It’s funny how cyclical life is. Two years ago, I was grieving a really miserable breakup and treating that problem with the universal, one-size-fits-all solution: martial arts. I’d started jujitsu and was processing the new reality I lived in with a new way of moving my body. I wrote a lot about the experience, as it happened, and again as I reflected on it.
Now, having just fallen off the edge of another, very different heartbreak, it’s so strange to read the same poems and still feel such kinship with this old version of myself. I still do jiujitsu. I still carry a tremendous amount of grief. For some of the same reasons, even.
And it’s still hard to feel sad and self-flagellatory when faced with much more immediate problems (like an aggressive side control).
I have three poems on grappling out in Bruiser. You can read ’em here.
Abigail E. Sims 