I felt Joe grab my arm, and ShiFu yelled “break!”  Because he wanted to score Joe’s point for hitting me in the head.

     I grinned at Joe, thinking how nice it was that he had kept me from falling on my ass and embarrassing myself.

     “Thanks”, I said.

     He grinned sheepishly, “It wasn’t sportsman-like.  I was grabbing your arm to pull you into another punch.”

Oh.  OK then.  As long as we’re clear.  J