The Krav Maga updates

I am back from my sixth class of Krav Maga. I have little new to say, in fact pretty much nothing that you have not read before in my previous posts. But hey, I am learning and improving. We have a new student, some guy who is tall and muscular and seem to know what he's doing. I feel like I am a dwarf sometimes compared to my fellow wannabe warriors. All the same, it was good fun. We had to hit a pad held by another student today (foot, fist, elbow, repeat) as hard as we could. The instructor did not like the way I was sort of hitting the pad at first. Because as hard as one can should be as hard as one can. I was taking it easy for two reasons I think: 1)I feel like I have little strength in my arms or fist and 2)the girl holding the pad was a 18 years old shorter and smaller than me. I did not want to hurt her. Which is silly because it is a darn pad I was hitting, not her. But then the coach said 1)he'd make me do twenty press ups if I was not to go harder and 2)told me to imagine that he was the pad. I think he thought because he's hard I'd be vindictive. But I think he's a nice guy, so instead I imagined some nasty villain from an action movie or some old pulp fiction or something. I worked with archetypes (see, I am an intellectual even when I do martial arts and I make good use of my past life as a doctor in literature). It worked just as well, because I kicked the darn pad hard and the instructor was quite happy. We did another similar exercise afterwards, when we were held back at the belly by a karate belt held by a student. I did not need to be asked twice that time. When you have to work for it, to earn every punch you throw, you just become harder at punching. So these were the Krav Maga updates this week.