A month and a half ago, the (second) worst thing that could happen to the human leg happened to Anderson Silva's during his fight with Chris Weidman. The injury was so awful that it made many professional mixed martial artists (men and women who kick people for a living) reconsider ever throwing a leg kick again. It was so bad that Ronda Rousey, who has been waging war on other people’s arms for years, reacted to it like this. And it was made all the worse by the fact that the man the injury happened to had been up to that point a kind of superman in the minds of MMA fans. Thin, a little gangly, with almost none of the bulging muscles outsiders expect from a professional fighter, and blessed with preternatural reflexes and unnerving speed, Anderson Silva always seemed somehow transcendent physically—a man impossible to touch, much less hurt, much less beat. When Silva’s lower leg snapped in two on Dec. 28, the whole idea of human indestructibility, the whole delusion that there are athletes out there transcending the limitations of bodily imperfection for our broken sakes, was once again shattered. Something was lost, some kind of hope that we seek out in sports.

Well, here we are not too months later, and Silva has released this short video of himself walking on a treadmill. Walking on a treadmill! After what happened to his leg! I admit I know little to nothing about medicine or human anatomy, but if you had told me after UFC 168 that Anderson Silva would never walk again I would have believed you. That’s how awful that injury looked. Surely no bone completely shattered could ever be whole again. A leg divided against itself cannot stand. (apologies)

But I was wrong. Not just about the fusability of human bone but about the whole lost-hope thing. If our love of sports is to a large degree about our ability to identify with athletes, to find metaphors in their games for our lives, then surely there’s much more hope and transcendence to be found in human recoverability than in human perfection. Human recoverability we can understand; we’ve been there. Human perfection means nothing to us. We may marvel at the aesthetic glory of an athlete in full sublime-mode, but it’s an admiration that takes place at a cold distance. The connection we feel to an athlete whose body has betrayed him and who then comes back, on the other hand, is real. It’s the organic connection we feel to all living things, whether we like to acknowledge it or not. It's the thrilling thought that life is always possible, that hope isn't lost, that we get better. It's that nagging sense that, in some cosmic, undefinable way, we're all one.

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