Sometimes I just don't know my own strength

In some crazy confusion, I appear to have signed myself up* for some form of Israeli self-defence known as Krav Maga. This is apparently really vicious eye-gouging type stuff.

This will not be my first foray into the world of martial arts. Oh no. When I was really quite small (maybe six or seven), a man who was entertainingly enough called Mr Small (and he was really quite small) started teaching judo at my school.

My Dad felt it was VERY IMPORTANT for women to learn self-defence so decided this was exactly what I wanted to do.

I was alright at it and even got a special belt (err, I think it was only yellow. Or maybe orange) . Generally speaking I was the smallest one there, and one of only a couple of girls who decided to take it up, so whenever it got to displays, they always picked me to chuck the biggest boy over my shoulder (this is really surprisingly easy when they are bracing themselves for it, I guarantee you can throw any man if he actually wants you to).

But inevitably, the only other girl eventually left and I got bored. They made you do an awful lot of squats, see, and the initial thrill of having a cool uniform which actually felt like wearing nasty curtains wore off pretty quickly.

Instead of admitting to my parents that I didn't really like it, I told them that it was all a bit violent and I was being pushed around - not bullied or anything, just thrown a bit.

Apparently, Mr Small said: "Well, actually Frangelita is one of the most aggressive with the little ones."

Oops.

Anyway, I gave that up. But I'm still a fairly hands-on person. Me and HF invented a game once called the pushing game. You just put your hands together and push really hard until the other person falls over. And we sort of wrestle sometimes, it usually ends when I get a bit violent and he bangs something. Me and my gay friends Dan take it even further - we did a whole dance at Heaven nightclub once where we were literally just shoving each other to the ground. We found it hilarious. Everyone else just gave us a bit of a wide berth. Although I have noticed that Dan occasionally flinches when I go towards him...

The worst thing happened the other day. I was a bit bored and HF was doing something else. To try and distract him, for some reason I pushed my finger on his throat. It emitted a weird, strangled sound**. My look of horror and immediate soothing motions caused some hilarity. I didn't realise it was going to do THAT.

One thing my father has never learned is that it really, really hurts when he tickles you, because my dad is a bloody huge lump of muscle built up from thatching roofs all day long and he seems incapable of making those muscles work gently and soothingly. He just doesn't know his own strength or how to curb it.

I sometimes wonder I may be going down the same route...

*For work, this is, not for fun, I hasten to add. Lord only knows what they'll have me doing, I've got my fingers crossed for lessons on eye-gouging and fish-hooking techniques.

**I didn't cause any actual damage, it just scared me a bit.

More on that story later.