Forgetting I’m not 17
Her: Can you imagine what George Washington would say right now?
Me: “What an asshole?”
Her: Exactly.
A good buddy of mine hurt his leg the other day doing a harai goshi and sent me a video of it.
Fast-forward to earlier this week and the kid tried the same throw and almost broke his leg.
Him: Why are you mad at me?!
Me: I’m not mad at you, kid. I’m worried you’re gonna break your leg!
Both the body and mind grow through adversity.
This fella named Arthur Golden once said, Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.
Wanna give the boy enough stress to make him better, but not so much so as to make him worse.
On that note, I just went to my local urgent care office – again – because I thought I fractured my wrist in jits the other day.
Doctor: What happened?
Me: Essentially, I forgot that I’m 51 and not 17.
Him: (nodding) Ah…we get that a lot here.
Me: Yup.
Turns out that I didn’t have any broken bones, just a particularly bad strain.
The weirdest part was that no “event” happened – I just walked off the mat at the end and could barely move my wrist.
Not much to do but rest it up and hope it heals quickly.
I still have a small handful of kali students that I train over Zoom.
One of them is a doctor from Pittsburg that was in town the other day visiting his sister, who just happens to also live on the UWS.
So, we met up for a really brief bit to have a cuppa joe.
Me: It’s crazy when I think about it. My great grandmother was so poor that she sold her only child – my grandmother – to another family because she couldn’t afford to support her. She died not soon afterward. And here I am, an ivy league educated lawyer living in Manhattan. Nuts.
Him: Surprising how much similar history [we have] being second generation children of immigrants.
Me: Yeah. I wish my dad was still alive so I could tell him that I’m so sorry for being such an asshole when I was a teenager.
Location: yesterday, the waiting room of my local urgent care office
Mood: discomforted
Music: Sticks and stones won’t break our bones (Spotify)
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