My Fight / Your Fight by Ronda Rousey Page A

approached the edge of the mat. (In an actual match, you don’t let approaching the edge of the mat stop you. But in practice, you stop at the edge of the mat because you don’t want anyone getting hurt on the ground.) This was practice. I stopped. He did not.
    He came in for a throw, but because I had stopped at the edge of the mat, instead of coming in for my leg straight on, he came in sideways. He went in to sweep my foot, but caught my knee. All of his momentum crashed into my stationary right knee. The joint immediately buckled. I knew it was bad right away.
    I tried to stand up, but collapsed. My knee felt like Jell-O. I sat on the mat, uncertain what else to do as my mom and coach rushed over.
    I started to cry.
    â€œIt hurts,” I said.
    â€œYou’re always crying about something that hurts,” my mom said unsympathetically. “Ice it when we get home.”
    I finished practice, favoring my left leg.
    My knee was still bothering me when my mom brought me to practice the next morning. It was worse than it had been the day before. I couldn’t train on it. I asked another of my coaches, Hayward Nishioka, to look at it. I pulled up the leg of my gi pants.
    â€œAnnMaria, you better take her to the doctor,” he told my mom.
    The next afternoon, I sat on the white crinkly paper they pull over the doctor’s table waiting for the results of my MRI.
    It was the first of many appointments I would have with Dr. Thomas Knapp, knee-repair surgeon extraordinaire.
    He pulled out the black-and-white image and put it up on the backlit board.
    â€œWell, your ACL is definitely torn,” Dr. Knapp said.
    My stomach surged into my heart, my eyes started to burn, and suddenly I was sobbing. Standing next to me, my mom patted me on the shoulder. I had expected this news, but hearing it said aloud felt like a punch to the stomach.
    â€œThe good news is it is relatively straightforward to repair,” he said. “I see these all the time. We’ll get you all fixed up and back out there before you know it.”
    â€œHow long?” I asked.
    â€œDepends on how quickly you recover, but as a general rule, I would say no competition for six months.”
    I started doing the math in my head. It was April. The senior nationals scheduled for later that month were out. The Junior US Open—the most competitive youth tournament in the nation—this summer was a warm-up for my senior international level debut at the US Open in October.
    â€œWhat if I recover really quickly? The Junior US Open is in August . . .” My voice was hopeful.
    â€œAugust, huh?” Dr. Knapp said. “You know what that means right?”
    I looked up. I had been staring at my knee as if I could will it healed.
    â€œYou won’t be going.”
    This was supposed to be my breakout year. I was supposed to go to the high school nationals and senior nationals. I was already dreaming of the 2008 Olympics. An unbearable feeling of uncertainty overwhelmed me. Was my judo career over? Would I ever be one hundred percent? If not, would I still be good enough to succeed? I worried about how long I’d be out and how much momentum I would lose and how much skill my competitors would gain while I was stuck in bed. I grappled with the realization that I was not invincible.
    Four days later, I was lying on a gurney, hooked up to an IV, and ready to be wheeled into surgery. The anesthesiologist came into the room in his blue scrubs. He started the drip into my IV.
    â€œNow, count backwards from ten,” he told me.
    I lay my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes. I said a silent prayer that the surgery would go well and that my entire life would not be changed when I opened them back up again.
    â€œTen, nine, eight, seven . . .” I drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
    I awoke in a nauseous anesthesia-induced haze. My knee hurt. My mouth felt dry. There was the whir of the