easy

I wrapped my ankle for two days, until I read on Dr. Google that compression diminishes circulation and circulation promotes healing. Then I unwrapped it and gingerly took my first steps outside the safety of the wrap, like a colt that is afraid that its legs won't hold it up. 

My ankle holds me up, and if I am a little more worried than usual about the risks of turning it at any given moment, well, I think that is only fair.

I bought a little wrap thing that billed itself as moderate support, for workouts, because I want to keep my ankle strong by forcing it to move, rather than putting it into one of those lace-up things that hold it stiff. 

Then I went off to fighting class.

I know.

My excuse is that I thought we were doing a belt test, and usually during belt tests we just watch while the person getting the belt rolls with everyone in the gym until the testee is exhausted and looks like he (they've all been hes so far, that I've seen) wants to die. I figured I could watch and baby my ankle at the same time.

Only there were so many people there that they sent the stand-up people to do stand-up (this included me) and the white and yellow belts BJJ people had class on the other mat and only the orange and up belts watched the rolling.

I wrapped my ankle in the little wrap thing and told myself I would take it easy.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

It's like I don't even know myself when it comes to fighting. Look, I am totally a person who knows how to chill. I can turn off work mode in an instant. I can spend entire weekend days lazing about. I can leave the bathroom uncleaned until I begin to worry that there might be new species evolving in there.

I cannot go half-in at fighting.

So I worked hard, and it was fantastic. My ankle held up. 

At the end, at the sparring time, one of the owners came over and sparred with us. This guy is tall, maybe 6'4" or so, and he has these incredibly long arms. He doesn't even bother to hold his gloves up near his face to protect it, he just sort of swings these lazy, looping punches that reach you only because his arms are so long. As they came in, I kept thinking there was no way, he was too far away, but then there they came.

I haven't sparred in months, and I've never sparred with someone with so much reach. I'm used to being able to hang back and just jab at people, because I have pretty long arms myself, but I was forced to cover up and move in close, where I could pummel him for a while. 

I only realized afterwards how nervous I had been. Sparring with someone so big is intimidating.