Sprung Judo Floor

Everyone at our judo club has a little more spring to their step, literally. Over two weekends, some of our members built and assembled a sprung floor using used car tires, lumber, and plywood. The basic construction is that a frame was built around the whole area, tires were layed out in the frame, 2x4s were layed on top of the tires, plywood covered all the 2x4s, then the judo mats were arranged as usual on top of the plywood. The whole purpose of the floor is take a little more of the impact out of the falls. Before, the mats just lay on carpet that was sitting on concrete.
So how does it work? Pretty good. Walking across the mats feels no different than it used to, but taking a fall from even the roughest throws doesn't have that bone crunching impact that it used to. I'm feeling much better and less beat up today than I usually would at this point. As one of my slightly older judoka buddies put it, "This new floor is going to add 15 years to my judo career."

Strange Happenings, part 2

I wrote in the previous post about mystery bruises, now on to mystery blood stains. It's not unusual to be participating in a rousing session of newaza and suddenly notice that your or your partner's gi has several fresh blood stains. At this point, newaza is usually halted, the offending wound is found, and then taped up if needs be.

Last night I was wrestling with a bigger guy (which is not a rarity, in my case), and noticed some blood on my left sleeve. I pointed out to my friend that he must have an injury since blood on one person's gi usually means the blood came from the non-stained judoka. He performed a quick diagnostic and couldn't find any injuries. That's when I noticed my right big toe was bleeding. That's right, somehow blood from right big toe made it to the upper portion of my left sleeve.

One of the black belts at the club has a saying that in judo and other martial arts, you find out that you can do a lot of things which you previously wouldn't have thought. Last night I found out that I'm apparently much more flexible than I thought. I just wish I could remember it happening, but such is the frantic nature of newaza.

The Case of the Mysterious Bruise

Some of you that don't participate in a martial art or other high impact sport may not be aware of this phenomenon, but others out there will be nodding in recognition. The phenomenon is the mysterious day after bruise. It usually plays out like this:

Judo practice is in the late evening so I usually come home to a dark house (my wife goes to bed early), check my e-mail, then crawl in to bed. The next morning I get up, get undressed for a shower, then marvel at the new bruises I didn't have the morning before. The fun part is they usually are in a spot that I don't remember ever having contact with anything. What really puzzles me is that spots that really do hurt (like my ever-so-sensitive shins) almost never have a bruise to represent the pain and suffering of that area.

Here's my current collection from last nights practice (I assume, anyway):
- Quarter sized red bruise on the inside of right knee
- Dime size red bruise on inside of left knee
- Small yellowish bruise on right shoulder
- Small yellowish brusise on front of left shoulder
- Red line bruise on right pec
- Three bruises on right shin
- No bruises on left shin, but it hurts like a *&%*$.
- And last and most mysterious, a bruised right heel.

The bruised heel is what really bothers me. It feels like I tried to stomp a plum sized piece of limestone gravel into dust using nothing but my bare heel. I don't remember hitting it on anything, but I'm limping today. It's a weird feeling trying to walk on the heel of your left foot, but the toes of your right foot.

Ah well, such is the life of a combat athlete.