S-Words

This is yet another article I meant to post a couple weeks ago, but again, as things have been busy, I’ve been lax. You can probably expect three or four more articles over the weekend as I’ve finally got a weekend at home where I can relax. And maybe even get around to watching Lost, since I’m still 5 hours behind on that.

Swords, Stabbing and Staples.

I experienced something involving all three of these about a month ago. It’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds, and in lieu of making up a self-aggrandizing story about how I fought off 37 ninjas and happened to get cut in the process, I figured you’d all get a laugh out of the actual story.

I had a picture of the staples that I was going to post with this, but then somehow, it got deleted off my cellphone. The healed scar isn’t nearly as cool, but I may come back and edit the post to add a picture of that.

Regardless, as I’ve stated before, I take kung fu. Various swords are among the weapons our style of kung fu covers, one of them being the Dao. Here’s a picture of one from Wing Lam Enterprises.




To effectively work with these swords, aside from doing forms, the best way to do any sort of application (so as not to pose a danger to other people) is to fill up a milk jug with water, hang it off a tree branch or set it on a stationary surface and then cut it. Sounds simple, right? Right.

My instructor, Sifu, and I were doing just such a thing as he’s recently started to teach me Dao work, particularly forms that revolve around the tiger style. We were both being very careful in cutting the jugs, making sure no one was going to get hurt and so on.

Well, we had put the jugs we’d filled up in a pile, and were both bending down to pick them up, again, being careful. We both grabbed a couple, stood up and then apparently both stepped forward at the same time and his sword stabbed me in the leg, about six inches below my knee, to the left of the bone.

My first reaction was naturally one involving profanity as I jerked my leg back, but it really didn’t hurt that much. Without looking, I knew it would be cut, but our conversation immediately following the events went something like this:

Sifu: Oh, shit!

PreView: No big deal, Sifu, I’m fine, don’t sweat it.

Sifu: Look at your leg.

Preview: (looks at leg, see blood gushing) Hmm….we might want to get that looked at.

Sifu: Yeah, we should probably go to the hospital.

So we ventured to the hospital where I received 5 staples and a prescription for entirely too much pain medicine. That conversation went something like this.

Dr. Beardface (not his real name, but instead his most obvious feature): So, on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no pain and 10 being excruciating pain where you can barely stand it, where does your pain rank?

PreView: I’d say a 2 at most. Not too bad at all.

Dr. Beardface: Hmm….well, I’m going to go ahead and write you a prescription for 24 Loratabs, and 24 Ibuprofen 800, and I’ll give you 4 Loracets to get you through till tomorrow morning.

PreView: Uh…okay. Isn’t that a bit much?

Dr. Beardface: Oh no, that’s normal.

And people wonder why we have a drug problem in this country. The prescription said to take 1-2 pills every 6 hours for pain as needed. I think in the next two weeks, I took a total of 10.

Sifu felt terrible about all of this – he was repeatedly apologizing, and I could tell he felt really bad, but it’s like I told him the first time I accidentally got punched in the face – as long as it’s not the crotch, I can deal with it. However, I can understand how he felt, because had I accidentally stabbed him, I would’ve felt horrible, too.

But…that’s really the end of the saga – got my staples out a couple of weeks ago and it healed fine. I never had staples put in before (plenty of stitches), and it was actually kind of cool. I’d highly recommend staples over stitches, any time, if they give you the choice. I’ve always had problems with stitches, but I didn’t have any problems with the staples…and it definitely looks cooler. And I can say I’ve been stabbed with a sword now, and I don’t know many people that can say that.

We’re still training, of course – although we did decide to take a break for a couple weeks on the swords. However, that’s about over, though, and I’m looking forward to getting back to slicing some more stuff up. Preferably not me, though 

-PreView