Kung Foo Fighting

For the last year in a half my Marines have been going through the new Marine Corps Martial Arts Course, it was directed from higher up that all Marines must be a certain belt by so and so date (remember I'm a Squid so it's not required). Back in the rear I was the only Corpsman between 2 squadrons and they had a course running every other week. So every other week I was the medical coverage, couldn't find anybody else to cover it so I could get my belt. The training was painful, harsh but it came in handy. During that time I spent a lot of time taking pictures of and sometimes laughing. The instructors have been telling me "One of these days Doc you're going to go through the class" Eep, time to curtail my laughing. At long last, they're wish came true and my name my name appeared on a list for a tan belt course that was taking place in a couple days. The head instructor had an evil smirk on his face when I showed up that morning. What have I got myself into? It started off easy enough, stretching out and warming up exercises. We learned some of the basic techniques that morning then our first round of body hardening. Pretty much striking blows upon on each other in painful places to deaden the nerves in that area using kicks, forearm blows and punches. Think someone has it in for me. Ouch. Learned shoulder rolls, different kicks, joint manipulation and different blows. Twice a day body hardening, ugh! Somehow I kept ending up partnered with the evil instructor, please just let me die, don't kick me again! After each round of body hardening I wiped away my tears like a man. Sheesh that hurts! No I actually didn't cry but I did yelp a few times, believe me I wasn't the only one! Considering how many classes I've watched and taken pictures of I should have been a lot smoother and gracious in handling my pain, but maybe there was a little payback in there? Watching is a different ball game. Promise to my self, I will try not to laugh at the Marines taking the training. I stopped limping after a couple of days and with the memory of pain fading it's probably going to be a hard promise to keep. Hmm, there's the course for the next belt on the schedule! Time to hide, today anyway.