Jan17

Betsy goes back to Jiu-Jitsu aaaaaaaaannnddd you can probably guess what happened next.

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Betsy goes back to Jiu-Jitsu aaaaaaaaannnddd you can probably guess what happened next.

Okay, so I did that free seminar thing with Sensei back in November, right? And we snagged coupons for two free weeks of class, making plans to use them this month. I eagerly awaited our first class, last night at 8p.m., a time that seemed far too late. I kept watching the clock, trying to find ways to fill the time.

This is taking forever. What should I do? Wash dishes or something?!

Don’t worry, I didn’t stoop that low.

Finally, the hour drew near. Once again I perceived the heavenly choir of angels as I pulled my plastic-wrapped gi from the back of the closet.

Throwback to Little Dude wearing my gi top in July 2022.

It was almost surreal to bid farewell to my family as I went off to war. Or, just, you know, to a martial arts class.

Anyway, the Master Cycle class for the upper belts was still in progress when I arrived, many familiar faces among the students. One saw me, waved, trotted off the mat to give me a sweaty hug and catch up for a bit. I congratulated him, and later several others of my old comrades, for not only getting their Combatives belts but for being already on to blue belts.

These were people who were once behind me in class. “I should be in this class,” I thought ruefully. But such is life.

Once Master Cycle ended, other old friends clustered around me, asked how my lower extremities were doing, said it was good to see me back, etc.

Some I hadn’t seen at the November seminar, like “Jack the Black Belt,” who, never one to be too chatty, merely touched my arm, gave me a nod and a “Hey,” as he passed me for the door.

Also, “Lopez,” whom I introduced to Sensei as the one who was so helpful and patient with me when I was new and terrible.

“We all start out that way,” he said kindly. Classic Lopez.

I remarked to my favorites, “Thoughtful One” and “The Lawyer,” that of all the things on the schedule for that night, the first technique we’d be doing on my first class back was double-leg takedown, the very move that grounded me over a year ago.

This is not a double-leg takedown, but definitely something I’d love to try. Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.com

“What are the odds?” I said to them.

“It’s good to get it over with first,” Thoughtful One said.

“Face your fears head on,” The Lawyer agreed.

Then I was distracted by his Gracie Jiu-Jitsu sweatshirt. “I didn’t know there were sweatshirts now. That’s cool.”

“I like wearing this,” he said, “because if I’m out in my gi pants, I don’t want people to think I do something wussy like karate.”

“It’s a good thing you said karate because I do Taekwondo,” I told him with mock sternness. He smiled. That’s when I remembered Sensei and what we were there for. I turned to where he was still chatting it up with Lopez, grabbed his arm, said, “Let’s go,” and practically danced onto the mat.

“Nice meeting you,” I heard him say to Lopez. I realized later that I hadn’t said goodbye to the others, but hopefully they saw my excitement to get started and understood.

Now on to class. Wouldn’t it be great if I could say I was amazing, like no time had passed at all? But, no. Surfer Dude had to correct my foot positioning, Instructor–my hand placement, and then later, toward the end of class, he asked, “Did you play for the NFL?” after I plowed Sensei to the ground with little to no finesse.

“No,” I answered sincerely as though that hadn’t been a rhetorical question because I’m an idiot. Then I tilted my chin down and looked up at him sheepishly. “I just got excited, I guess.”

“That’s good. I love your enthusiasm. I’m glad you’re excited.”

This is probably how he talks to his students in the kids’ class.

Kids, doing whatever this is, probably better than I would. Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Instructor did the moves with me so he could show me the proper technique. I got the second half right, at least. I’ll give myself a bit of a pass for the parts that had changed from the way I had learned them. Still, I was rather embarrassed.

I then stood to the side while he worked with Sensei. That’s when I happened to look down at my toe. I’m not sure why. I don’t remember feeling anything, so maybe I just happened to notice, but it was bleeding.

