A Brief Update

Several days ago, I received one of the more painful blows of my martial arts career, which is to say one of the more painful blows of my life. While in a clench (a standing grapple, for the laypeople) with a young Thai fighter, I was thrown off balance by a skillful twist from my opponent, and I flew into the ropes. With agonizingly perfect timing, as I rebounded off the ropes, this young man (maybe 14 years old) jumped in the opposite direction with both hands around my head, and pulled himself forward to deliver a knee to my ribs. The whole situation, considering that he jumped, that he moved forward, that he had the necessary hand perfectly positioned, and that I was rebounding off the ropes directly into his strike combined to lend him double to triple the amount of force which he would have otherwise delivered. It was a complicated event, but it ended with a cracked rib for me.

I'm told that as far as these things go, I've come off rather well. It has hurt to breathe for a few days, but there are less painful positions, and I've been sticking to them pretty faithfully. My entire torso was wrapped with bandages, and I've been warned by the general manager here to stay out of the ring on pain of explusion for a significant period of time. All together, I should be able to train again in just a week or two, though I will probably be staying out of clench fighting for a bit longer than that. The only significant danger, I'm told, is in a repetition of the injury in the near future; in short, if a rib is barely cracked (like it is now), I stay in my room for a while, if a rib is broken, I go home. USA home.

I apologize for the brevity of this, and for my lack of updates on any other front, but it's something of a hassle to prop myself up like this, and I'll make a point to tell some real stories tomorrow. For now, I just thought I'd let everyone know.