I am superstitious. I am afraid to say the sentence I wanted to use as my opening sentence. But I'm going to try to be practical about it and just walk under the doggone ladder…
Nope, never mind…can't do it…too superstitious…can't bring myself to write it, so instead, I'll say "In life, pain is inevitable" (I don't know to whom I should credit that quote, but it was someone wise.)
Aches - ah yes. I've had my share of painful but non-threatening injuries in the short year I've been involved in martial arts. If you count shear pain from punishing muscles you didn’t' know existed in the warm-up/work out before class, then I could be called a veteran. One of our senseis is known for her killer ab exercises. We all cringe when she tells us she's all excited about a new ab video she received the week prior to class. (We actually considered trying to bribe her UPS man into not delivering any packages that look to be the size of a VHS tape or DVD.) And I still talk about the time, not that long ago, that we did 3 sets of ten deep knee bends. No big deal, right? That's what I thought too. On the last ten, we sprang up to jumping from the lowest knee position. OUCH! And the soreness I had right after those 30 deep knee bends was cake compared to how the thigh muscles directly above my knee felt for the next two days. It was excruciating. Truly painful. That was the day before July 4th. I know this because we went to our community center to watch fireworks and could not get a parking spot close to where we were going to sit with friends. So, we did the stairs. Heading back to the car, I dreaded going back up the steps, but figured if I held onto the hand rail and went up very slowly, one shaky leg at a time, I'd get to the top before my son had to be back at school in August. When I reached about the 3rd step from the top, I came face-to-face with two girls younger than me (trust me…it matters) carrying a cooler the size of a footlocker. As they stared me down, they shifted the weight of the cooler, waiting for me to move over. I glared right back. I wasn’t budging from that handrail. If life had a soundtrack, "High Plains Drifter" would have been the background music for that moment. I finally shot them a pitiful, pleading glare, looking for an ounce of sympathy for my situation. And it worked - either out of sheer pity or utter frustration on their part, the two girls relented. They moved over and lugged the big, heavy box down the middle of the stairs. Ah, victory. I finally made it to the top of the steps and then realized I had to walk another quarter of a mile to the car.
So, that was the aches. Now the pains from actual injuries. If you read the blog when I first started, I talked about "Walking the Gauntlet" in the post where I admitted that sparring intimidated me. I don’t think I mentioned that I was hit twice that night. Both were accidents, of course. The first, a roundhouse to one of my "girls". Dead center and hard. The person knew he had made contact, but had no idea as to where. He asked if I was okay. I said yes in the female equivalent of a guy's high pitched voice after being kicked in the groin. I turned away for a second and regained my composure. Like the deodorant ads always say, "Never let them see you sweat." (Well, they see me sweat a lot, but I was determined I was not going to let this get me down.) I have a pretty high pain threshold and I did okay. When it was my turn to walk the gauntlet, I was headed down the "aisle" of attackers on both sides, when all of a sudden, I saw a white light and some stars and a couple of those cute little canaries circling around my head. All joking aside, I saw a flash of white and realized that an overzealous teen student known for his impulsiveness had accidentally punched me in the nose. He apologized and then went on to anxiously lie-in-wait for his next victim. Nobody seemed to notice, and I brought no blood back on my hand when I checked my nostrils, so I just "shook it off" and "laughed it off". I was okay after being punched in the nose, hard, by a guy about a foot taller than me, or more (again, trust me - it matters).
Take it from me - If you own shin guards, wear them! If you do not own shin guards, GET THEM! I had not used shin guards for the first few times I sparred. Then when Sensei placed an order, I decided to get a pair upon the recommendation of, well, EVERYONE. I received them when the order came in, but we were not sparring that night so didn't need them. About 2 weeks later, we had a few minutes left over of class and it was decided we would do some "light sparring" for the last few minutes.
"Oh, I don't need my shin guards for that little bit of time."
