that person

Tonight in advanced fighting class, we sparred with rubber knives. I pretty much love that class.

I had to stop referring to fighting class as "my self-defense class" and start referring to it as "my fighting class" because people kept assuming that a self-defense class was all women learning multiple ways to kick a guy in the balls and yell help.

I think it should go without saying that we do not yell help in my fighting class. Instead, we learn to temper the deadly moves. There is a former Marine and a current law enforcement person in my fighting class. And yesterday I was the only girl.

That would have intimidated me the first couple of weeks, but now that I am one of the longer-term students, I don't mind at all. I just beat up the nearest guy. One day I was practicing some scenario on the former Marine (former makes him sound old - I think he's actually younger than me - he seems to be studying at the university, anyway), and he kept saying, "I am going to have bruises from your bony arms tomorrow."

"That's fine," I said. "Just tell everyone that a girl beat you up."

"Oh," he said, "I do. Often."

I'm sure he does, too, because the other women who have taken the class for a while are tough.

This is a prime opportunity for me to do exactly what I promised not to do yesterday: brag about my muscles. People. I am not going to go on about this, except to say that I can now see the muscles in my arms, both above and below the elbow. That is all.

Now I'm going to go do some guy push-ups before I go to bed, because I am, in fact, that person. How annoying.