Wounds of a Friend

The other day I was getting ready for work.  My routine is pretty simple in the mornings, so I tend not to think much while I move about the house.  I opened my safe and reached inside to grab a few of the things I usually wear on my belt throughout the workday.  It was early, and I might not have been fully awake yet, but I realized that I had rotated my shoulder and body to a weird angle so that I could grab my badge. 

I noticed the strange way I had twisted myself—cutting through the morning miasma just a little bit—and wondered why I wasn’t just reaching into my safe like a normal person.  A single moment of reflection quickly revealed a reason that I probably already knew.  My elbow was hurting and I was protecting it from pain.  I hadn’t even realized what I was doing, because I’m fairly accustomed to aches and pains.

It took a second for me to remember why my elbow hurt, but the memory wasn’t that far away.  It had happened just a couple of nights before.  It happened when I defended an armbar a little longer than I should have.  Or, maybe not, because I did eventually escape the armbar—it just took a toll.  Maybe it was worth it.  Maybe it wasn’t.

One of my other black belts did it to me.  He didn’t do it with malice.  He did it because that’s what he was supposed to do.  He’s a black belt like I am.  We’re not supposed to let each other off the hook when things get uncomfortable.  We both know how to respond when one of us taps.  When someone taps, we stop.  If they don’t tap, we don’t stop.

Sometimes we hurt each other.

That’s the nature of doing difficult life things in proximity to others.  Life happens fast and it happens in unexpected increments.  From time to time, it seems, we’re going to manage to do damage to one another.  That’s the nature of people in proximity to one another.

I hurt myself all the time, and it’s often as the result of the those I’m surrounded by.  I’ve been told I’m a sensitive guy.  I know I’m a sensitive guy.  Some would say that I’m overly sensitive.  Most of the time I agree. 

I know I’m sensitive, but I don’t know why.  It might be an ego or pride thing.  That’s abundantly possible.  I also carry the weight of emotional and spiritual scars.  They’re the result of past harms done to me and past harms done to others that I bore witness to.  My emotions are often out of sync, so I get my feelings hurt easily.

In a way I do it to myself.  I hurt my own feelings.  I just use other people to do it.

Occasionally, I get creative.  Or maybe I get desperate.  One inspires the other, I think.

I was in the middle of some hard training rounds.  One of my best friends was getting prepared for a major tournament, and it was a really big deal.  He was repping out intense work, and I was doing all I could to give him my best.  He was better than me, but it was still my responsibility to provide the most intense session I could.  That’s what was going to help him be better prepared.

We’d hit another crazy scramble—one of those cacophonies of movement and resistance that burned more calories than any treadmill ever could.  I’d come up on the short end of the exchange (like I often did with him), but not so much that I was out of the fight.  Our movement had landed me on my hands and knees in a turtle position with him attacking me in a wrestler’s head-and-arm.  We were actively fighting as I tried to stand and he insisted on flattening me to the floor.

It was a very physical exchange.

Somewhere amid all the motion, my gi had come loose.  I’d lost my belt and that left my kimono open and flapping about.  I felt his hand encircle my neck from the top down, grasping for a deep collar grip.  I’d been around the game long enough that I knew what he was looking for—he was trying for a loop choke.  To hit the loop choke would require that he wrap the collar of my own gi around my neck so he could use his body weight to apply pressure.  Done right, my collar would crush both my carotid arteries at the same time.

There was a quick moment—a moment when I knew what he was doing and that I needed to defend before it was too late—that I decided to get creative.  Just before my collar grew taut—while there was still space—I grabbed hold of my collar and pulled it over my chin.  He couldn’t choke me if my collar wasn’t on my neck.

He didn’t need to choke me, apparently.

He never hesitated in finishing the submission.  He tightened his grip and dove through, inverting his body to apply pressure in the right places, disregarding the precise position of my collar.  He might not have realized that the collar was wrapped around my chin, or he might not have cared.  He crashed through my defense and applied all his weight against my gi—and my chin.

My goal of avoiding the choke fulfilled itself instantly, but I immediately wished I had accepted the sweet release of unconsciousness.  That collar wrapped around my chin rather than my neck, and the pressure instead applied to my jaw, twisting my neck until it could turn no more.  And, even when my neck stopped turning, my jaw did not.

