My work hours changed by an hour but that was enough to prevent me getting home, eating and making class times. My trouble is I need to eat regularly and not miss dinner. Class times no in longer fitted into my life. Minor excuse but I also ran out of monthly disposable contact lenses. It's very hard to do martial arts degree you might be getting hit one minute and getting pinned to the ground another with glasses on. Due to prescription I was limited to expensive lenses and back then they weren't comfortable. After an hour I my eyes were sore. After 2 I was close to clawing my eyes out. Needless to say hour drive round trip, hour lesson and fifteen minutes changing either side meant 2.5 hours minimum with lenses in, more like 3+ because I never got n the hang of putting in and taking out contact lenses.
Needless to say I doubt I'll go back to martial arts. I did love it when I did it. One of the best things was the people I trained with at my level. One guy was a perfect training partner. We were fairly close in weight and while I was taller there wasn't much difference. He got the techniques I didn't and I got the ones he didn't so we helped each other get on. When he left it really wasn't the same. I ended up training with anyone. This isn't sparring training but technique training, especially for gradings. I went from very short lady in her 40s to 5 foot 10 bloke weighing close to 20 stone of solid muscle. Add in this guy who came from kickboxing who didn't know the meaning of pulling your punches during technique training. I did re-educate him on that though, bounced him off the wall with a punch that sent him flying. Pulled his punches with me after that. Did worry I went too far at the time but the instructor just turned away laughing.
Martial arts is really good for many reasons. Fitness, mind, balance, flexibility, agility and self defence. Plus you meet some amazing people.
