She is momentarily held hostage by loss and self pity. A tear rolls from beneath dark glasses. Lips clench against unwelcome sobs and a gloved hand angrily wipes the salty drop away. She closes her eyes against the harsh, jerk-inducing lighting, girding herself to make no scene in this place of greater pain than hers. The tears come afresh as her brain insists on comparison… How has it come to this? Ten years ago, a crowd roared as she proudly marched below the Great Britain placard, her movements as crisp as her freshly starched dobok, her mind as firm as the knot that holds the black belt on her waist. She’d stood alone in the centre of the arena, ready to perform, her feet apart, her shoulders back, her head held high, her face strong, focused, determined. Her soaring kicks had come fast and hard, her punches and blocks enough to break flesh and bone, the choreography engrained from thousands of hours of all-consuming practice. She is sure-footed, graceful, never-wavering. The ugly destroyer that squats inside her nervous system will not beat her. She will not let it. The inevitable decline has, at times, been so slow as to appear a plateau. At other times, it has taken a sudden, plummeting lurch, shattering hope and determination, destroying denial. But she has always rebounded, more disabled, yes, but sure of heart and mind. No matter what it takes from her, no matter how her world shrinks around her, she will not be beaten. Is this what it takes then? A walk from the car to the hospital? The frequent stops to rest and breathe… just breathe… getting longer and longer as the stumbling, shuffling advance between rests gets shorter and slower each time she pins her shoulders back and forces her legs to take one more step? Until all she can do is find a wall and give in? Now, as she leans there, invisible to passersby enveloped by their own monsters, her knees are shaking, her body jolting with each blast of neurological overactivity, the soles of her feet screaming, her breath rasping, her hands clutching her walking stick, the only thing keeping her upright. The sense of loss is overwhelming. But it must not win. It cannot win. Her saviour is a story. This is it. This link will take you to a video taken by a fellow GB competitor, Chan Sau, in one of the training halls of the taekwondo club I used to belong to. I don't pretend to ever have been as good as this guy (he had, after all, taken a gold medal at the world championships several years before), but it will give you an idea of the sort of thing I used to do. There are no sound effects: his kicks and strikes really are that powerful.
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