Famous last words. We started sparring with one person. The first person kicked me in the right shin. No biggie. I mean, it was not pleasant, but it was not all that painful. I did make a mental note to wear my shin guards next time we sparred regardless. After a few minutes, we were to move on to another sparring partner. I moved on to "Rose". Rose proceeded to wail on me. Not really. Just kidding - because I know she reads my blog! LOL! But she did kick me in the exact same spot as the previous sparring partner had - right shin. Okay, after I got up off the floor from the impact, crying and…just kidding again…time was pretty much up for the evening. Thank goodness, huh? As a result, my shin was not bruised the next day or even the next few days. But about 4 days later, a dark purple spot started to form. Over the course of the next 7 days or so, it spread like red Kool-Aid on a quicker-picker-upper. Just the slightest touch made me painfully aware of its presence. I even temporarily stopped indulging in what I'm told is a bad habit - crossing my legs. There is still a strange little knot on my shinbone there. But at least it doesn’t hurt anymore.
As that painful purple stain faded to yellow and then faded away altogether, a new one was born on my upper arm almost to the shoulder. In our pressure point / joint locks class on Tuesday nights, a partner and I were practicing trying to get out of a chokehold from the ground. Well, we started experimenting out of curiosity, "Well, what would happen if we did this instead?" The other responded, "I don't know. Let's try it." And we did. And I went over and all was well. Then we were curious what the other teams had come up with. We watched as another team worked out different solutions to the same problem. We asked if what we had been experimenting with would work. We tried to describe the movements in words, but we just couldn't articulate the fine points which made our way different from what the other couple was doing. We said we'd just show them. Well, with the whole class watching, my partner and I went through all the motions except we didn't stop short of her throwing me. I went right on over and landed on my left upper arm. For a split second, I thought it was broken. Then the pain eased up and became a deep ache in my upper arm. On the drive home, it still hurt, but nothing like upon impact. A week later and two days later (today), it is about the greenish tint of "Old Greg" (search YouTube if you don't know who "Old Greg" is, and have a Bailey's on me) and it hurts to sleep on my left side. But it gets less and less painful each day.
But you want to know the funny thing? It's weird, but I kind of wear my bruises like badges of honor. (Probably more like a blotches of stupidity, but I prefer the honor thing, if it's all the same to you.)
Nope, never mind…can't do it…too superstitious…can't bring myself to write it, so instead, I'll say "In life, pain is inevitable" (I don't know to whom I should credit that quote, but it was someone wise.)
Aches - ah yes. I've had my share of painful but non-threatening injuries in the short year I've been involved in martial arts. If you count shear pain from punishing muscles you didn’t' know existed in the warm-up/work out before class, then I could be called a veteran. One of our senseis is known for her killer ab exercises. We all cringe when she tells us she's all excited about a new ab video she received the week prior to class. (We actually considered trying to bribe her UPS man into not delivering any packages that look to be the size of a VHS tape or DVD.) And I still talk about the time, not that long ago, that we did 3 sets of ten deep knee bends. No big deal, right? That's what I thought too. On the last ten, we sprang up to jumping from the lowest knee position. OUCH! And the soreness I had right after those 30 deep knee bends was cake compared to how the thigh muscles directly above my knee felt for the next two days. It was excruciating. Truly painful. That was the day before July 4th. I know this because we went to our community center to watch fireworks and could not get a parking spot close to where we were going to sit with friends. So, we did the stairs. Heading back to the car, I dreaded going back up the steps, but figured if I held onto the hand rail and went up very slowly, one shaky leg at a time, I'd get to the top before my son had to be back at school in August. When I reached about the 3rd step from the top, I came face-to-face with two girls younger than me (trust me…it matters) carrying a cooler the size of a footlocker. As they stared me down, they shifted the weight of the cooler, waiting for me to move over. I glared right back. I wasn’t budging from that handrail. If life had a soundtrack, "High Plains Drifter" would have been the background music for that moment. I finally shot them a pitiful, pleading glare, looking for an ounce of sympathy for my situation. And it worked - either out of sheer pity or utter frustration on their part, the two girls relented. They moved over and lugged the big, heavy box down the middle of the stairs. Ah, victory. I finally made it to the top of the steps and then realized I had to walk another quarter of a mile to the car.
