I was on the verge of blacking out. The stars were pretty; I found that humorous, although I didn’t want to see them.
I’m living in Stuttgart, the capital city of the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. There’s a small gym I pass by on my way to the grocery that offers kickboxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts, originally a competition that pitted different martial disciplines against each other which has now evolved to encompass its own unique fighting style).
A few weeks ago, I decided to get back into shape after nearly two years of no real physical exercise, so I decided to drop in and see what it was like. Upon entering the glass doors I was greeted with a warm smile by a young Brazilian man and his mother; a short conversation later and I had two free training sessions to use whenever I wanted. I decided to use my first one on an MMA class. I picked up the recommended equipment consisting of mouth guard, groin guard, MMA gloves, and fight shorts and came to the class soon after.
The instruction that day was pure grappling. The technique being taught was a complicated choke; luckily my burly training partner noticed the difficulties I was having and patiently walked me through it a number of times until I understood the concept. Then it was time for sparring. I was put up against a skinny Sri Lankan a good few inches shorter than me and the five-minute timer went off. Immediately I was rushed; he dove into me like a competition swimmer. My muscle memory kicked in and, falling onto my back, I grabbed his arm and caught him in a submission called the triangle choke, which consists of trapping his head and arm between my thighs, locking one foot in the crook of my opposite leg’s knee, and then applying pressure to his neck until the blood no longer finds its way to his brain and he taps me or the ground to submit and signal his defeat. I choked him. He tapped. I released him and saw a look of confusion in his eye. I could hear the Brazilian instructor’s mother laughing in the background. My instructor was grinning. I had neglected to mention that in 2006 I had taken a few lessons in Jiu-Jitsu. He assumed I was a rank beginner and put me up against the worst grappler in the gym. Oops, my bad. I submitted my opponent a few more times before time was up.
I couldn’t help but grin on the walk back home. I had forgotten how fun Jiu-Jitsu was. Now here I was, in Germany, with a martial arts gym run by Brazilians less than 10 minutes away from home. I had a scratch on my face because of my opponent’s untrimmed dirty fingernails, but I didn’t care.
The next free session I took, it was my turn to be submitted. I got put up against increasingly better grapplers until my instructor could properly gauge my skill level. I was slaughtered. It was exhausting. By the time training was over, I was on the verge of blacking out. The stars were pretty; I found that humorous, although I didn’t want to see them. My walk home took twice as long because my legs kept failing me. Next time I’ll leave the rubber legs at home, I thought. My brain hurt. I thought I had a concussion. I had read that people who are concussed don’t always remember the blow that caused the concussion; maybe I had caught an elbow or a knee and didn’t remember it. I had forgotten my mouth guard that day, but stubbornly sparred without it. Maybe that was partly why I got concussed: my jaw had taken a shot without protection. My girlfriend and her BFF took me to the hospital.
In the emergency room, my doctor spoke German with a very thick accent colored by the strong dialect of the region. There was a famous advertisement of the region that ran as follows: roughly translated, “We are capable of everything except speaking German.†My German isn’t bad, but it wasn’t easy to understand him. He had trendy Italian glasses and a big white mustache. He asked me a few questions, like if I knew the day, the date, and what city I was in. I cheated on some of them by checking my watch. He noticed and gave me a disapproving look over his glasses. He took my blood pressure. Hmm, he said. It is low. I wasn’t surprised. I had recently quit smoking (again) and I had spent the past hour or so with the blood not properly finding its way to the brain. He checked my eyes. No, most likely no concussion. The combination of quitting smoking, overtaxing my unfit body, and getting choked repeatedly had caused my symptoms. He offered a CAT scan to be safe but said he didn’t think I needed it. I declined, thanked the good doctor, and went on my way.
A few days later I signed up for a 12-month membership at the gym.
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E-mail the author at onceinabluemoon.ys@gmail.com.