symbiotic relationships

A couple years ago, my cousins took their (then) 2 kids to Kenya for a medical missions trip (he is a doctor, she used to be a teacher). When they came back, their older daughter, Sammy (then 5) was really excited to tell me all about their trip.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised since she's a pretty bright kid, but I was floored when she busted out the definition of a symbiotic relationship. "See eemoh, it's like when the hippos are in the waaaater, and the birds sit on their heads and pick out the foooood that's stuck in their teeeeeth" (On a side note - what is it about little kids that lengthen the vowels of certain words? And what makes that super-cute when they're little and really annoying when grown-ups do it?)

I think when I was learning about symbiotic relationships as a kid, books would give a similar example. birds = hippo floss. But how real is that, when you're looking at cartoon pictures of animals that you'd never see in real life?

So this weekend at the retreat, I had to keep to the training schedule and work out in the afternoon on Sat. After some paddles with Shauna (thanks Shauna!), I had to find someone who'd be willing to hold the turtle (pad) for me so I could kick out hard (ie. a guy). To my grateful surprise, several of the brothers were quite supportive...and almost a little too excited to be helpful and get kicked. ("Hey! You gotta try this! Let her kick you!")

I found it kind of amusing, because it was such a testosterony thing. Like, how many hits can you take before you admit it hurts. It actually got to the point where they exhausted me from kicking so much, I was like a monkey at a zoo.

So after a few different guys went through the line (man, Young was a freaking wall - I couldn't move him at all), they managed to goad Jooho into holding.

It's usually pretty hard to teach someone how to hold properly for moving drills, since usually you need people who know how to kick well, themselves to understand distance and timing. In general, I was trying to stick to stationary drills so all my partner would have to do is take the hit. However, Jooho decided to goad me about not kicking hard enough, and he's a pretty solid guy, so I thought it was an opportune time to work on jumping back kicks.

"OK, so you hold the pad like this, make sure it stays flush, and you're just going to run at me and try to mow me over"

Man, it was like giving a kid candy - the look on his face was totally priceless. If a person could rev up to do a drill...that's what he did. But it was actually really helpful to force myself to be on my toes (literally), since he's bigger and faster than any girl I'd be fighting. So he'd basically run at me and I'd try to kick as hard as I could to stop him (and he's faster than he looks, so momentum = mv was not in my favor).

The funny thing, though, is that he really seemed to like it. He said it felt good to get hit - cathartic, as he put it. Which I find ironic, because I find it cathartic to hit the pads hard.

I think I get it now. Jooho and I have a symbiotic relationship.