Awhile back, a friend told me that she’d be getting away from firearms training and that she would no longer be attending her martial arts school. “I just feel like it’s time to nurture the feminine side of myself,” she said, “and guns just don’t play into that.” For her, self-defense felt like a masculine concern, and she was tired of being treated like one of the guys all the time.

Although that’s not the way I roll, I understood what my friend meant. There have certainly been days I walked off the range hot, tired and sweaty, wearing grimy clothes, covered with range dust and feeling anything but feminine. Ugh.

And yet… There have been far more days when I’ve walked off the range hot, tired and sweaty, wearing grimy clothes, covered with range dust and wearing a great big smile because I’d had a blast and did what I set out to do.

There have been many days when I’ve worked with students who struggled all morning, who sagged through the afternoon, and who couldn’t thank me enough at the end of the day—because they felt good, almost euphoric, when they realized what they had learned and when they looked at how far they’d come in a single day of hard work. It’s an amazing feeling, and it lasts for a lifetime.

Isn’t that wonderful feeling worth a little discomfort, a little sweat, a little effort? I think it is!