We’re Fighting For Rather Than Against

“I didn’t expect for you all to become my friends … and give me a dinner like this.” My kickboxing instructor was leaving for a year. We came together with our spouses to say goodbye. After hearing so much about our families, we wanted to meet each other.

Another student and I had been training with her for about eight months. Her class grew by word of mouth. We were all out-of-shape folks who weren’t used to being fit. A community grew as we struggled along, barely able to complete each night’s training.

When I look around and see communities sprout, often there’s a negative element. People find complaints to rally around. They join together to stop an affordable apartment building or petition to close their street to their neighbors. They are fighting for themselves and blocking a better life for others.

In local politics, it’s a rare occasion to rally around something positive. Most of the time, people turn out when they want to stop something. If everything’s okay, you just keep going about your business with work, kids, and activities. Most people aren’t thinking about dedicating themselves to change the world for someone else.

In kickboxing we are learning how to physically fight, but we were also learning how to fight for each other. Our lifetimes of sloth left us unhealthy and overweight. None of us would workout as hard as we do without the others. When we sign up each month, it means everyone can continue and we don’t want to let the group down.

We’re all fighting our busy schedules, illnesses, and laziness to keep coming back. We’ve already proven we can’t do it on our own. If we lose even one person, we wouldn’t be able to continue.

We have a new trainer at a different gym, but we’re all still in it together. It’s wonderfully rare to fight for something good.