Sometimes, shit happens.

American society is fascinated, date I say obsessed, with assigning blame. We often want to blame other people. We rarely take stock of our role in an event. Sometimes, shit happens. Feces does occur naturally in the world, and sometimes we step in it.

I bring two examples to the discussion today.

First, a little example of horseplay and its results:

A little horseplay while on a cabling job with one of my friends with a new pair of Klein electrician scissors resulted in a nice, deep cut. Deep enough that my great doctor friend put four stitches in my lower right leg (sans anesthetic) later that night, at his house, in his kitchen, on the counter. Preventable? Abso-freaking-lutely. Did he feel really, really bad about it? Yes. But you know what? Shit happens. And I'm glad I have a really good friend to patch me up.


In the dojo, we sometimes run into accidents too. Our dojo's injury rate is quite low -- one trip to the ER in over 12 years, because one person needed stitches to close a separation in his foot after dropping a 215 pound man directly onto his foot. I'm pretty sure I didn't teach him to do the throw that way. Sometimes, shit happens.

Sometimes, we injure a training partner. Now, this is where I need to draw a line of distinction. In a "fight club" environment most folks would say, "whoopie doo, shit happens." Not much regard for their partner's well being.

But, in a real dojo, a real place where people train for education, we often feel bad about it. Really bad. Bad enough to stop training for a while, sometimes forever. We feel guilt. We feel shame. We feel embarrassment.

In some cases, maybe we apply a throw with too much power, at an incorrect angle. I can speak to this, as I've broken a training partner's leg in practice. Yes, I felt like shit, I felt guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and contemplated quitting training. But I didn't. Sometimes, shit happens. That was the last week of December, 1999. I'm still training. But, I learned some important lessons from that event and haven't injured anyone since -- with that throw or any other.

Maybe our partner comes from a different dojo, a different system, and as such has quirks about how they do (or sometimes, sadly do not) submit, tap out, or signal submission. Some places just don't teach this, because, after all, tapping out (just like falling down) is for losers -- the real world doesn't give you a chance to tap out. Bat noise. We're in a dojo, not a bar, street fight, or zombie apocalypse. That's why we have pistols, rifles, knives and machetes. I'm pretty sure that when the zombie apocalypse occurs, shit will happen.

Maybe their training quirks get in the way. Maybe our own internal ego or desire to show things gets in the way. Sometimes we feel like there's something to prove -- Yeah, I can do this to you, even when you don't want me to. And when these two conditions line up... you guessed it, shit happens. And sometimes, bad shit happens, sometimes not. In either case, a partner is injured and the feelings of guilt and shame creep in.


To close, most accidents are preventable. My buddy screwing around has landed me with four stitches, coaching Judo for a couple of weeks while I heal, and relegated me to fishing from the bank rather than my float tube.

Sometimes shit happens. Those feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, etc., show that you are a real human being concerned about your partner's welfare. Learn from the event and keep training.