I could have sworn, in that moment, that my jaw twisted all the way around to my the opposing ear.

I tapped quickly, not from the choke but from the pain of a nearly (or fully) dislocated jaw.  He let go, just like he was supposed to, and I popped up from the floor.  I’m a dumb Army medic, and I thought I might be able to reset my own jaw if I acted quickly enough.  I grabbed my chin with both hands and did my best to adjust my jaw back into place.  It didn’t work.  It took me nearly two weeks before I could open my mouth wide enough to eat a cheeseburger.

I couldn’t be mad, though.  He hadn’t been trying to hurt me.  We had been training with a certain acceptance of risk.  He had done his technique right and I had done my defense wrong.  I had gotten hurt and getting hurt was my own fault.

I had done it to myself.

I’m not a perpetual victim.  I’m a victimizer, too.  I could tread down dark paths trying to remember everybody I’ve hurt along this journey.  I did a lot of damage with malice—in the past I’ve tried to cause injury, and I’ve frequently managed to succeed because I’m good at it.  I’ve also hurt a few without any intention of doing so.  I did it out of ignorance or inattention.  I’ve said things, done things, or ignored things that I never should have.  I should have been better in those moments, but I wasn’t.  I shouldn’t have done the harm I did, but I did.

I kind of hate that about me, if I’m honest.  I hate that I’ve hurt people.  I hate that I live in the minds of some and that the only thing they might remember is how I injured them.  I might not even remember them, but they definitely remember me.

I was more annoyed with my coach than I was with anything else.  I knew that he wanted me to be ready for this upcoming fight, but these rounds seemed excessive.  I was already exhausted, but he kept feeding me fresh training partners.  Every time I thought I was done he’d throw another one into the mix.

In theory, I was a better fighter than the sparring partners I was dealing with, but, after the 8^th, 9^th, or 10^th round caught up they were just as good as me.  I was dealing with mental and physical fatigue and I was also dealing with the frustration of a coach who simply wouldn’t relent.  I was almost angry.  This fight was still six weeks out and I had no idea why he decided we needed to put in this much effort tonight.

One of my sparring partners—a scrappy and eager aspiring fighter—had found a way to sneak inside of my punches and take me to the ground.  In retrospect, it was a solid technique.  He closed the distance and achieved the clinch in the very way I had taught him during all the classes he attended.

I still didn’t like it.  I was a little bit offended and I was physically spent.  I hit the mat hard, and I never had a chance to establish my guard.  He landed in full side-control and moved immediately into a mounted position.  He started to punch at me because he was supposed to punch at me.  Many of his punches found a home against my face.  The shock of the strikes inspired a burst of energy into me—I didn’t feel like getting hit anymore.  I bridged my hips, trapped an arm, and bridged my hips again—an almost textbook escape.  He rolled onto his back as I secured top position in his guard.

I could feel him looking to connect his feet and lock me in place, but I was a just enough ahead of his technique to styme the attempt.  I postured my hips and rose up.

That’s when the opportunity presented itself.

He expected me to punch at his face, so his hands had moved up and left his belly unprotected.  I had recently watched one of my favorite fighters finish a fight with a straight downward punch to the stomach.  It was as good a time to try new technique as any.

With a mixture of frustration and determination I lifted my elbow and drove my fist straight down into his navel, adding the weight of my body behind.  The punch snapped into target as well as any punch I had ever thrown in my life.  There was a moment—because there’s usually a moment with a body blow—before I watched his face contort and I knew the punch had landed exactly as it was designed.

I felt a sense of satisfaction at how well I had executed.  The timing had been perfect, the targeting even better.  Then I watched my teammate curl into a fetal ball as the pain arrived.  I heard a groan as he began to writhe.  I knew I was the one who had done that to him.

I didn’t feel good about it anymore.

I sincerely wrestled with that moment after I went home—I actually started wrestling with it on the way home.  I hurt a friend.  I hadn’t injured him.  The pain had been temporary and fleeting, but it had been significant. 

I couldn’t decide if I should have hurt him.  Was it a risk he accepted in the contract he never signed by being willing to spar with me?  Did he understand that I might have to hurt him so that I would be prepared to hurt my actual opponent in just a few weeks?  Combat sports contain a certain level of inherent risk, and there’s always a strong likelihood of pain.

