No one is safe.

Eight mudansha, junior students to prepare for tests right now. Theirs is the present toll on my body. If I weren't so fond of these truly, very good friends, I wouldn't be offering myself up to the degree I have been. Despite my high regard for them, despite only wanting the best for them, and despite the fact that I am supposedly helping them to learn how not to be hurt, sometimes, I injure them. The evidence:

And in that picture, the bruise is only about twelve hours old. It's already half the length of her arm and approximately the color you imagine when you think of an ulcer. She doesn't remember when it might have happened, nor what exactly might have done it. It's going to get bigger, darker, and more sensitive to touch before it starts to heal, when it will get even uglier. Yellow, purple, spotty and raised. Still, she showed up for three hours of class the next morning, ready to practice again the test that left this mark on her the night before. Tough, persistent, and further developing both of those qualities every day: this is a big part of budo, embodied.

A lot.

Thus far, I've enjoyed thirteen years of aikido, including five distinct styles, six different dojo, and more seminars than I presently care to count. In that time, the following injuries have come my way: a torn knee ligament; a twice-broken nose; a dislocated finger; mat-burn to the point of bleeding from the knees, heels, toes, knuckles, and face; a chipped tooth; a black eye; a couple slight sprains of the wrists; innumerable relatively-minor bruises and cuts; and no small amount of damage to the ego. To be certain, there is more, happily forgotten, for now.

This sounds, perhaps, like a lot. But I train a lot: three hours a day; six days a week. Compared to the peril, violence, and plain-old accidents of normal life (car wrecks; potato peelers; drunk guys and psychos) it's not a bad ratio for what some might describe as a part-time job in a full-contact sport. Tonight, however, I've reached an ignoble impasse. Tonight I suffer pain I cannot blame on any particular strike, joint-lock, or throw. Tonight I am, simply, sore. It hurts to stand. And walk. Even breathing must be done in proper measure. (Almost) worse than the pain is the mystery of its source. I've been putting forth a little extra effort lately, and I am more often industrious and athletic on the mat than I am lazy. Yet, though I can't single out any specific recent training for blame, my body feels pushed to a more dire limit than I remember it previously knowing. Wisdom teeth surgery sore. Disastrous teenage romance sore. Santa Claus truth sore.

Maybe it's the eight soon-to-test nage for whom I am presently designated uke, and their attendant preparation. Maybe the years are catching up to me even worse than I'd suspected. Maybe, rather than writing and complaining, I should have just gone to bed, instead, but tonight I feel impelled to begin a long-ruminated project, participating in that dubious literary tradition of sharing my pain with the world, and so I begin this blog of just how much aikido hurts.