Who Moved the Floor?

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by Bill Formby

I have been rather quiet lately here in the MMA world due primarily to unrecognized changes in my physical world. Things kind of creeped up on me while I was not looking which is not very nice to do to someone who just started his downward slide to being an octogenarian. You see, just a few years ago I was quite nimble on my feet and rarely was clumsy and knocking things over.

I had learned through my military training and more ten years of studying the martial arts that if you were going to hit the ground, or floor you did the old “tuck and roll”. That is where one pulls one’s arms into the body and usually let one’s knee or shoulder hit the ground first and let momentum roll you right over without breaking anything. Similarly, because of situational awareness one notices little things and therefore rarely knock over things or bumped into things. But something changed.

Now I am sure that everyone has their own opinion about what changes at this point in life and since I am writing this, my opinion is the only one that counts here. You can reveal your opinion in the comment section provided below. I really have not been aware of any major changes in myself, other than a couple of unplanned visits to a few hospitals in the area, but you know, shit happens sometimes.

It seems to me to someone has made changes to my physical environment without my knowledge. Just like the other night I reach over to my bedside table, as I have done a thousand times before, and hit the top of my Yeti tumbler and BOOM! It hit the floor. It would have been a really big mess had I not had my top on it. Now, as I pointed out, I have made that same smooth move thousands of times before without a single mishap. Now I could have let that slide as just an accident since I do make mistakes occasionally but then it happens a couple of more times. I checked out my move, it was the same. My Yeti tumbler had not changed, so either the floor had moved at that particular time or the bedside table timed it perfect to grow about an inch. That was my first clue.

A couple of days later I was walking to my front door and as I stepped up from my sunken den floor to my foyer my foot slipped and BAM! I hit the floor. I mean there was maybe a micro second between the slip and the BAM. There was no time to tuck or roll. In fact, there was not even time to think about even tucking my nose, much less my arms. No instinctual movement, no muscle memory, just SPLAT. I will not even go into the times I have made that walk. It was clear something was going on. I was really getting suspicious about the floor because it sure got up to my body awfully quick.

The final convincing piece of evidence was about a week and a half ago. I was lowering the blinds in the dining room and those on one window came crashing down. Like I have many times before I pull over a chair and I start to stand up in the chair and I notice that the chair seemed to be a bit higher than normal. I had to hold onto the back of the chair to haul myself into the chair.

I start putting the blinds back into their holder with my left hand and snapping it shut with my right hand. Just as I get it snapped into place I started to step down and the floor moved down, apparently, causing me to lose my balance. I fell backward hitting my left shoulder on the counter by the window and then Bam! I am on the floor again. How the hell did it get up to my body so fast. Once again, not even a thought about tucking, rolling, grabbing something. It was so fast that I did not even get the thought that I was falling until I was lying on the damned floor. Yep, it is the floor. When you get to a certain age the floor just jumps up and smacks you before you can even think.

This little fiasco, from which I normally would just shake off and keep going, presented me with a mountain of pain the next morning. After a trip to the ER to make sure that all of the pain in my left arm and shoulder wasn’t my heart calling it quits, and another trip to my Sports Medicine doctor they all think that I may have stretched a few tendons and bruised my rotator cuff, I ended with a Cortisone shot and four weeks of physical therapy. Damned floor.

Now, I want to assure everyone; I was not drinking before, during, or after this event. Perhaps I should have been because I have fallen a few times while or after drinking and I always did my tuck and roll routine. I once stepped off the stoop outside my garage door, rolled down the hill beside the house and wiped out three Hollie bushes on the way down, But I did tuck and rolled, and rolled, and rolled. It was all good though, despite getting my legs shredded by the leaves in the bushes, because we were going to dig up the bushes any way to build our deck.

But, be warned, things around you begin to change and don’t let anyone tell you it is you because it is a trick that the young people are playing on us older and wiser folks.

About Post Author

Bill Formby

Bill Formby, aka William A. Formby, PhD, aka Lazersedge is a former Marine and a former police officer. He is a retired University Educator who considers himself a moderate pragmatic progressive liberal, meaning that he thinks practically liberal, acts practically liberal, and he is not going to change in the near future. But, if he does he will be sure to let you know.
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jess
5 years ago

It’s just what happens to the oldz when they old Bill, just don’t hurt yourself.

Joe Hagstrom
5 years ago

As long as you can wipe your own ass everything else in no big deal.

Reply to  Joe Hagstrom
5 years ago

LOL! Yes. You make a good point Joe 🙂

Bill Formby
Reply to  Joe Hagstrom
5 years ago

Well, I guess you are right on that. So far I can still hold the stool down and accomplish that necessity.

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