Out of Order

This past Sunday after my morning Wing Chun class, I did like I sometimes do and stayed a bit longer at the dojo to do some stretching. Perhaps my body was not warmed up enough, perhaps it was poor conditioning, and/or perhaps I overworked my body doing certain drills in class, whatever the case, I ended up with a minor (very slight) soreness in my right hip after doing my usual hip-flexor stretch:

There were no other complications the rest of that day or night despite that minor soreness.

The next day I had my Monday evening jujutsu class. We didn't do anything unusual that night; some falling, lifting, rolling, etc. Nothing I hadn't done before. Throughout the class though I did feel the soreness in my right hip a little more acutely but nothing that alarmed me.

I went to bed that night at my usual time. I remember not sleeping very well. My right hip area felt cramped and I couldn't lay my leg flat. I was sorta in and out of sleep the whole night. Things went from a minor soreness to a swelling pain overnight.

When I woke up the next morning I realized I could barely move. It wasn't like a sharp pain or anything, it just felt like a really bad bruise or an extreme cramp. I texted my friend telling him that I had to cancel our plans to hang out that day because I couldn't get up. Fortunately since we live in the same apartment complex, he came up to my room and helped me out. It wasn't until the evening of that day that my friend finally convinced me to go to the hospital. I didn't think it was that serious to go despite the fact that it felt as though my ability to move had become much more difficult since that morning. He drove me to the ER and to make a long story short, we stayed there for about 5 hours.They took some x-rays, drained some blood, got my urine, did an ultrasound to look at my bones, etc. What the physicians on duty figured out was that I had torn my muscle and there was some internal bleeding which is what was contributing to the pain. They gave me crutches, a prescription for some Vicadin and advised me to stay away from the dojo for about a month or longer to fully recover.

It's been a couple days since that trip to the ER and I'm feeling much better. I can even walk around my room without my crutches, albeit with a hobble in my step. I'm kinda surprised at how I feel actually. I'm certainly not going to risk going back to training any sooner than necessary. But it's just funny how I went from being basically helpless a couple days ago to now being able to make my own meals. And don't even get me started on how difficult it was to sit on the toilet! WHEW! That was a mini-ordeal.

This is the first time in my life that I've done any serious injury to my body. I hope it's the last (or at least a rare future occurrence). All I could remember thinking as I lay there in the ER hospital bed waiting for the physician to check on me was the words of my Sensei:

All you have is your health.

That may sound pretty obvious to some people, but for lots of reasons it's not always apparent. People wanna learn how to fight, how to hurt, how to maim, how to injure or how to kill. Guys especially wanna be the one who is toughest, who hits hardest, who stays in the fight longest. What's so hilarious and serious to me is how fragile we are as human beings. Hilarious because we think our training makes us tough and yet the smallest paper cut, the slightest speck in your eye, the littlest splinter in your foot can make you irritated with pain. Knowing how to hurt someone, but also how to heal someone, including yourself (whether physically, mentally, or spiritually) seems to me the necessary paradoxical task of the authentic martial artist. IMHO.

Elbow SMASH!
- Hiji Até