But I hurt him on purpose, with a certain level of frustration and malice.  In some way that was inexcusable, but in another way, it was required.  My coaches often told me that I sparred too friendly.  I was too nice.  I needed to step up my intensity and add an aggressive edge to my technique.  I couldn’t decide if what I had done was right or if it was wrong.

But there was no better place for me to figure it out.

I’m not going to be able to escape life without doing damage to someone else—maybe a lot of someone elses.  I’m not going to escape without having damage done to me.  Life is a constant struggle and there’s always going to be damage.  I live in a fallen and fallible world, and I’m surrounded by fallen and fallible people—fallen and fallible like me.  I suppose I could go lock myself away in isolation where I can’t harm others and they can’t harm me.

I’ve tried that a few times.  I’m not built for it.  That’s not how I was made.  Existence outside of community is miserable.

Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. (Romans 12:4-5) 

There’s no way to escape unscathed.  It’s simply not possible.  I’m going to get hurt and I’m going to find a way to hurt others.  There’s going to be damage.  That’s the cost of living and that’s the price of relationship.

I live in proximity to other human beings.  I’m surrounded my them.  There are some personalities who clash with me.  Sometimes it feels like my overwhelming personality clashes with their underwhelming personality.  It’s not always my fault but sometimes it is.

I share life and community with hundreds of personalities, and sometimes some of them hurt me.  Sometimes I hurt some of them.  Sometimes I just hurt one of them, or maybe a couple ones of them.

I find allies—brothers and sisters—who share my vision and my purpose.  Together we set our collective gaze on an honorable ambition that we begin to move forward toward.  For a moment—for a brief and beautiful moment—we move together in unity.  But that unity requires painfully little time to degrade.

We begin to clash.  We begin to fail.  We begin to hurt one another.  There are times when our harm is executed with malice and forethought.  It’s leveraged as a weapon.  But there are also times when the injury is performed without thought—we would call it a mistake were it not so painful.

I know that I’m supposed to strive to live in harmony with my communities, but I’m not good at harmony.

The funny thing is that the people I share the strongest bonds with are the people I damage the most.  They’re the ones who hurt me the most too, sometimes in return and sometimes as a matter of course.  The deeper the connection the deeper the scars.

At times those wounds are necessary.  I deserve correction.  I need correction.  I do stupid things, I stay stupid things, and I don’t always realize the stupid things I’m saying and doing.

I need to be corrected.

Or maybe I need to correct others.  That’s honestly a hard one for me.  I’m only just learning how to make my pain known to others when they are the cause of it. I don’t know why, but for some reason, I tend to conceal my hurts.  It’s something I’ve always done.

I’m not good at these things.  I have hang-ups and I have wounds.  So, I struggle against the temptation to withdraw and isolate.  I fight the temptation to seek solitude. 

But where will I learn to be better if I remove myself from community?  It’s the only place I can practice and train.  I’m not going to be perfect, even though I often expect myself to be. 

I’m going to have to learn to forgive, and I’m going to have to learn to be forgiven.  That is the only way forward.  I can’t move progress by myself.  I need my community.

There is no better place to succeed than in community.  There is also no better place to fail.  It’s the place where failures fastest become success.

All bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice.  And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. (Ephesians 4:31-32) 

I had a really fun open mat the other night.  One of my young black belts approached me and asked if I wanted to do some sparring.

Of course I did.  I don’t say no to sparring.

Mere seconds after we started, another one of the black belts showed up.  We figured we would work him into our rounds.  It became the three of us alternating hard rounds in succession.

They’re both tough.  Obviously, they’re both younger than me.  One is bigger and the other is smaller.  One is terribly strong (far stronger than I) and the other is flexible and scrappy.  They’re both an absolute handful to deal with.  Sometimes I’m better than one of them, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been better than both of them.

And it made for some incredible rounds.

We were hammering through round after round, trading opponents every time the bell rang.  We were running at a high-octane pace, smashing each other with submission attempts and heavy pressure.  We were engineering desperate escapes and laughing at each other’s misery.

It was incredible fun.

It was the kind of fun that hurt.  I still have bruises.  So do they.  We were all sore for the days following.

It was beautiful.  It was beautiful because it made us all better.

So then, we must pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. (Romans 14:19)