How I became a Ginger Ninja

After years of torment at the hands of my older sister (who was sweetness&light in front of my mother but was extremely bossy and a bit of a bully in private) and a particularly nasty group of boys a couple of years above me at school who used to throw rocks at me whenever I dared venture towards the playground, I decided enough was enough.

I was going to learn Kickboxing.
I nervously went to my first lesson on a Sunday when I was around 16.
Two hours later I emerged, barely breathing, bright red, wet with sweat and with cracked knuckles..

Perhaps surprisingly, I began going every Sunday after that.

It was HARD! The instructor would push you to almost breaking point, enforcing continued situps by standing full on your stomach if you stopped or fell behind the count.

We would begin with sit-ups, press-ups, leg stretches, balancing exercises, circuits of the hall, more balancing exercises, a few more circuits, running on the spot THEN begin the hit combinations..

After a seemingly infinite amount of jabs, hooks, crosses, roundhouse kicks, push kicks, side kicks, ducking, leaning, rolling, elbow combos and knee combos we would finally move to sparring..

Every week I would dread going, remembering the pain of the previous week - still nursing my bruised knuckles and aching arms, legs and stomach.
But after the lesson I would feel such a rush of adrenaline, feel so energised despite tiredness that I always went back.

I began to go to gradings to earn belts, slowly climbing up the ranks and getting stronger and faster, improving my stamina week by week. I would do 150-200 sit ups every morning before school and every evening before bed. My knuckles became solid and my stomach rock hard. I could both see and feel my arms getting stronger.

Needless to say, I had no problem telling my sister I would no longer be her lacky, and the group of boys at school left me well alone.

Unfortunately I had to leave town for university a month before taking my brown belt grading, and thus would be doomed to remain a purple belt for the foreseeable future.

But it mattered not, for I had become the ultimate fighting machine:

The Ginger Ninja!