“I have been doing [Muay Thai] since December, so that’s like four months. I am doing it because of my ISP for for Phoenix. I wanted to work out, and I did not think that I’d be inspired to go to the gym all the time, so I wanted to do something that’s more entertaining and I thought ‘oh martial arts would be cool.’ So I studied some martial arts and I chose Muay Thai. At first it was really hard. My shins and my feet hurt really bad, just because they weren’t conditioned. Now I can kick pads and sometimes people and not feel anything, which is kind of scary but it’s cool because I know that I’m getting a lot stronger. It’s really nice because I’m able to touch my toes now, and I’ve never been able to do that. We’ll stretch at the beginning, do some quick warm ups with a jump rope or things like that, and then we just go through the whole class doing repetitions on the pads and stuff like that. At the end of class we do some of the hardest things, like where we drop like a 20 pound medicine ball on our abs from like five feet in the air on to each other several times. That hurts, but it gets you conditioned. I’ve loved it so far, just getting stronger, becoming more flexible, and making sure that I can defend myself.”