Why Train?

Blogger Felicia of Bushido Road asked in a recent post, "Why do you train?" She focused on the self-defense aspect of training.

One of the surprising things I've realized in this stretch, where my torn ACL has interrupted my training, is that self defense has more of a role in my motivation than I realized.

I nominally took up martial arts as a form of self-health defense, so to speak--to get into shape in an enjoyable way and avoid the health problems I was beginning to experience (weight gain, high cholesterol, etc.) in my early 40s.

But I as I have contemplated the possibility that my injury could interfere on a long-term basis with training, my thoughts were focused more than I expected on how I would defend myself without the ability to use my leg as I was taught. Interesting--that's not what I expected to be thinking about.