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.