I’ve always thought that if I can’t do something, it would be so humiliated, especially in front of a crowd. So even though I was good at English, but I’ve never have the courage to speak because I was afraid that if I say something wrong, people will laugh at me. But an event happened more than a year ago totally that changed the way I think. It also caused me some troubles until now.
It was in the middle of June, I just finished 6th grade at AIS. My mom and dad was pretty busy, they worked all day long, so they didn’t have any chance to take me and my brother anywhere to hang out. So my dad decided to take us to an Aikido class, a kind of martial arts that came from Japan. In that class, they teach us how to roll to protect yourself, we have to roll on our arms, and if you do it right, your body should looks like a circle while you’re rolling, and it takes a really long time to do it properly and you just have to be patient if you couldn’t do it at first. So the teacher teaches us how to roll but I needed to practice more to do it properly with both of my arms. But I didn’t want to practice in class because I thought I would look so stupid and people would laugh at me if I do it wrong, I would be humiliated and my reputation would be gone, so I decided to practice at home. I took a mush out to roll on it. In our class, the kind of mats is half soft half hard, but safe enough to roll, so if I didn’t do it right, I would still be ok. But I practiced at home, which is completely different, the mush at my home was too soft, so if I didn’t do it right, I have a bigger chance of breaking my neck and clavicle bone.
I practiced rolling on it a few times with my right arm for few days, in my room, and I thought the mush was safe enough. So the next day, while I was rolling with my right hand, my brother came in and stayed there to play the computer. And then I decided to I changed to my left arm and roll. At that moment, when I threw my body over, but before that, I didn’t put my left arm in a correct position and I was in a hurry because I was so impatient and angry at myself why I still couldn’t do it with my left arm. So when I landed on the mattress, my left shoulder was so hurt that I couldn’t even open my mouth or scream. I just stayed there, held my left shoulder for a minute or two, and then I cried, so hard, after 15 minutes, I stopped, I told my brother to call my mom and dad and tell them to come home, he did. Then he said when I was rolling, he heard a crack sound, really loud, so I guessed I broke my clavicle bone. My aunt came in to calm me down, but I couldn’t calm down because I was so hurt, I cried again, then I stopped and cried again, just like that for 2 hours until my mom came home to take me to the hospital. I couldn’t move my left arm and she had to tie her scarf around my arm and neck to hold it. In the hospital, the doctor worn for me a thing that can hold my arms to keep them from moving too fast or too much, that way my clavicle bone would heal faster, and I have to wear it until my bone healed, which mean for 2 months. It means that for 2 months, except for when I’m showing, I have to wear that thing all days and nights, sometimes it was really itchy but I couldn’t take it off, and I must not play any sports or practice martial arts for at least 6 months.
For those 2 months, I couldn’t do anything by myself, included shower, brush my teeth, or eat, because I’m left-handed and now my left shoulder broke so I couldn’t use my left hand. If my mom was home she would do it for me, or else my aunt would do it. And when I sleep, I couldn’t turn right or left, every night, I would have 2 pillows on each sides of me to prevent me from turning. Because I couldn’t turn, I had to stay at 1 position for many hours; it was so uncomfortable that I had trouble sleeping for 2 months. It was a nightmare for me, I was very angry at myself for done such a stupid thing. And after I returned to AIS for 7th grade, I couldn’t join the basketball team, because I might break my bone again when it wasn’t hard enough support my body if I might fall really hard and fast.
After 6 months, I took Aikido again, but this time, it was harder for me to roll with my left arm again because I was really scared. Whenever I’m about to roll on my left arm, I always see myself holding my left shoulder and crying, so somehow my mind reacts to those kinds of pictures and feelings and it doesn’t want to feel that pain again, but I was managed to over come the fear with lots of helps from my dad. I now I learned that it’s nothing wrong or embarrass if you couldn’t or did something wrong. Now I’m no longer feel stupid if I can’t or do something wrong, it’s a part of learning, so in class I speak a lot of English and not feel embarrass about it, even though I said something wrong. You can never learn something new if you don’t try and make mistakes
