Guess who’s limping again?

Okay, even I admit this is getting ridiculous.

In Taekwondo, we were doing jump spin crescent kicks. Sounds cool, doesn’t? Looks cool, too.

When Sensei does it. When I do it, I look like I’m having a mid-air seizure.

But I land on my toes.

Not in a graceful ballerina way, but in a, “Crunch. There go my toes,” way.

One particular toe clearly took the brunt of it. The pinky toe is like, “Thanks, brah.” Purple toe: “No prob. You took the hit last time.” Pinky: “Chah right I did!” Purple: “Total bummer, dude.” Pinky: “For suuuuure.”

No idea why my toes are 90’s male stoners.

Aside from the above, I had planned to stop posting bruise pics, but I was oddly excited to discover not a bruise, but a bump!

An actual, genuine bump! I do remember my arm hurting during Jiu-Jitsu, but don’t know exactly what happened to it.

This did eventually turn into a delightfully colorful bruise.

Now I get to say I’ve gotten BUMP and bruises in martial arts. Though I much prefer what one commenter called them: training marks–sort of like “beauty marks” but tougher!

Why, oh why, do I do this to myself, some of you are asking.

Here’s why:

In the last self defense class of the school year (a free class my male counterpart and I do for middle and high schoolers), I made a point of reviewing the most likely scenarios the girls could encounter: someone trying to push you, someone trying to pull you, being dragged by your ankles, wrist grabs, chokes from behind, chokes from the front, chokes when you’re up against a wall, and the triangle choke at the end just for fun because someone wanted to see it.

One of the girls particularly excelled in this class and was the only one who came consistently. I texted her mom:

I hope the fabulous writer, Mike Allegra, who shakes his head and mutters nonsensically to himself at the sight of my bruises, will feel a little better now, too. This was his response to my “Rolling vs. Sparring” post:

Okay, maybe I added the part about him muttering nonsensically to himself.

If I take a few bumps to the head, that could be me.

Have a happy safe weekend, everyone!