Scott-free

I don’t much like getting hurt. That should be obvious, but perhaps it isn’t. I do Jiu-Jitsu after all.

The list of worst things that have happened to my body while training would include a startlingly dislocated thumb, a badly damaged finger joint, an assortment of broken toes, an arm wrecked in an arm bar, and a buggered-up knee. Nothing worse than that, but even so it could have added up to my being a seriously hobbled-up old fellow if any of them had been even slightly worse.

I could have been forced to struggle with a crippled-up leg, and an arm of very limited usefulness, with fingers and toes that would be better suited on a wicked witch.

Should this scare me off?

What have I gained from Jiu-Jitsu that could possibly compensate?

Well, for one thing, my training may have saved my life.

No, I was never attacked by a drunken assailant or anything like that. I was, however, almost murdered by my bicycle.

It happened while riding down the big hill right next to our home. My lovely folding bike decided that it would be an appropriate time to use its unique skill, and my handle bars suddenly collapsed.

I don’t recall the exact sequence of the crash itself. I was probably going about 20kph, so there was’t much time involved between the instant recognition that I was going down, and for the rough landing to all have resolved itself.

I was on my back, on the road, and quite all right.

There was nothing more than a little bit of pavement burn. My helmet was intact, but had taken some impact. The question should be, how did I manage to face plant off of my self-collapsing bike, at relatively high speed, onto a roughly paved street, and end up safely on my back with no real injuries at all.

Clearly I had to have tucked my head to my chest and rolled over my worst injured body part, my shoulder. If I had not, it would have been a real face plant directly onto a rather unforgiving roadway.

I did what we do at Jiu-Jitsu, without conscious thought being involved, and it went well enough that I emerged intact.

Consider what happens to most people in my age category when they fall down in more normal circumstances. On that basis, one would have to consider it quite remarkable that I got off scott-free from my little incident.

If, in fact, my training is what saved my bacon, every minute of effort, and injury incurred on the mat, has been more than worthwhile. There were no broken teeth from my bike crash, nor a fractured skull, nor any snapped necks or backs, or even any seriously hooped up shoulders.

I wonder when I will fall again. Everybody falls every so often.

I fall more than most. In fact, last night alone, I must have hit the ground several dozen times. Of course, it was in a controlled and padded environment. Over the past year, I’ve probably gone down several thousand times, and since my training started the total has probably reached 20-30,000 floor impacts.

Jiu-Jitsu might have just saved my life, without any fighting being involved in any way.