Injuries

I'm not sure that I ever planned it this way, but somehow, I turned out to be a fairly active person. In elementary school, I always one of those kids that would line up at the door to literally run out to recess. I even got into the bad habit of wolfing down my food as quickly as possible at lunch, because that meant I had more time to play. What's more, I distinctly remember playing basketball in the rain or in high winds ("whatever, just take better shots if you're worried about the wind"), and pretending like we couldn't hear our teachers calling to us to come inside.

Anyhow, as a natural result of this activity, I'm no stranger to minor injuries. If you play basketball long enough, you're bound to roll an ankle or do something to your fingers. It just happens. Obviously I'm not happy when these things happen, but they're minor enough injuries that I just move on. The first time I went snowboarding, I ended up with all sorts of aches and pains (from falling repeatedly). It was annoying, but after a few days of rest, it was fine.

The funny thing about it, though, is how other people react to these injuries. After I ran my first half-marathon, I was walking around a little gingerly. Someone at work noticed the pronounced motion of my gait, and commented on it. I told her what happened, and she made a face. You should've seen said look, it was a grimace combined with a look of just pure hurt. If you hadn't known better, you would've thought that she was the one who was ailing.

Still, that's nothing compared to what happens when people see bruises. For whatever reason, those black and blue marks seem to always lead to interesting conversations. Take yesterday, for example. I was learning how to do deadlifts properly on Thursday, so there were a bunch of bruises on my shins & knees. The way I was taught, you practically drag the weight along your shins as you bring it up. That also means that if you don't do it perfectly, you'll bang the weight against your legs a little bit. It doesn't hurt, but when you're done, it's not uncommon to have bruises.

Regardless, I was talking to my parents, and they noticed the bruises. I kid you not, without missing a beat, my dad responded with, "hm, looks like you're whipped. The girlfriend been beating you again?" I can't say I'm entirely surprised by this; as I've said before, you need a sense of humor to run in my family. And as others have commented, my father doesn't usually come out firing with jokes, but when he does, he's got some good ones. You have to watch out for that guy.

At least my parents were joking, though. I've had a coworker say something very similar to me, except for he meant it earnestly. Back when I was still taking kickboxing, we did quite a bit of sparring. And while sparring, it wasn't uncommon to block a punch or a kick with your forearms, or even for one of your punches to be deflected into something harder than your forearm. The end result was that I'd end up with bruises on my forearms. We wore shin guards, body armor, and head gear, as well, so that was pretty much the only place that would get bruised.

Upon noticing this one day, my coworker says to me, "Sam, do we need to have the domestic abuse conversation?" I think he was serious. I can't be entirely sure, because I told him what caused the bruises, and he laughed. So, I'll never be sure where the conversation would have gone had it been otherwise. Still, it sounded like he meant it seriously. Just what I wanted, to have people worrying me like that at work.

So, given all this, I present to you the morals of today's post:

• If you're doing deadlifts, be really, really good about your form or you might become much more familiar with HR
• Practice your footwork so you don't need to block as many punches and kicks (you can't get bruised if you're not in the line of fire)
• Bruising like a peach makes life way the heck more interesting. I bet you those Tiger Balm people are rich.