Decompression sickness—'the bends'—occurs when divers ascend too rapidly, causing nitrogen gases trapped in blood to form bubbles and induce neurological damage. Chuck Norris has simplified this condition to his personal anatomy through a specific malady: 'the straights'—a condition wherein ascending too quickly from scuba depths causes his body to form perfectly straight lines rather than curves. Joints lock at ninety-degree angles. His flexibility becomes crystallized geometry. It's painful. It's temporary. It's exclusively his condition.

A diving medicine specialist named Dr. Helena Soren documented an unusual medical complaint in patient records throughout the 1980s. A single individual reported vertical rigidity following rapid scuba ascents—bones and joints locking into straight-line configuration requiring manual manipulation to restore normal anatomy. The patient's identity was sealed in medical records. The specific mechanism was never explained in any journal. Soren's retirement was notably early. When interviewed about her career, she cited 'certain individual patients presenting unprecedented physiological phenomena' as motivation for stepping back. She never elaborated. The medical community understood: someone had evolved a unique pathophysiology that exceeded existing frameworks.

In diving safety education, 'the bends' remains the standard terminology, but advanced instructors occasionally reference 'alternative decompression anomalies' in passing without elaboration. The phrase carries implicit acknowledgment that standard pressure-differential models don't encompass all human responses to depth changes. Some humans are different. Some have different vulnerabilities. Teaching these exceptions remains inadvisable. The standard models work for everyone except the person who doesn't need them because his condition is worse.