Negotiating like a Voss

I’m a big fan of the book, Never Split the Difference, by former FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss. I geared up to put his principles into practice: I was going to ask Sensei to let me catch up to my girls in Tae Kwon Do, despite my four-month absence and his seemingly strict testing rules.

Asking him to deviate from a system he’s been using for two decades for my sake was a big ask.

I planned my approach. I would start with a “no” question a la Voss, ie: “Would it be impossible for me to get caught up to my girls?”

The idea is, with that wording, he’d likely say, “No,” which is what I wanted.

Never Split the Difference, by negotiation-master Chris Voss

I had four points, Sensei’s possible counter-points, and my counter to those counters all ready to go, practicing them in my head for several days in advance.

When the night in question came, I prepped my girls to go directly to the van after class, so I could talk to Sensei alone.

My nerves ran high as Sensei and I meandered to the parking lot. I listened patiently as he talked about his parkour gym, finding people to video his jumps so he could analyze his technique, taking videos for others for the same reason, the open gym policy, the hours, the classes, exactly where the gym was located, that it might be near that one rock climbing gym…

Finally, he wound himself down. My heart pounding, I steadied and readied myself for the attack.

“So,” I began. “Do you think it would be possible for me to catch up with my girls?”

Darn it! That was not the “No” answer question I had so carefully prepped!

He responded immediately.

That guy again

Long-time readers know this person. Some may have read the title and known right away who this post would be about. (If you did, let me know in the comments. Now I’m curious.)

I was doing a free gym trial, figuring it would be a good way to rebuild leg muscle, when I ran into an old friend.

At long last, the face behind the legend. I’m surprised I got him to smile for you, but I suspect he enjoys an audience.

I hadn’t seen the Chex Mix Guy in more than a year. He was smaller than I remembered, in every way.

Gone was the cheerful, funny man who brought us twelve posts-worth of entertainment. Heartbreak had made him cynical, filled with career ambition and little else.

One thing I’ll note for my future self: When I told him about falling to the bottom in my martial arts classes, he said, “That gives you a goal to aim for. Work your way back to the top.” That was thoughtful of him.

When we were through catching up, he grabbed his phone to choose the next song for his air buds. I took two steps and turned back around.

“This is weird,” I said.

“What is?”

“This is the last time I will ever see or speak to you.”

Betsy gets the boot.

So here’s what happened:

On January 9, I finally saw a specialist about the Jiu-Jitsu accident that happened September 29. He took one look at my foot and said, “You’ve got Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, which can happen after a surgery or trauma.”

According to Wikipedia: “CRPS is any of several painful conditions that are characterized by a continuing regional pain that is seemingly disproportionate in time or degree to the usual course of any known trauma or other lesion.”

In other words, I developed a condition that means taking a stupidly long time to heal.

Figures.

He knew it on sight from the discoloration of my foot. Brace yourselves, I’m including a pic.

Your best blog comments and other sordid tales.

Actually, I’m iffy on the sordid tales part, but we’ll see where this post takes me.

Ally Bean sometimes shares reader comments in her posts, which I think is a great idea. I’ve never done it, but Andrew’s comment on my wheelchair post deserves a wider audience. In his hilarious “Friday Wisdom” style, he wrote:

“My brother is a long time wheelchair user and I’m an outstanding wheelchair wrangler so here are a few tips for a better life with a wheelchair:

• Get the foot rests. You can point them straight out and use your chair to ram things, doors, chairs, children, etc.
• Carpet your walls – this hides the damage better.
• Furniture is for people who don’t have wheelchairs – remove the pieces you don’t need.
• Upgrade your baseboards to stainless steel, you won’t have to repaint as often.
• Never let your husband push you when he’s mad at you. You’ll end up having your feet smashed into a door frame and will have to start the healing process all over again.
• There are wheelchair races and other sports to consider – the martial arts version is just to learn how to use the foot rest as a weapon (it’s easier than you think and why I have a slight limp in my left leg).
• Try going backwards in the chair. Then you can use your good leg to kick yourself down a hallway at high speed and if you crash, it won’t be feet first. [Editor’s note: so wise!]
• You do need more stickers and perhaps a flag. One of those bike flags is nice, but do something custom with it – maybe a Jiu Jitsu flag or one of your belts.
• And finally, laundry with a wheelchair is a snap, just put the laundry basket on your lap, point you back towards the laundry room and start kicking with your good foot. After you crash, you, the laundry and your chair will be right next to the washing machine.

If you need other tips, call me, I’m here for you.”

Andrew IS here for me when I need a good laugh. Thanks, Andrew!

