D-Tac

I've spent the past week in the most physically demanding course I've ever experienced. Boot Camp has nothing on these folks.

I was selected by my employer to become an instructor for our Defense Tactics system, and attended a five -day course for certification. Though it sounds academic, the course really consisted of five full days of tactical defense and counter-offense, primarily hand-to-hand. I'm honored to have been selected - especially given the fact that the majority of the 16 students were at least ten years younger than I - but I have to say that I have never been exposed to such encompassing physical exhaustion in all my close-to-41 years. I look like I went ten rounds with a speeding train, and that's not an exaggeration. Believe me, I am feeling every hour of my age.

My hands look like black and purple balloons. Blood continues to seep under my skin in several locations, the worst being the radial side of my right forearm and the outside portion of my right upper arm, which have significant tissue damage that will take weeks to heal. My knees are swollen beyond recognition and are only slightly less purple than my hands. I have mat burns to the bone on both elbows and deep abrasions on both shoulders. My neck is bruised from repeated choking. The inside quadrants of both breasts are contused and fascinatingly colored. The insides of both thighs are sporting huge point-of-impact bruises from repeated kicks to the A-frame. My nose is swollen and tender (but not broken!!) from a punch which I failed to respond to in time and only partically deflected. The rest of me is peppered with smaller bruises, cuts, and abrasions, giving me an all-over beat-to-shit look that I can't help but pause to inspect every time I find myself in front of a mirror. I am truly a sight to behold.

I thought about trying to incorporate this battered look into a photographic series: the building where the class was held sits in the middle of a Fire Science Academy for our local Fire Department and there are several old buildings that have been used as training grounds for new firefighters. Some of the burned-out former Navy barracks looked exactly how I felt over the week, and I toyed with the idea of using a lunch break to try to capture the parallel on pixels.

Instead, I did what any wily old lady would do and used the time to eat a little bit, hydrate, and power-nap.

I finished the course and am now certified to take my knowledge to the rest of my Department and, hopefully, teach new officers how to save their own lives if attacked. I am feeling a heavy responsibility tempered with a real sense of accomplishment and competence that I was only vaguely familiar with prior to attending the course. I can only hope that I am capable of effecting this same feeling in the ones who come to me for training.