I Broke A Tooth Tonight, But It Wasn't Mine
I'm feeling strangely shitty right now, not that I should, because nothing that happened tonight was really my fault. In short, I broke the right front tooth of a high school girl tonight. Only, I didn't REALLY break her tooth, fate did, but I was fate's accomplice.
Of course, this was a hapkido incident, which is the root cause of pretty much every minor injury I've sustained for the last three years, from bruises to strains to sprains to groin kicks. But this was the first time I was partially responsible for another person's injury, even though, as I keep stressing to myself, it wasn't my fault at all. Small comfort, that.
Britta is a 17 year old sprite with an insane amount of athletic ability, and a sharp intellect that holds a bright future for her no matter what she decides to do. I like working out with her, because she's flexible as silly putty and her body has the resiliancy of tank armor. Sure, I outweigh her by roughly 50 pounds, but her technique is superb. Some of my best workouts are with Britta. I guess, in retrospect, we were due for an injury just by virtue of the fact that we work out so much.
We were working defense techniques against an opponent with a stick. The sticks we use are varnished maple, I think. Whatever they are, they're hard as hell. Britta had the stick and came at me with an overhand attack. I blocked, counter punched, and threw her down with an outer reaping throw, which is more or less a violent backwards trip. Nothing out of the ordinary. We work this stuff all the time, back and forth. Britta knows how to fall without getting hurt, as do I.
She fell, and slapped her hand to cushion the blow. However, her slapping hand was also the hand that held the stick. She slapped, the stick jolted loose, and cracked her right on the mouth. It made a sound that wasn't quite right, as if it met resistance, but only a little.
She looked up with a look of surprise mixed with pain, and then she spit out a piece of tooth, then another piece, and then another. And then the blood started to flow, and I wanted to crawl under a car and wait for it to back over me. No, it wasn't my fault, but the image of Britta spilling forth tooth and blood just still makes me feel guilty somehow.
One thing is certain: fight movies just don't reflect reality. I know, that's OBVIOUS. Still, here was a situation where a foot long piece of stick, barely glancing off a tooth, with very little force, effectively chopped the tooth apart. Now, consider the movie Bloodsport, where opponents take a jump spin kick to the chops and barely suffer a split lip. Here's the deal: one punch, or one kick, or even a well placed bitch slap, can tear a human face to pieces. It really doesn't take much.
I hope Britta is all right. This really sucks.
Posted by Ryan at April 15, 2003 11:24 PM
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