I hobbled quickly to the other side of the room where my bag was, knowing there was a Band-Aid in there somewhere. I found a tissue first and wrapped that around my toe. There was a lot of blood. Upon further inspection I found that the right side of my toenail was completely detached. I’m not sure how far off the skin it had come, maybe halfway, but I was more concerned with stopping the bleeding and finding that pesky Band-Aid, wondering if one would even be enough.

That’s when class ended and everyone lined up on the wall, except for me, with my foot on the bench, bandaging my toe in full view of everyone.

So that was fun. But, oh, my friends, it got better.

Instructor glanced down at the mat. “Uh, there’s some blood on the floor, so when we all walk to fist bump each other, just be careful not to step in the blood.” He looked across the mat, finding more drops and pointing them out. “Yeah, just be careful where you’re walking to avoid the blood.”

Awesome.

Once the mat cleared of students, I joined Surfer Dude who was staring down at the spots. “That’s some nice blood,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Really good looking blood.”

“That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” I told him, then helped him clean it up.

People needing to avoid stepping on my blood was one thing. Stinking it up was far more embarrassing, though. I’m kind of not sure if this is for me anymore. As excited as I was to get back into it, perhaps bolstered by Instructor’s texts prior to this, including one saying, “We need to get you tested and into Master Cycle!” I’m just not sure.

The now-laughable propensity for me to hurt myself … at least my ankle was fine. I wore a brace … and my general disappointment that despite what Surfer Dude kindly said after that free seminar, maybe I don’t “still got it.”

Me and the foot pictures, right?? I did take pics of the pre-bandaged damage, but it was really too gross to show you. My options at home to replace my well-used Band-Aid were more Band-Aids of the same size, which might prove inadequate during the night, or some gauze and tape. Overkill it is!

And maybe partnering with Sensei is a bad idea because I may have been more focused on beating the stuffing out of him than I was doing the move properly. Figures Instructor was watching when that happened. He also observed me punching Sensei’s arm and said, “Don’t punch him,” looking truly concerned because he is the most pacifist martial artist on the planet.

Thankfully, later Sensei said something characteristically rude to me, which I wish I could remember. “Ohhh, now I understand the jabs,” Instructor said, while making a quick little punch motion. “I get it now.”

Phew. Instructor does not do sarcasm. I’m glad Sensei was being himself, so Instructor knows I’m not just a bully. When in doubt, Sensei had it coming. Also, Sensei said he had fun. He caught on far quicker than I did when I was new. (Suuuuuuchhh a jerk.)

I’ll keep you updated on how this is going.

Hopefully there’ll be less blood next time.

And, a quick check to the miscellaneous picture folder shows a total of 149 items. If you were close with your guess, pat yourself on the back. Carefully. Don’t be like me. 🙂

 

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68 responses »

  1. Coming back after a long break is almost always difficult. You’re dealing with overcoming inertia, memory loss, muscle memory loss, and especially memory loss.
    My wife and I have this thing we do, and I think it applies here, where we try something three times before we make any final decisions on something.

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  5. My older son does this badass Jiu-Jitsu stuff in Portugal but when he started he didn’t speak the language and now I’m thinking that must be why he learned so fast! Survival. You do know they fight until someone taps out? Or passes out? Or breaks something in your case. It’s brutal. And have you given any thought about how you’re going to high tea with half your fingers broken? No, you didn’t, did you? And now your toenail is falling off so you can forget about those stilettos you were going to wear on date night. It’s a risky choice but the outfits are so charming. I prefer yoga myself, with adorable loungewear, and soft mats for resting, but I admit, I did get bit by a mosquito while I was taking the form of a pretzel once. It happens. And I missed the miscellaneous pics by a hundred. Did you count right? Love your posts Betsy, and maybe smack Sensei on the sly next time. Hugs, C

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    • Cheryl, you’re a riot. And high tea sounds rather nice. I did something like that once (all fingers fully intact), and it was delightful. I’ll picture delicate china cups and saucers in my mind before I get too crazy.
      Stilettos? Pfft. Sounds like I need to hang out with you more!
      A pretzel in yoga. We get into pretzel position in Jiu-Jitsu, too, Cheryl, only it’s generally against our will. No mosquitos involved, to the best of my knowledge. 🙂

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  9. You are jinxed in that class, that’s for sure. But if not that, what? I got a Winkler dagger for my birthday (that thing is amazing) and am thinking of looking for a class to learn to use it. Maybe you could get into knives, or bow-and-arrow?