And then there’s Barb from Grandma’s Ramblings, who shared some real life experience:

“Your wheelchair reminds me of when I was going through chemo. My husband got a wheelchair so he could take me to the mall and I could see the Christmas decorations (just too weak from chemo to walk a great distance.) We were coming out of the mall and my husband was hanging on tight to the wheelchair as we had to go down a slight incline. A grandmother with her little grandson (probably 7 or 8) were approaching as we were going down. The little boy looked at my husband and said, “Let go of her.” His grandmother immediately tried to hush him, but my husband and I had a good laugh.”

Ah, kids. Such little stinkers!

Okay, I do have a couple of “sordid” tales for you. First, this very rude Wordle:

One text to rule them all. Or so I thought.

To Sensei:

I’m just going to tell you this now so you’re prepared. I don’t want you to start crying and cause a scene, making L. ease away slowly while forcing an apologetic smile for those witnessing this unfortunate display.

It looks like we’ll have to cancel class tomorrow night.

Now, now, Sensei! Compose yourself! It’s going to be okay.

Sensei! Breeeeeeaaaathe. Innnnnn….. Ouuuuuuuuuttttt…. Very good. That’s right. Now thank whomever just brought you a chair. Oh, and that person who handed you a tissue and tossed a sympathetic smile to your wife.  Now, again, it’s going to be O-Kay!

You see a friend of mine from college—that’s a place smart people go after high school, maybe you’ve heard of it—will be in San Diego on business tomorrow night. Breeeeeeathe. That’s right, very good, Sensei. You’re doing great.

So Hubby and I will drive down to meet him for dinner. Yes, that’s right, dinner. Good, good. Shhh… shhhh… Remember, everything is going to be O-kay. I promise. We’ll still have Thursday night. It’s just a few days later. Then you’ll get to see us again. Alright? That’s not too bad, right? Just a few more days.

That’s a good boy. Just wipe your nose one more time. Nope. You missed it. Try again. Much better. Okay. Very good. We’ll see you Thursday, Sensei.

Ah, now, come on, Sensei! I told you! It’s going to be okay!

Could someone please get him another tissue?!

I was fully prepared to accept my crown as the queen of this insult war Sensei and I play. Then he responded.

What do you make of this?

Hubby received this text from a random number.

Clearly, he is not Anita. But he is a nice, pleasant person, so he responded, as he should.

And that was that. Until the next morning.

How NOT to make churros

The next class after Taekwondo testing is the belt ceremony. As you can guess, we get our new belts. Then we eat stuff.

I had the “brilliant” idea of making churros tied in the shape of belts. Easy peasy. My daughters helped. It probably would’ve been better had I left them to it and stayed out of the kitchen.

The recipe said something like 1/4 cup of water only.

“That’s not enough water. It’s too brittle. They’re falling apart,” said I, who has little successful baking experience.

So I added more water. Then, since I had more water in the cup, I tossed in the rest, thinking, why not?

Welp, it was no longer brittle. It was an icky sticky mess.

And, OF COURSE, the piping bag broke. One daughter shoved batter through the little pipe piece by hand.

Piping bag tip, still operational without the bag.

But you know what else works? Cutting off the corner of a Ziplock freezer bag. We eventually got there.

Anyway, the consistency was off, our fingers were a mess, getting the batter to the tip was difficult because it preferred to stick to our hands and the inside of the bag–not where the hole was. So we had to shove it down with our dough-covered fingers. Then get it back off our fingers, shove again, repeat, etc.

We eventually got them out of the bag and tied into knots like martial arts belts. Amazingly, they still sometimes broke despite my excess addition of water.

Then again, it’s not amazing since this is me we’re talking about.

Maybe they got brittle because they’re not meant to be bent. Most of them stayed intact.

I found a smaller piping tip and used that also to speed up production, yet the entire process still took beyond two hours.

They came out looking like mangled intestines.

Sensei tried to extricate one part from its “knot,” so, clearly, the desired effect was lost on him. I had to explain that they were belts.

We left some the normal color for the person receiving her orange belt. And for the four new purple belts:

The purple, via food coloring, didn’t hold for all of them. Also, they look even MORE like intestines now.

However, they did taste good despite the appearance. And one little girl was delighted to pick up a brown one and discover it was purple on the inside.

Purple surprise.

So, not a total loss. I joked with Sensei that I accidentally left the one we burnt black for him at home.

He didn’t laugh. He did eat like three of them, though.

When he was packing up his gear, I tucked another churro into the package of cookies he brought. I thought it was a nice gesture. Hubby thought it looked like I was trying to get rid of them. What do you think?

Teaching the basics

You must remember my students: Always use your balls.

The sensei asked his eager students, “What do we need to do when we kick?” The boys and girls, aged 6-9, repeated back the typical answers that Sensei has drilled into them: Focus your eyes, take small steps, kick as high as your stomach, and it’s not a race. Then one little boy in the back added confidently, “use your balls.” Sensei with a slight smile and a nod to the parents who were watching and listening  said,