16 April 2011

damage

I fully intended to wear a skirt and heels for Work Thing Day 1 on Thursday, but on Wednesday night at fighting class I was running across the mat and caught my toe and jammed it, hard. I only managed not to fall flat down on my face because I was almost to the row of people waiting to run, and I grabbed at them and thus held myself up.

By the next morning, my toe was swollen and painful. This isn't the first time this has happened on the studio's mats, and I know that it takes a while before I can wear heels. I wore trousers, instead, and flats, against every rule I've read, but I didn't care. I was comfortable, thanks to the flats and some ibuprofen, and when I was in front of the crowd, I didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about any of it, including the fact that I was also wearing big earrings, against every rule I've read.

...

Between Work Thing Day 1 and Work Thing Day 2, I went to advanced fighting class, where we are still doing ground survival. I love ground survival. I especially love it when I get to work against someone who knows what they are doing and therefore does not damage me. I am instead the damager, unfortunately, due to clumsiness, but the experienced student went and got a mouth guard after about the fifth time I hit him in the mouth by accident, and then all was well.

I need to find a way to do more grappeling (I might actually have to take jiu jitsu at some point), because I love it when I work against a more experienced person and we actually grappel rather than just practicing the motions over and over. What I mean is that with the experienced people, if you pause for too long and they know you can handle it, they fight back instead of just lying there as a practice tool.

Most of the time, this devolves into me tucking my head and trying not to end up squashed like a bug, and it ends with me being squashed like a bug. It's so much fun. I just wish I were better at reacting with the correct response, immediately. I might get squashed less often and possibly even be the squasher on occasion. (The whole upper body strength factor in being a girl, though, and being shorter and lighter than these guys makes it likely that I will probably usually be the one who is squashed unless I actually do employ some of the shock and awe hits that we practice. We generally try not to actively hurt our practice partners.)

It doesn't hurt, the squashing, but I did notice, when I took off my suit jacket the next day, that I had bruises up and down my arms.

All that beating people up was the perfect stress reliever between two very stressful days.

No comments: