My wife puts up with a lot, and I love her dearly, and I'm always grateful for the utter lapse in judgement she had in marrying me, over the advice of her friends. She's appreciated that I do martial arts and that I write about it, and that makes us some money, but she's always kind of regarded getting thrown on a mat, or punched in the ribs as "A guy thing", if you know what I mean, so she's never really participated. It took a lot of promising to do the dishes, but I got her to sign up for the dojo's kickboxing routine as a fitness program.

We're trying to get students in at different times, and trying to appeal to a wider demographic. As a result, we've taken up teaching Thai Kickboxing as a kickboxing and exercise routine for body shaping and cardiovascular workouts. While Muay Thai is an excellent martial art for self defense, it also provides an awesome workout routine, building balance, flexibility, percussive strength and coordination, and it's an excellent fat burner, especially on the hips and thighs and abdomen. (Yeah, I know, it doesn't really do targeted weight loss - it causes you to lose weight over your entire body, but builds muscle there - it feels like targeted weight loss!) Since I have a pretty flexible schedule as a writer, I ended up being the teacher for the afternoon classes.

We've worked out a kickboxing routine that starts with stances, and stretches - we have all our students run in place for about 5 minutes to get their heart rate up, then have them stretch out. Getting the blood flowing early means that the stretching is more effective. I try to encourage all my students to take the stretching seriously - it should hurt a little bit as they're doing it...and I tell them a little hurting now will save them a lot of hurting later.

Then we go through the standard forms, with an initial open stance that's centered and low to the ground for punches, jabs and the front kick. First we have our students do it in front of a mirror, letting them work up a sweat. I walk through the line as they do it, correcting form here and there - even though I don't expect any of these women to ever use this as a martial art, I expect them to get it right, just in case. The entire dojo starts to build up some energy, with kiais and grunts.

The next part of the workout is to take them one at a time and get them into hitting the bag. This is actually the most difficult part of the process for my students. Karen, my first one up, actually pulls her punch before she hits the bag - even with the pads on. It took me two or three reps to get her to punch with all the power coming from her hips, glutes and midsection at full speed. And about ten more reps for her to actually do it on her own. A lot of people in America are taught "hitting is bad", and that's conditioning that has to be overcome, even when working out with a bag. It took me most of the first session to get all the women to hit the bag decently.

The last part of the session is cooling down - stretching and standing in position and letting the muscles unkink, working on the balance they'll need to do front kicks and roundhouses, which, at my guess, will be in about two weeks. All it all, it seemed like a pretty solid success, and I look forward to seeing my students later this week!