As I must have mentioned at some point in the past, I do karate. Not in the "attend class once or twice a week" kind of *take* karate, but the "at the dojo five days a week, working out the black belts for hours" kind of *do* karate. This dragonfly is by no definition delicate (5'10", ~170 pounds), but I do seem to be constantly (mildly) injured. Unfortunately, karate injuries tend not to make for pretty or colorful praxis. There is nothing visually interesting about muscles that are too sore to lift off a blanket, knees that must be supported by physician-issue braces, noses that were briefly bloodied, or thumbs that throb for days.

Sparring very early on Feb 2nd, however, I caught what I thought would be the only interesting karate injury to track. In general terms, it's just a bruise. In specific terms, it's a bruise from someone else's knee contacting my shin hard enough that I couldn't put weight on it for several minutes. I whipped out the camera as soon as I got home in expectation that this would be my only chance to complete this task. For real-life terms, I was interested to see how long a bruise might actually last.

As of Feb 18th, I've declared an end to the observation period. It's small enough that any future pictures had better turn out looking just like Hour 1 anyway. The peak of this task is Day 11, whose photograph is almost entirely healing bruise.

The bruise was tracked at intermittent points over a two-week period. The first week was all natural healing, but I rediscovered Arnica cream for the second. Whether this might have an effect is left to the reader. Lighting and camera angles were awkward. I did my best to adjust colors so the size and/or shading of the bruise would be visible, with varying success. I used an "L" of my hand to mark size and camera positioning, but this sometimes wound up covering the edges.