He caught her eye. That's my girl, he thought. He applauded her as well and gave her a little half-smile as she walked past him, amused by the look she gave him, as if to tell him to stop.
After that, they moved the group to an area with large, thick mats set up, and began the physical training. Heath was slightly disturbed to see that many of the women there lacked simple, basic upper body strength with absolutely no knowledge of how to throw a proper punch or manipulate their arms and legs properly. He knew it was going to be a long weekend.
By Sunday, he could tell that many of the participants had gone home from the first day to practice what they'd learned, and he couldn't hide a grin as he overheard stories of some of them trying out their moves on their poor, unsuspecting husbands. He was pleased that so many of them felt so empowered after only two hours of training the day before, and in that moment, he made up his mind to create a special series of classes geared toward women's self-defense tactics, and he planned to make this seminar a monthly occurrence. The more women he could help, the better.
Their final test was to "spar" individually with him, Connor, Rex, or Jameson. He and the rest of the guys donned heavy padded armor and face masks. Heath told them that they would be required to apply all of the tactics they learned over the weekend in this final fight. The object was to avoid getting taken down, but if they did, they had to show that they could get away, off the ground, and run away.
He knew it was intimidating for them to face-off, one by one, with a large man who had training they didn't possess, in front of everyone. He did that on purpose to try and stress them out and shake them up. It recreated, on a very small scale, the type of stress they would feel in a dangerous situation. He advised the women that while the men wouldn't be really hurting them, they weren't going to go easy on them either. The first match was between a woman in her early forties named Mal and Connor. He made sure the woman was ready, and then he looked at Connor and nodded.
Mal had barely any time to open her mouth to shout and say "no" as Heath had taught them. It was cheesy and cliché, but the harsh shout, as opposed to screaming for help, had shown in case studies to momentarily throw the assailant off track. There was a difference between a confident, harsh command and a scared scream. Heath bit his lip, biting back a grin, as the woman let out a startled grunt before Connor rushed her. He was proud when she collected herself, bellowed "No!" and then hit an angle against Connor's left shoulder. His older brother was thrown off balance as she swooped past him. She reached up to grab the back of his face mask and quickly brought his head down, kneeing him in the side of his padded suit hard. Connor let out a surprised groan before he grabbed Mal around her waist and then proceeded to take her down. Heath winced, but he appreciated the way that Mal kept kneeing Connor, even on the way down to the mat. Once there, Mal squirmed like mad underneath Connor, who was attempting to pin her arms. She managed to clock him with her elbow and duck underneath one arm, and then wiggle out of his grasp and run off.
The entire room exploded in applause, and Mal blushed, waving everyone off. Connor made a show of extravagantly bending to kiss her hand, and Heath clapped her on the shoulder as she walked past, blushing like mad but looking very pleased with herself.
The four men took turns testing the women. Overall, Heath was pleased to see that the vast majority of women applied most of the techniques they'd been taught. A few of them panicked when they laid eyes on their opponent, and seemed to forget everything. Heath intervened in these cases and helped walk them through their techniques to jar their memories. Once they shook themselves out of their nervousness, the women did fine.
By the end of the four hours, everyone was sweating, but the women seemed exuberant. He liked the way they supported each other despite the fact that many of them had been perfect strangers just yesterday morning. Now, they cheered each other on, clapped for each other, helped each other out. He announced at the end that they'd all "passed" and he had Rex and Jameson pass out personalized certificates of completion to each of the women. He told them he'd be starting up special self-defense classes and that anyone who was interested should write their email address down so he could send the schedule out once it was determined. Every single woman present signed up, promising to bring sisters, mothers, friends, neighbors.
Heath had decided to have the gym open only for the seminar that weekend. He'd announced via email and posters around the gym to his clients that due to the "special event" of the self-defense course, the gym wouldn't be open for business. Once the day was over, he'd been glad he'd made that call—he was thoroughly exhausted. When everyone had left the gym, he thought about doing some paperwork in his office to catch up a little for the following day, but he felt restless despite his tiredness. Instead, he sauntered through the gym, wrapping his hands as he went. A few rounds with the bag would be exactly what he needed to burn off the excess energy and allow him to unwind.