taking knocks in martial arts: hard cross to the head: bang, ouch - nice shot, carry on a sharp roundhouse to the thigh or ribs - oof, thats going to have a mark tomorrow - nice shot, think I can carry on. shot in the stomach - ow! breath, ok, think we're good, lets go again. finish up - go home, open the cupboard onto your toe - ARRRRRGGGGGH!!! Then end of the world, completely debilitated - unleash you expletive vocabulary, hobble around for the next 30 minutes swearing.
Oh, what a day! I hope you will be fine. ...and, hm, you wrote previously how you are always looking forward to sparring classes, right? I perfectly understand, though. Not too long ago, I kicked furniture with my little toe right after getting up. I didn't want to wake my boyfriend up, so I used my expletive vocabulary in a low voice (still woke him with all the hopping and swearing) and left the room, going about the usual business after a while. I went to the bathroom and then back and suddenly saw a very prominent bloody trail from the bedroom to the kitchen, then to the bathroom. I slowly opened the bedroom door and saw there was blood everywhere and I just didn't notice before XD What a morning!
The shots in in sparring are just how it goes, a little knock on the foot, I have no idea why it hurts so much more! My toe is red and swollen, but doesn't seem to be broken.
I was planning a gradual return to competitive sparring but my neurologist has advised against it due to my CRPS (a chronic pain syndrome which is under control but severe flare-ups can be triggered by impacts). A few years ago I would have stubbornly refused to listen to him, but these days I have things in my life that are more important than a shiny medal. Thankfully, TKD is a multi-event sport so I can at least still compete in patterns if I want to.
Random minor epiphany of great "neat!" value but at best probably dubious usefulness: Because the hinge of the elbow joint is not at the tip of the elbow, flexing said joint makes the tip of the elbow protrude further as it swings around the joint axis, which then factors into the structure that supports an elbow strike (see Goju-ryu, Bajiquan, etc with the elbowing motion started from a straight arm) *crawls back under his rock*
Bordered a nervous breakdown roughly 90 minutes ago; can't really calm down - and lost my phone in my teachers car, so I can't even do something about it, by accosting my former teacher (another one). Awesome.
Kipchoge wins the London marathon again, 2h4mins in this heat! (Mo Farah winning a British record at 2h6) Running at about 4'22" min/mi pace over 26.2 miles always fascinates me how elite these people are, when I've never met anyone who could run close to that pace for half a mile.
6 hours of training today, 5.5 of which were MA related. Got absolutely annihilated by a visiting 17 year old blue belt in the gi, which was actually quite fun
Just played the MP (co-op) of U4. Never got that close, so far, to defeating the Warlord of El Dorado - with two boys, who probably were about 10. And I mean that. 10. Their voices hadn't broken yet, they giggled a lot - but the played decent enough, didn't take it too serious as some grown-ups do and had fun, while we got our behinds handed over to us (I probably was more frustrated at times than they were!). But they could curse at times And the next minute you here one saying: "He burned my penis. He burned me, just where my penis would be!" (laughing; no cursing what so ever.) Kids can be awesome. And weird.
Kids in training getting weird too. Last week a new kid came to me, complaining: "The boy with the brown face has..." I needed a couple of seconds to figure out, whom he was even talking about (not that dark of a skin tone) and if the new kid was trying to be mean (I decided he wasn't; he was just being a little kid). And yesterday it continued: I was explaining the key points of two holds. When I was done I asked if there any more questions to them. An 8-year old raised his hand and went: Why do you have hairs on your legs, despite being a girl? I swear to whatever: That was neither a question I had in mind, nor one I expected.
Does anyone else have weird moments sometimes where it's like you have an epiphany, or an extended sense of awareness about a simple thing and it seems surreal and doesn't really fit the definition of what an epiphany or extended sense of awareness means? I was taking a shower and I'm reaching down to wash my legs and my mind is just like, "You are an adult in your species." And then everything that this means from a fully developed immune system to cell breakdown seems to just cram itself into one brief moment. Seriously, does anyone else experience stuff like this or have I been dinged on the head a few too many times?
One thing that has struck me recently, when driving alone and thinking about politics and the world views people have....is how accidental and random success and failure in life are. How there are so many links and coincidences and serendipitous moments (or unlucky moments) that can influence where a person ends up. No one is actually in control. A leads to B which leads to C and so on but everyone is leading their own A to Z life that are simultaneously influencing every one else's A-Z life. The choices other people make influence the choices you get to make. Free will does not exist. We are all playing a "choose your own adventure" where we are presented with choices but no real freedom. Personal success, even if seemingly "self made", is an illusion. It is built on chance and randomness. Not just in your life but in other people's lives. And if personal success is an illusion then so, to some degree, is personal failure. Just random or influenced in a different direction. I started to unpick my life from now going backwards...there are so many chance meetings, opportunities and events that wouldn't have happened if not for previous chance meetings, opportunities and events that where I am today is a happy accident. I made the most of those chance meetings, opportunities and events (there is some freedom) but in many cases they fell into my lap through no work or volition on my part. I can trace my current moment in life back to my parents divorcing (or any number of other events). If they stuck at it for a couple more years or stayed together I wouldn't have met my best mate Kirk when I changed primary schools when they broke up. Kirk's Dad was into war-games and miniatures and I fell in love with that hobby the first time I saw it at his house. This meant that when Games Workshop advertised for illustrators 15 years later I was in a position to get that job. That meant I ended up in Nottingham. That meant I ended up meeting the person that got me into the computer games industry. Even meeting that person was the result of the martial arts training I decided to do. If I trained at a different club or waited 6 more months before leaving TKD for something else I never would have met him. Hell...if I never bought a particular issue of Korean Combat arts magazine and saw my old instructor I wouldn't be where I am today. If I got into Uni the first time of trying I wouldn't have met my wife. My children, in their current form, wouldn't exist. And if my life is like that then everyone's life is like that. From Donald Trump right down to a baby that dies after it's first breath because sperm 13472637546 is what reached the egg and not sperm 13472637547. When I start to un-pick the web of influences and chance events of my life I feel very small indeed.
