A discussion about a particular pharmaceutical drug came up in jujitsu yesterday. The girl I was talking to, Gloria, was surprised that I didn’t even take aspirin unless I was febrile and deliriously writhing in pain spitting up blood on the floor. She said she’s a walking pharmacy. She described her severe acid reflux problems. And then another girl, Barbara, joined our conversation (I know what you’re thinking…we were not goofing off, we were in line to get tossed around by 5 people in a ring) and she said she was cramping hard on her lower abs from our 800 crunches because she’d had a caesarian when she had her kid years ago and her abs just aren’t the same. Barbara then asked if we noticed how a green belt girl, Dora, across the room from us was in pain throughout the 800 leg lifts. We hadn’t, and I asked what was wrong with her legs. I was informed that Dora has a bone disease which weakens her bones and I guess she’s pretty frequently in pain from overexertion. I suddenly remembered that in the less advanced class yesterday, I saw Josh on the outskirts of the mat hurriedly administering an asthma inhaler.

It hadn’t occurred to me that so many people who do so well in the class have physical restrictions. I think about myself. Even tho I’m older than a lot of people in the class (this greenbelt named Jackie complained that at their last tournament in Arizona, she couldn’t go anywhere after a certain time because she wasn’t old enough to get into bars), I really have no physical ailments to complain about. There should be nothing holding me back except laziness. My body is receptive to conditioning — although not to weight loss — so I should take advantage of it, even at my age, right? The mental strength of the people around me is inspiring.

The class yesterday was great. I hadn’t attended the more advanced class since the summer session. There’s such a difference. After a more grueling warmup and conditioning hour, we hit the defensive exercises. The instructor calls it “five corners”, in which you’re in the middle and surrounded by 5 people who are going to attack you in 5 different ways, one after the other after the other. So the first comes at you with a right punch, which you parry, get in close for a grab around the chest, and kick their leg out from behind like a trip. The second is a knife attack, so you use their momentum and swing their arm around in an arc so that they stab their leg, and you simultaneously trip their knee out as you disarm them. The third is someone coming at you like he’s rushing you, so you do a stop on their foot with yours as you turn their upper body into the stopped leg by pushing with one hand and pulling with the other, and they fall on their side. The fourth is coming at you with another punch, and you run through them with an arm extended like a clothesline and hit their lower back so their feet fly forward and their body, with the sudden stop in momentum, falls back. The fifth attacks you with a bear hold from behind, and you step around them and do a sweep with the arms so that they fall backwards over your extended leg like a windmill panel. When you’re done being attacked, you take the place of the first attacker and then everyone rotates one. I hit hard and I fell hard. It was fun.