Accident Waiting To Happen

Last Thursday in Krav training I got my little finger dislocated on my left hand. There were both negative and positive aspects to this happening.

The Positives were:

1). My adrenalin was so high that it didn't hurt at all and I was able to laugh and joke about it, even joining the other guys for the final "Kida!" before I got driven to hospital.

2). It's my first bona fide "injury" in Krav and there's that adolescent part of my soul that regards it as a legitimate wound picked up in battle. I've been hurt before but tennis elbow and a compressed rotator cuff (shoulder injury) don't really cut it.

3). I got to inhale the gas they use for local anaesthetics when they fix stuff like this, meaning I got to be drunk without spending £25+ to get there.

4). My job is mainly outdoors and it's winter and tiddling with rain most of the time and I'm now on restricted duties at work meaning I'm indoors.

The Negatives however...

1). I have a P5 grading/ P Weekend coming up in 4 weeks so need to be fit for that. The injury means I will miss training and more importantly sparring training.

2). I missed Warzone 2: Behind Enemy Lines, a gun seminar that my club ran 2 days after I got injured. I'd been looking forward to this for about 5 weeks.

3). I'm on weird painkillers that make me feel shitty.

4). Most importantly, I've realised just how lousy my sparring is.

If we take point 4 from the Negatives.

I had hypnotherapy for my reluctance around sparring and/ or combat training and resolved some deeply horrible childhood issues that had led to this. Other side of this blackness though was the irony of actually not wanting to go as I didn't like it and to be honest just couldn't be arsed half the time. I took up Krav to stay fit and avoid fighting if necessary. Coldly touching gloves with someone then trying to kick and punch them for 2 minutes didn't seem to be very evasive. However I later learned that this is a fundamental part of Krav, especially from P3 and up as you will be beasted at a grading. We had about 30 minutes of full on sparring at my P4 test in March 2014. While I lasted the course, I lost a piece of a tooth, my gum shield and one contact lens and my T-shirt was wetter than a haddock's bathing costume.

I told myself I'd start to go in to the sparring again a few weeks before the P Weekend and get my stamina, cardio and skills up to speed. Problem was that this week I've finally seen that this is a part of training that you need to attend regularly. One guy I was fighting was all over me, punching and kicking and even when we changed partners it seemed like a movie where the block is thrown the same time as the punch (basically because it's choreography and they know what's coming next). I was telegraphing most of my moves, dropping my guard and getting more and more knackered at time wore on. The clincher came when we were doing the final exercise (3 against 1) and I tried to block a stomp kick with my left hand. Something you are never supposed to do. I felt the "thud" and realised that I couldn't bend my little finger. I stepped out to wrench off my soaking MMA mitt (to confused looks from my instructor) and saw it was now banana shaped.

Joking aside, this could have been a lot worse. The nurse at A&E (ironically his badge read "Nurse Practitioner") got me to inhale the nitrous oxide for a bit, then crunched the joint back into place. I will be sore for a bit and have limited mobility in my pinky, but I can go back pretty soon.

Bottom line is...you need to do something regularly to be good at it, not just when you feel like it.