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    • There’s something about the physical and mental challenge of it that I love. It forces me to block out everything else in my life, take a break from it, and just focus on this one task at hand. I’ve heard a couple other JJ guys say it’s like therapy, and I get that. But, for sure, at some point I should start acting my age and take up knitting, or something. Feeling jinxed is right. How many clues does the universe need to send me to say, “This isn’t for you”?

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  10. Thank you for not posting the unbandaged toe photo.

    “How are your lower extremities?” sounds like a very bad pickup line. Or a very good one if you’ve got that sort of confidence!

    Maybe you should take up a tamer sport. Might I suggest bullfighting?

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  11. You might want to pack some Hydrogen peroxide in workout bag – it’s great for removing bloodstains … especially from fabric like a gi. Hydrogen peroxide is also a great general disinfectant for cleaning up the floor. Just mix it in some water and it will clean and disinfect before anyone notices the biohazard on the floor. Maybe they should have some of those little traffic orange cones they could put around blood spills until someone can clean the area. Like the ones they sometimes use for wet floors, but instead of saying, “Wet floor” they could say something like, “Guess who’s blood this is?” or something helpful like that.

    No thinking about it, I’m a little surprised that there wasn’t a big bottle of Hydrogen peroxide with the first aid supplies … you should mention that to them …

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    • “Guess who’s blood this is?” This literally made me laugh out loud. I could imagine Instructor saying, “Guess who’s blood this is?” and the whole class intoning in a slow, bored tone, “Betsy’s.”

      They had a rather large industrial-like spray bottle on hand for just such occasions. I’ve seen it used for someone’s blood that actually WASN’T mine! 🙂 All good, Andrew. They’ve got it covered, thankfully.

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  14. Good grief! As my Dad used to say, “You are an accident waiting to happen.” Maybe you should consider a different sport? Like walking?

    I hope it heals quickly, but I do know that toe nail issues are not exactly speedy recoveries.

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    • So THIS is you. Who on earth was the anonymous commenter below then? I give up.

      I said to my husband the other night, “I may need to admit that I might be accident-prone.” Huh. Never really thought of myself as a klutz or anything, and yet, here we are!

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  16. Oh, I loved that you took us along to class with you! Hmm, does it help that the injuries keep getting smaller? I mean the second seemed less serious than the first and this seems less than the second. That’s probably not very helpful of me to be rating your injuries since you are the one getting hurt…

    But I love that you went back – no matter what you decide from here!

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  19. You know sitting still in a comfortable chair with a glass of wine, lifting and balancing the glass as you raise it to your lips, sipping, then putting it down again is good exercise. It allows you to avoid injuries whilst letting your mind float free from the cares of your day. Just saying… 😉

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  20. A thousand thank yous for sparing us the unbandaged foot photo. I always say I’m eyeball squeamish, but your post has reminded me just how finger/toenail squeamish I am as well.
    I have some unsolicited advice for you: how about taking up jigsaw puzzles or painting or knitting? Wait! Scratch that last one. Nothing with needles.

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  21. Assuming there is a “next time”, I couldn’t get past the choir of angels when you saw your gi (er, until you had to mention the toenail disaster – ewwww). I think you should have one of those double-door wardrobes for nothing but your gi, with inside lighting that progressses slowly from dark to bright just after you open the doors. The gi would rest perfectly on a single hanger, just beckoning you to wear it. If you manage all that pomp and circumstance, add the soundtrack of an angel choir while you’re at it. It may not always go great on the mat, but at least you’ll feel like Queen Betsy wearing your gi.

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    • OHMYGOSH! Hilarious. And I could totally picture what you were describing. Well done. If I had an endless income, I might have that built just so I could take a video of it. If I had mad skills, I could make fake a vid of it, but I don’t. Still, that was awesome, Dave. Thanks for that! 😛

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