I Got Slammed in the Gut!

So I got slammed straight in the gut the other night.

In case you didn’t know, I started martial arts training again after about a 25 year absence. Guess what I found out? I’m still pretty doggone good at it. I always knew this as I seem to have a natural-born ability to fight well. So the other night we’re sparring. My instructor told us, “we’re just going to spar but with no contact”. Normally, whenever I spar anyone in the class, I really take it easy, otherwise I would literally wipe them out, no lie. Tonight we were rotating around with different students (normally we are matched up with similarly skilled or sized students). Also, the instructor (head sensei) was sparring with me only, on rotation.

Let me back up a bit because something else happened a couple of weeks ago that might have influenced what my sensei did to me a couple of nights ago. It was a couple of weeks ago and my sensei and I were sparring. It happened to be in front of a lot of his students. Well, during our session we got real close to each other and… I sweeped him to the ground. I’m sure this caught him by surprise, and maybe embarassed him a little (he jokinly mentioned “you had to do this in front of my class?”). I grabbed him from behind pretty hard and wouldn’t let go. He made a quick move to hit me in the “crown jewels”, but luckily it was simulated. On the street it would have been a great move. In the ring it is illegal. So he quickly turned around and tried to get me to the ground. I honestly had massive doubts about continuing fighting him and was REALLY taking it easy. I just didn’t want to embarass him anymore in front of his students. It didn’t feel appropriate. But he kept going and quickly spun me to the ground, but only for a split second as I instinctively flipped him over like he was a paper weight (I’m sure he was extremely surprised at this). Then I grabbed him in a choke hold and gave him a good hard squeeze just to show him I had him. Then I let him go. We stopped fighting. He didn’t seem angry at all, and frankly I kind of just wanted to slink out of there. He said something like, “don’t worry, I got a surprise for you next time Harry!”, as he chuckled. I thought he was just joking… he wasn’t.

So back to a couple of nights ago and we’re sparring. I was kind of pissing him off because I kept jabbing him in the face (very lightly mind you – remember – we were NOT supposed to go full contact). I also tapped him a couple of times in the midsection too. Before you go thinking this guy is a pushover, he was once ranked #3 in the world in taekwondo. This was only a couple of years ago. Trust me, he’s got lightning fast kicks and explosive moves.

Anyway, let’s just say I got a litte sloppy and was not moving as quickly as I was at the beginning. After all, we were just having fun, and no contact, remember? So I made a sluggish move towards him and he quickly spun and caught me square in the right rib cage with a vicious kick. DEFINITELY NOT no, or even light, contact. This was a full force, meant to inflict major harm, kick. I think it was a reactionary move from the couple of weeks ago episode, and the fact I was peppering him with girlie, touch punches to the face.

Well this kick totally caught me by surprise. Funny thing is I kind of saw it coming and had my guard in place, but if you know anything about spinning back kicks done with power and precision is they can easily get by some of the best defensive stances and positions. Well, his did. Down to the floor I went because all of the wind had been squished out of me. Worse than this was I COULD NOT BREATH! That’s right, his kick had somehow spasmed my diaphragm muscle and it refused to move. This meant no air could go in, or out of my lungs. Imagine having strenuously trained for almost an hour, really huffing and puffing by this time, and then suddenly having no ability to breath at all? I mean zilch, zero, nada. Nobody knew anything had happened as I was on the floor on my knees not able to utter a sound. He had already walked away and was going to turn down the music. I looked over at him and prayed he’d turn around. When he did I made the universally-understood “come here” sign with my forefinger. I hoped he could see the urgency in my face as I was almost starting to panic. I would say about 20 seconds had passed by this point since my last breath. He came over quickly and I made some “can’t breathe” motions with my hands. He quickly understood and told me to try and breathe in through my nose and out my mouth. At first nothing, then after maybe another 15 seconds had passed I was finally able to exhale just a tiny bit… but I still couldn’t inhale. I was really starting to panick now as I REALLY NEEDED TO BREATHE!

