I Came, I Grappled, I Survived

I re-entered grappling and lived to blog about it!

I went to my first grappling class today since November, 2006, when my ACL got destroyed in grappling at my black belt test. It was somewhat uncomfortable kneeling on my knee, but I didn't twist my leg in any weird way and it was fine.

I did wear my knee brace--with a pad on top of it, to protect my grappling partner should he bang into the carbon-composite-and-titanium thing, which is really hard.

My buddy Larry, who went through ACL surgery before I did (for connoiseurs of ACL surgery: he had an allograft), wasn't at the class. So I was grappling with a young guy named Kareem, who weighs more than me, is a former wrestler, and is really, really strong. So it was kind of like grappling with a force of nature. He could just toss me off him when I was in the mount position, and about all I could hope to do when he was in the mount was to get him into my guard (and I couldn't always do that).

But he was solicitous of my knee's well being, and he didn't twist it or anything.

I was able to re-acquaint myself with a few grappling moves, and it was an excellent workout.

It seems that the Saturday grappling class is very small, so I may have to adjust my schedule a bit. We'll see.

But hey, I'm back.

Next week: kicking and being kicked in kickboxing.