Like many women, I gained a bit of pudge and got way, way too busy after my child was born. I always stayed at least a little bit active, but nothing like I'd been in my heyday of training for two or three hours a day, four days a week. There just always seemed to be things that had to take higher priority -- and fair enough. Sometimes there just are.

A few years ago my daughter and I started training at a karate school together. I was hoping that this would give me the motivation and consistent framework I needed to finally get some fitness back. We stuck it out for several years before realizing that this was not the school for us (it happens -- ask any martial artist who's tried to find a replacement for their wonderful school in the new town/country/hemisphere they've moved to). Oddly, even though I trained consistently there, and the classes were very aerobically and anaerobically demanding, I didn't feel the kind of fundamental, long-term improvements in fitness that I'd wanted.

Fast-forward to a couple of years later, when I happened to stumble upon the fencing club I'm with. It is the *only* fencing club for over an hour's drive in any direction, and by an amazing fluke it's about three miles from my house, and charges next to nothing (which is especially important because times are lean at the moment). Better yet, the coach is calm, cheerful, and encouraging, and the other fencers are fair-minded and there to have fun.

Now, here are the side effects referenced in the title of this post: even though the club only meets one night a week (BIG sad-face here), I am stronger, fitter, and fitter-*looking* than I've been since I tested for my second-degree black belt ten years ago (and to get ready for *that*, I was training three to four hours a day, six days a week). How can this be?

It's because I love fencing so, so, so, so much that I rejoice in the chances I have to go to the gym, ride my bike, walk for hours, swim -- it feels like they are all helping me be a better fencer, and that when I'm a better fencer, I'm more the person I want to be. Anything that contributes to fencing feeds my soul in a way I haven't found since I was training in my wonderful school back home. Heavens, I'm even eating more veggies and less junk food!

How does fencing make me more the person I want to be? It makes me more skilled, more observant, more capable, more compassionate (subject, perhaps, for another post: how do martial arts make someone *more* compassionate?), stronger, fitter, braver. All other aspects of my life are falling into line behind that process to reinforce and affirm it.