The worst is when the hurting stops.

Last three weeks, there's been a leg issue. Below the butt and above the thigh, there's a muscle, a big one, that I think doctors refer to as notchurassitol. (That makes more sense if you say it aloud and fast.) Anyway, that muscle has been roasting itself over a campfire, or taste-testing Naga Jolokia peppers, or maybe just snorting melty glass. This particular pain hasn't made it any higher than my list of secondary concerns, because it's not like it hurts all the time. It's only a problem, really, when I roll, stand up, or take a step. Or stretch my legs in any way. So, basically, it hurts like hell on earth, but only each time I take a fall.

Tonight, over three hours of practice, I took somewhere right around three hundred falls.

And yeah, my leg hurt pretty much every time I stood up from one of those. That is, until somewhere in the third hour. It was at that point that the hurting, well, seemed to go away. I didn't realize this until later, because at the time, I was too busy being sure not to get punched in the face or thrown into a wall. After class, though, during what has become, over these last three, pained weeks, my usual limp to the car, I realized the pain was gone.

Yea! Right? I can live a pain-free, happy life as a pimp. Or a safety and quality inspector of crutches. Or maybe a professional hop-scotcher. Right?

Wrong: the limp was still there. My body has played this trick on me before; I know exactly what it's up to. It cripples me with pain for a time, until I'm no longer thinking clearly, then it pretends to go away, like a cheater at hide-and-seek (who stomps his feet as if running away while actually just standing in place), only to come back, and soon, with a vengeance. I'm sure there's some science I could only half-guess at that would explain this dynamic, but I don't need it. All I need to know is that the limp has stuck around after the pain has subsided, which means tomorrow the leg will hurt even more than it did before, and tonight's is perhaps the worst--because the most insidious--suffering of all: the anticipation.