This morning, after several months off, I returned to Ronin Combat Athletics to resume mixed martial arts (i.e. “no holds barred”) training. I’d been working out regularly during my time away, so at least I was rarely left winded, but there’s no amount of throwing around weights that can prepare you for being actually thrown around yourself. I came home this afternoon with an assortment of cuts, bruises, aches and pains likely to stick with me for at least the next few days. By which time, I’ll head back in for another practice and start the cycle of suffering all over again.

No pain, no gain.

[Side note: oddly, though most of the people who train at Ronin are well over six feet and two hundred pounds, today was apparently the Lollipop Kid special. Aside from one really tall guy (who we nicknamed Gulliver for the day), the rest of the group was comprised of literally all the Ronin fighters under 5’8″. Which, while I would have though would be easier, was actually tougher, as we had apparently all developed the same dirty tricks and leverage-(rather than strength-)based techniques. That made squaring off against people my own size sort of like fighting fire with fire. Still, I can at least finally understand why the really big guys hate to spar with me; constantly keeping pace with fast-moving little pit-bull types really tires you out.]