Watching a limb dangle lifelessly from anyone’s body is a bit alarming, to say the least. Watching the owner of the limb pop it back into place in the middle of a match, however, is even more alarming. But that’s exactly what spectators saw when they watched one of black belt Edmund Kim’s matches at the IBJJF Seoul Open on December 8 last year.
In a conversation with the Jiu-Jitsu Times, Kim said that he was caught with a wrist lock at the beginning of his match. “I feel I would have tapped. But it came on so quick,” he says. “I remember it feeling somewhat numb. I knew something wasn’t right, especially because I had no control over it at first. But once I had my arm back, I figured I should keep going.”
Kim had, after all, come to Seoul, South Korea all the way from Orange County, CA. It would have been a shame for his journey there to end just because of a slight wrist strain or a pinched nerve. But video footage of the injury shows exactly why it was so unbelievable that he kept going — his wrist flops around like a ragdoll as the match continues, and it looks like he has no control over it at all. “I’ve never hurt my wrist that badly before; I don’t know if it was actually dislocated,” says Kim.
As the match went on, the effect of Kim’s injury on his BJJ skills started to become more obvious. “Towards the end, I tried going for a kimura and noticed my hand didn’t look right. That’s when I saw a lump sticking out of my wrist. I just pushed it back in.”
Kim ended up losing that match (which was the quarter-finals in the absolute division) by just an advantage; he placed first in the middleweight bracket. He says that even now, his wrist is “pretty bad.”
“I still can’t do normal pushups. I have a hard time doing basic things like twisting jars open.” But has that kept him off the mats? Of course not. “I’ve been competing since then, but at a limited capacity,” he says.
Check out the video of the incident (from Dan Lukehart) below, and be advised it’s not for the faint of heart.
The post This Black Belt Dislocated His Wrist & Popped It Back Into Place Mid-Match appeared first on Jiu-Jitsu Times.