So, that was the aches. Now the pains from actual injuries. If you read the blog when I first started, I talked about "Walking the Gauntlet" in the post where I admitted that sparring intimidated me. I don’t think I mentioned that I was hit twice that night. Both were accidents, of course. The first, a roundhouse to one of my "girls". Dead center and hard. The person knew he had made contact, but had no idea as to where. He asked if I was okay. I said yes in the female equivalent of a guy's high pitched voice after being kicked in the groin. I turned away for a second and regained my composure. Like the deodorant ads always say, "Never let them see you sweat." (Well, they see me sweat a lot, but I was determined I was not going to let this get me down.) I have a pretty high pain threshold and I did okay. When it was my turn to walk the gauntlet, I was headed down the "aisle" of attackers on both sides, when all of a sudden, I saw a white light and some stars and a couple of those cute little canaries circling around my head. All joking aside, I saw a flash of white and realized that an overzealous teen student known for his impulsiveness had accidentally punched me in the nose. He apologized and then went on to anxiously lie-in-wait for his next victim. Nobody seemed to notice, and I brought no blood back on my hand when I checked my nostrils, so I just "shook it off" and "laughed it off". I was okay after being punched in the nose, hard, by a guy about a foot taller than me, or more (again, trust me - it matters).
Take it from me - If you own shin guards, wear them! If you do not own shin guards, GET THEM! I had not used shin guards for the first few times I sparred. Then when Sensei placed an order, I decided to get a pair upon the recommendation of, well, EVERYONE. I received them when the order came in, but we were not sparring that night so didn't need them. About 2 weeks later, we had a few minutes left over of class and it was decided we would do some "light sparring" for the last few minutes.
"Oh, I don't need my shin guards for that little bit of time."
Famous last words. We started sparring with one person. The first person kicked me in the right shin. No biggie. I mean, it was not pleasant, but it was not all that painful. I did make a mental note to wear my shin guards next time we sparred regardless. After a few minutes, we were to move on to another sparring partner. I moved on to "Rose". Rose proceeded to wail on me. Not really. Just kidding - because I know she reads my blog! LOL! But she did kick me in the exact same spot as the previous sparring partner had - right shin. Okay, after I got up off the floor from the impact, crying and…just kidding again…time was pretty much up for the evening. Thank goodness, huh? As a result, my shin was not bruised the next day or even the next few days. But about 4 days later, a dark purple spot started to form. Over the course of the next 7 days or so, it spread like red Kool-Aid on a quicker-picker-upper. Just the slightest touch made me painfully aware of its presence. I even temporarily stopped indulging in what I'm told is a bad habit - crossing my legs. There is still a strange little knot on my shinbone there. But at least it doesn’t hurt anymore.
As that painful purple stain faded to yellow and then faded away altogether, a new one was born on my upper arm almost to the shoulder. In our pressure point / joint locks class on Tuesday nights, a partner and I were practicing trying to get out of a chokehold from the ground. Well, we started experimenting out of curiosity, "Well, what would happen if we did this instead?" The other responded, "I don't know. Let's try it." And we did. And I went over and all was well. Then we were curious what the other teams had come up with. We watched as another team worked out different solutions to the same problem. We asked if what we had been experimenting with would work. We tried to describe the movements in words, but we just couldn't articulate the fine points which made our way different from what the other couple was doing. We said we'd just show them. Well, with the whole class watching, my partner and I went through all the motions except we didn't stop short of her throwing me. I went right on over and landed on my left upper arm. For a split second, I thought it was broken. Then the pain eased up and became a deep ache in my upper arm. On the drive home, it still hurt, but nothing like upon impact. A week later and two days later (today), it is about the greenish tint of "Old Greg" (search YouTube if you don't know who "Old Greg" is, and have a Bailey's on me) and it hurts to sleep on my left side. But it gets less and less painful each day.
But you want to know the funny thing? It's weird, but I kind of wear my bruises like badges of honor. (Probably more like a blotches of stupidity, but I prefer the honor thing, if it's all the same to you.)
