A small group of us had traveled to North Carolina for an advanced martial arts seminar. It was only going to be a two day trip, arrive — stay the night — train the next day — return home. Normally when our group traveled it was a lot more of us and we stayed for a long three or four day weekend. I was lucky to be able to go, it was almost all instructors and just three students. Me (23) a purple belt at the time, a close friend of mine and a brown belt — lets call him James (24) — and a red belt woman — lets call her Michelle (39).
I had been training with them for a little more than year and was having a blast. Michelle was one of my favorite people to partner with because she was a complete badass and had a super fun personality on and off the dojo floor. She was a bit of a flirt, but I knew she was married with kids and I think she just liked to play around; I was sure it wasn’t serious flirting.