Arm Bar (300 word memory post)

Late spring of 2008, my mother had a massive stroke. She lived in St. Louis, MO with my brother; I lived in Michigan. Because it was summer and I had the freedom that comes with living by the academic calendar, I spent many of those weeks driving back and forth. During the time in St Louis, I reconnected with an old friend. It turned out to be one of those relationships that withstood the test of time, which was a gift at a moment when I desperately needed one.

My old friend was participating in a self-defense class that was built on the principles of ju jitsu. I involved things like triangle holds, hip flips and my favorite, the arm-bar.

I had a lot of anger that summer; it was a complete compendium of anger, really, the kind that can be destructive if we don't find ways to release it. I must have been quite the sight at those self-defense classes. I would come in to them after a day spent at the hospital, having one-sided conversations with someone who was barely lucid at the best of times; I was still angry, still tired, still unable to control my own life that was spinning out of control. The instructor paired me up with a guy who was twice my size and half my age--probably wise decisions--and twice a week he would grab a set of pads and I would proceed to attempt to beat the crap out of him. I don't think I did too much damage--he got pretty quick at blocking.

And eventually, a few weeks into the summer, the anger had finally reached a manageable level and the instructor decided that I was actually ready to learn a thing or two about self-defense. We started with basic evasive tactics, then quick disablers and ways to use an attackers strength against him or her, and then finally, near the end, I learned how to perform an arm-bar. Learning to do the perfect arm-bar was, for me, the high point of the summer. I had never been the world's best daughter or ideal sister; I might have spent a lot of the days with my slowly-declining mother wishing to be anywhere but there, but by damn, I could disable anyone who tried to get in my way.

There is power in anger, but there is more power in anger well-used. While it's true that I've grown a little rusty on the arm-barring (it would require practice, after all), what I haven't lost is the knowledge that I can choose how I engage with the world. I can use my anger to harmlessly attack a guy with pads, or I can use it more productively as an advocate for things like access, fairness and standards. Anger is a lot like fire--we can use it destructively, or we can use it, like a forge, to create something new and often unexpected.