Sloan and Six Ninjas Walk Into A Bar...

Okay, that's not exactly true. It wasn't a bar. Sloan and Six Ninjas walked into a Noodles and Co. for dinner after a very exciting day at Megan and Barton Cutter's DisABLED Protection Workshop at the Reality Center. Yes, NINJAS. Really!

Sloan and I were excited about the workshop, but not really sure what we were going to do or how we were going to do any of the drills. We have known for a long time that Barton and Megan met by studying Martial Arts, but we had never seen them in action before either. (Other than one night at a bar during a Chris Hendricks Band show.:-) But Martial Arts and a wheelchair???? How does that work?

Throughout all of the many adventures Sloan and I have undertaken over these many years, including late nights at bars and clubs listening to music, traveling to different cities, or sometimes just going around Durham, I think I still had a feeling that we may be a vulnerable target for nefarious folks out and about, or that if someone did approach us my first instinct would be to pull Sloan out of the way away from any danger. We learned today that it is absolutely not true. Sloan's wheelchair IS his tool, OUR tool, for protecting ourselves. And he is my protector in a situation where we may be attacked. One simple and effective move with Sloan's wheelchair, where we work together as a unit, used in many different attack scenarios successfully banged up the shins and took the knees out of several ninjas this afternoon! As a "bad guy" approaches, we tilt the chair back, twist and swipe the knees with Sloan's foot plates, then run for a safe place. We have the ultimate element of surprise!! Who knew!???! After today, we definitely do not feel vulnerable anymore. I feel safe and protected by Sloan, and he feels very powerful learning a new way to protect himself and me. Bring it on Bad Guys. We dare you!!