Justin has held pads for me before, but today was the first day officially as part of this fitness challenge. Sometimes you can just tell people have been training a long time by the fluency of their movement. It might not be apparent right away (and if martial arts has taught me anything, it is to not judge a book by its cover), but you can usually tell within the first few seconds, or the first few combinations. It's kind of like jiu-jitsu; you might not know what someone's skill level is when you start rolling, but you get a sense for it pretty quickly, and you rise to meet them at that level. When two people are holding pads for each other and get that sense of mutual skill and respect, they start playing with the patterns and pacing, mixing things up. Justin is not a robotic pad holder; he will keep you on your toes, throw combos back at you, sidestep and make you miss, but only because he knows you can handle it. He always makes it fun, and will both figuratively push you harder, and maybe literally push you with a push kick.
