Why SMAC?

To answer the questions as to “Why” I joined SMAC is simple and can be simply stated “because this was something my husband and I could do alone-together” An odd statement I understand coming from a stay-at-home mom with a husband whom works from home-when hes not traveling. As we so often get caught up in our child centric, home work and family stressed lives, you start to hunger to reaffirm that “hey-underneath all this crap we can still enjoy being with each other”

Choosing To-Shin Do to be that outlet wasn’t hard. My Husband Jason McDonald is a born and bred Bostonian. He grew up and lived in the Allston/Brighton area and several years ago stumbled upon Mark’s school. It was located right above a storefront his grandfather used to work for. He trained under Mark daily for three years before personal circumstances forced him to put his training on the back burner. For nearly eight years he lamented over not being able to train.

Just over a year ago we moved back to New England after a 4 year stay in Virginia. We were finally in a place physically and financially that made training again possible. He found Shinobi on line and was not only excited to see a school so near, but to see a familiar name attached-he had remembered training with Dennis at Mark’s school. When he asked me if I wanted to go with him to check out the school, I thought why not?  This could solve several curiosities, 1) I’d been hearing about the “ninja” stuff from Jay for SO long, I could FINALLY see what was up, 2) it could be something new to try-always up for that 3) it could be something the “adults” could do on our own-Yippee 4) if its jump started my way to a healthier me GREAT! There really was nothing to loose.

We met and talked with Darryl for our initial introduction. I was immediately struck by how friendly, and relaxed his personality was. He’s definitely an excellent ambassador for the dojo. My previous martial arts experience consisted of two years of Kenpo through our local area Rec center when I was 12 years old. A decent work out to be sure but not an overly fond experience. The atmosphere was very business like and rather cold you either “did” or “did not” with no middle ground, and we were heavily pressured to compete in tournaments. I left because competing held no appeal unless I was in a ruined castle on the Japanese coast surrounded by villagers and their little hand drums, at the same time being far to shy to be the center of attention.

In the first few minutes with Darryl l felt that, not only did To Shin-Do sounded interesting, but it sounded like it was something I could do. Competitions-out of the question, it was adaptable-anyone could do it-literally, the instructors (at least Darryl, having not yet met Dennis or Theresa) where approachable, and most importantly the other students looked like they where having FUN! All righty-I’m In.

“I’m in”..wow..two words. Two small, easy words. A year a go I certainly never would have comprehended what those two words would come to be. It did not take long before I realize this was not just a “martial arts” class. This was an addiction. The techniques we were learning where real, they where do-able and they were practical. This was applicable to the real world. The theory and concepts-heady stuff. I knew I wasn’t scratching the surface of understanding yet, but I wanted to. The students, a community both in and outside of the dojo. However, the most surprising was the longing and disappointment I felt in being unable to attend  classes. Wit in our first few months of starting, we had a few family trips pre-planned and an injury that caused us to miss several classes. It was frustrating, wondering what information we were missing? What else could we be learning? What else can I do?  I  understood for the first time Jason’s sorrowful lament on missing out on Marks classes for all those years. To say it was rare for me to feel this way towards anything “educational” before would be an understatement at best.  I wanted-WANTED to be at Shinobi. A year later, I still want to be at Shinobi and  I hope to be able to continue to be at Shinobi in the years to come. What’s more in a year we hope to start our son in the little ninja classes and bring him up in the community we love.

Heather McDonald SMAC student

Heather McDonald
SMAC Student