My Husband's a Ninja

New ninjas with supportive family and our instructor, Kevin Stuart

For months Ryan has been questioning whether or not he's ready to take the black belt test. "It's brutal," he'd tell me. "Yea? It can't be that bad. You're one of the best in the class. And look at all those other people who've got their black belt--you're in better shape than them," I'd tell him. But it's true--he was right--I said all those things before I ever saw the black belt test. If you ever thought P90X was intense, this is like doing 3 or 4 of those workouts back to back. It was crazy. 

It started with various exercises, every other set of which were push-ups of some sort. I swear they did over 400 push-ups. And it was non-stop. For about an hour and a 40 minutes. No water breaks, no chance to really catch your breath. I think it would have reduced me to tears after about 30 minutes. The closest thing to a break was when they demonstrated their forms and self-defense techniques.

After this insane workout, it was time to pad up for 20-25 minutes of sparring. They were in groups of about 6 and one person had to spar everyone, one right after the other. Then they'd rotate out and get in the line up to spar the next person. It was so much sparring. Good thing Ryan loves a good sparring match. In the end, Ryan and his brother Michael both came out victorious as newly minted Black Belts. 

Exhausted, but completing that test put a smile on their faces.