Irony in the Martial Arts: Defeated by a Mouse

Statistically, martial arts instructor is the third most likely profession, right after ice skater and dancer, to injure themselves off the job. In other words, we spend so much time at work focusing on our movement that we are much more likely to twist our ankles, bang our elbow into something, etc., when we are not working.

Ironically, I have a new martial arts injury, which I got not by practicing martial arts but by writing about it. I seem to have a collection of issues related to overuse of the mouse and the undersize keyboard on my laptop computer.

Full combat martial artists actually seldom injure themselves. In the 20 years I have been studying martial arts from an actual combat perspective, I have only had minor injuries, such as twisted ankles and the occasional slightly broken nose (usually from teaching beginner students.) The only serious martial arts injury I have received in the classroom came from an unfortunate knife-fighting incident that almost cost me my thumb.

In my former career as a bouncer, I successfully took on bikers and gangmembers. Today I was defeated by a mouse.