Kicking heads and making friends

[white owl]

My training partner is my best friend and just happens to be my husband so I donot know if that counts but we started karate together with our son. But at our dojo we are all friends we stay after class and talk all the time and we do stuff outside of the dojo together.

[ShoriKid]

Night-Owl, trying asking while they are still a bit groggy from the hit. Works best then.

Bushindo_man, your on the same track I was on. With my friend from the home dojo, we worked together, trained ttogether before he came to our school. He was already a 2nd dan, and I was squeaking along at green belt. We sparred, traded techniques etc. He'd always heard bad things about our dojo(he trained at the rival one in town until it shut down). After a year training together he came to train with us, because he said that I was a solid student for my rank and they had to be doing something right where I trained. At the 4 month mark he got his first promotion and got to spar with our sensei. It was one of those educational fights where you learn that despite being younger and faster, it just wasn't enough, not even close. He was dieing to spar him again after that, loved the challenge. Knew he wouldn't win, but loved the challenge. My friend developed a love of kata after a while, having before seen them as something you had to do to get the next promotion.

And as he started to move up in the ranks, sensei took us to the side and was talking to us and he told my firned I was the best set of cheat notes he could get and he told me I needed another person hitting shodan with me as well. Bloodied, bruised and beaten, we pushed and worked and got better. We got to the point where we were training so much we could work a 'sticky hands' drill that he'd done basically without watching each other. Side stance or front on stance, with wrist contact, follow the oponent's lead and one of you tries to slip through a strike. We moved and countered without looking, while shooting the breeze etc. I helped the man pack up the night he and his wife seperated. He backed me when I got cornered into a face down at a parking lot where as the car loads showed up he shook his hea dna laughed saying it was my show he was with me and that we'd make a good go of it.

Thing is, I think we all, if we stay with the arts long enough, fall into friendships like this. Ones that are disproportionate to the time we hang out or other interests. When you find those other people that are just as oddly wired as you are, it's hard not to make friends with them. Shoot, I have a hard time not falling into martial arts related conversations when we all get together. The shared struggle is something a lot of other people don't get. My dad asked about PitbullJudoka's shodan test and I described it. He didn't get why we'd put ourselves through that sort of thing. I told him we were all a little crazy. In the end though, there is a measure of respect and trust there, knowing what those guys went through in training, having been a part of it, I don't have for other people. Sure, I have plenty of friends outside of the martial arts. But maybe one or two that I trust with my safety. Only one or two that I know the measure of.