The Center Held

I told myself not to throw up. I couldn’t escape from beneath my opponent, so I tried to hang in there without totally freaking out or losing my lunch. His sweat dripped into my eyes, so I closed them. My esophagus burned, and my ears rang. I focused on the rubbery stink of the mats, trying not to let my mind settle on discomfort.

I’d burned through all the escapes I could remember, and nothing worked. I was too weak and my technique sucked. My partner was being nice, choosing not to submit me with the submission we were practicing that day in class. Maybe he just wanted to watch me struggle, but I thought he was being polite by just riding me into the mat instead. I didn’t know all the etiquette yet, but I could tell he was a kind man with years of experience training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). For me, it was the last day of an eight-session on-ramp program for my local gym.

As a kid, I was athletic but regularly got sidelined by injuries. I developed tendonitis in my knees after a season playing on two baseball teams. In football, I broke my wrist in the first game of my first season. The next season, I suffered a significant concussion that left me with six months of post-concussive fallout with light and noise sensitivity, constant headaches, and irritability. I recovered in time to pick a spring sport, and I figured rowing (crew) was safe. By the end of that season, I had developed tendonitis in both shoulders. I healed over the summer, joined fall crew, and it flared up again.

I was only sixteen, but I felt like my body wasn’t any good. I quit sports and focused on my creative interests. I played guitar, sang in an a cappella group, dove into creative writing, and even performed in a musical theater production of Hairspray. I stopped exercising, and my relationship with my body deteriorated. I ate junk food, lost all of the muscle I had built, and my confidence plummeted.

In college, my friend convinced me to start a strength training program with him. We lifted for an entire semester, and I felt like a new person. I didn’t want to let my progress slide over winter break, so I kept lifting at home. Right before a workout, I noticed a sour feeling in my abdomen, isolated in the lower right portion. I mentioned it to my mom, who immediately went on WebMD as I rolled my eyes.

“Zach, it sounds like appendicitis.”

I laughed out loud, but she insisted we go to the clinic. I thought it was an overreaction, but I obliged her. The clinic doctor quickly agreed with my mother, and an MRI confirmed I had acute appendicitis, which required emergency surgery. I had a few days at home to recover on the couch before heading back to college. I was cleared for normal activity after a couple of months, but I was scared.

It felt like my abdomen was tearing whenever I moved, and I imagined my guts bursting out through the scars. I refused to exercise. My body had betrayed me too many times, so I avoided serious training for years. It was a familiar pattern to fall back into, focusing on developing my mind while neglecting my body.

In my late twenties, I became painfully aware of my lack of fitness and noticed concurrent confidence issues coming up. I had heard from many people how transformative BJJ training can be in all areas of life, and I figured I should do the hardest thing I could, within reason.

Completely intimidated, I walked into my local gym. Dozens of jacked dudes walked around shirtless, muscles dripping with sweat after a hard roll. I stood awkwardly at the front desk until the owner came over and asked me what was up. I told him I wanted to join the gym, so he signed me up for the beginner program. It was designed to reduce overwhelm and integrate new members slowly. I had a week to stew with my stress, and I took full advantage of it.

What if I snapped my neck?

What if I wimped out and quit halfway through?

What if I passed out, threw up, or pissed my pants?

I walked over to the gym with shaking hands for the first session. Halfway through the warm-up, I was so gassed I had to excuse myself and stick my head out the nearest window and fight back vomit. I caught my breath, turned around, and rejoined the group. I showed up for each of the next seven sessions sick with fear. But I got through them.

After that last beginner session, when my rolling partner was done smothering me, I meandered home with my heart still beating fast and my breathing heavy. The evening sun bathed the gardens of my neighborhood in low, orange light. Surviving those eight hours of beatdowns was the greatest challenge of my adult life, and I was so proud I couldn’t believe it.

I sat on my front porch and unzipped my backpack to check out my new gear. When I pulled out my Gi, the traditional garb worn for BJJ, and looked down at the gym’s patch sewn onto it. I cried all over it. It was primarily pride, but also some grief. I had let a series of setbacks define who I was for about a decade: someone who was very intellectually capable, but not physically. It wasn’t who I wanted to be, and I finally did something about it. 

I cried it out on my porch until dark, basking in my feeling of accomplishment. When I went inside and hopped in the shower, I noticed a lump protruding from my lower abdomen close to the angry red rope scars from my appendectomy. I hung my head in disbelief, a thousand possible explanations rushing to mind and all of them bad.

When I went to the clinic that night, a doctor poked the lump back into my abdomen. It popped back out, and then he said, “Looks like a hernia. We’ll get you a surgery referral.” That was about it. After taking a big, intentional step in my life, I was being punished by the universe.

Didn’t I just prove that I could do something hard?

Didn’t I deserve to be rewarded for my effort?

Why didn’t my body work right?

The surgery and recovery went normally, but I had a bad attitude. Every breath and movement hurt. Searing pain ripped through my abdomen. The doctor told me to stay active after the initial recovery, but I didn’t want to. A few minutes pacing moodily around my yard each day eventually increased to slow, sad walks around my neighborhood, but my surgeon said it wasn’t enough.

I told her it still hurt, that it felt like it was going to rip apart. I could picture the sewn mesh inside me tugging against the fibers of my abdominal wall. She insisted it was safe to exercise, that I had no limitations, and should get back in the gym. I believed her, but I didn’t trust my body.

Over the next four months, I told myself every Monday that I would return to BJJ the following week. When the time came, I traced my newest scar and told myself it wouldn't hold.

I never returned to baseball, rowing, or football. I struggled internally for months after my appendectomy. The whole point of going to BJJ was to reduce my fear and increase my confidence, but I was stuck in a familiar cycle. I had been viewing my hernia as a sign that I shouldn’t try again, but I realized it was a test of commitment to myself.

I had done the scariest thing I could think of when I walked into that gym the first time, and I needed to do it again to prove that I really wanted it. On a snowy March morning, I woke up, decided to put on my gear, and walked back over to the gym.

Standing awkwardly at the front desk, I tied the pants of my Gi as tight as I could, pretending the waistband would hold my body together. When the owner came over, I told him I wanted to roll and tried to explain why I hadn’t been in for a long time. He interrupted me, “Hey, man. Yeah, yeah, just get on the mat.”

I warmed up and chose a partner for class. We locked into a clinch, and he dumped me on my ass with a quick foot sweep. I landed on my back, stared up at the ceiling, and laughed involuntarily. My hernia felt fine, and my partner helped me up.

We locked into another clinch. The center held.