He kept repeating, “breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth”. I kept trying and finally I just tried as hard as I could to exhale and just as hard to inhale and was able to barely move my lungs. It wasn’t enough and my body and lungs were now literally screaming for more air. Good thing I was in shape. I believe anyone else might have passed out. Each breath out was a scream, although not much sound nor air came out, and each breath in was a searing and wracking painful event. But with each mini-breath in, and each scream of exhalation, I was able to move my lungs just that tiny bit more. Tears were rolling down my face by this point… my eyes screwed tightly shut just trying to concentrate on the simple, usually automatic, task of breathing. After 5 minutes of this I was still screaming my exhales out of my lungs, and somehow managing to get enough air in to stay conscious. I finally made the realization that the worst of this was over… and that I’d be ok. He helped me up, and I looked around at the other students. They were all sitting down. I guess it was quite an event to them. The instructor saw I was ok then spoke to the class to finish up by doing some leg-throw-downs. This involves 2 people, 1 person lying face up on the ground directly underneath someone standing over their head. The person laying down’s job is to lift their legs up to the person standing over them, and the person standing over them’s job is to throw their legs down to the floor again and again. This is a traditional ab exercise. I felt well enough to throw my partner’s legs down by this point, and when it came time to switch, my partner insisted I don’t do mine. My sensei said to also sit this out as well. I said “NO” quite a number of times in order to allow them to let me finish the class. Sure it hurt, but I was determined to finish.

When the class was over, still nobody knew what had really happened yet. My partner came up to me after the class was over and said, “are your crown jewels ok?” He thought I had been hit in the groin area. I told him the story of where I was really hit. Other students gathererd round to hear as well. I related to them what I just told you as they never saw it because they were busy sparring their partners at the time. One of the girls in the class said, “wow, I need to learn that kick as it seems like a perfect weapon”. You see, I’m known in that class as “the guy”, and everyone hates to either train with me (because I kick and punch the bag they have to hold in front of me with incredible force and it, frankly, hurts them even through the 8 inches of padding). Just the other day we were practicing our spinning back kicks and I was sending my other sensei clear across the mat when I unleashed my kicks into the bag he was holding. So to have seen the top student on the ground, the guy they thought was invincible, must have been quite a shock to the students.

So, after the class, my sensei and I talked. He said he always had trouble (mentally) sparring with his students. He said it didn’t feel appropriate. But he said when he fought “the South Americans” as he called them, in the other school he trained at, he always “wiped the mat” with them. But he admitted that with me, he always had a difficult time. I told him maybe he was always holding back with me here at this school. He didn’t agree. I’ve ALWAYS held back with him when I fought, never hitting or stiking with ultimate speed nor power.

Anyway, I was fine by then, a little sore in the ribs, but we were talking cordially. I even offered to help him with my program, if he liked. He’s not out of shape, just wants to get more buffed.

I was honestly fine, initially, from this event. I viewed it as a learning experience. To always have my guard up, even in supposed “non-contact” situations. However, over the last couple of days my outlook has started to change. First, my ribs still hurt like heck. They’re definitely bruised, and may even be cracked as it hurts to sneeze and breathe deeply. It’s really affected my exercise program. Today I couldn’t do half the things I normally could do because of the pain. And I couldn’t go to my martial arts class tonight because the pain was just too great.

And I can’t get the feelings of anger to go away that are starting to build inside of me. Nothing drastic, just kind of pissed thinking aobut how my sensei “retaliated” against me like he did. From a supposed no-contact session to a full-bore kick to the ribcage that nobody, especially me, was expecting. I’ve been tring not to react to this event, but I can’t help the revengeful thoughts from filling my brain for the next time we spar again. I’ve envisioned kicking him as hard as he kicked me. I don’t believe in payback, I really don’t. In fact, I’ve been studying a lot about Kaballah recently, which teaches you to be very non-reactionary. I highly recommend Kaballah. This might simply be a test for me.

What do you think? What would YOU do if you were in my shoes. Knowing my instructor seemingly deliberately got back at me by throwing a full-power kick? What would you do the next time you got in the ring knowing you had the potential and ability to get back at him? Any feedback on this would be appreciated. And thanks for listening.

UPDATE PRIOR TO POSTING: My ribs are still as sore as the day I got hit. I can hardly get out of bed without excruciating pain. I believe they’re cracked. I’m going to go get them checked out.