This is a question that is often asked amongst martial artists-should I carry on despite the pain of an injury or rest? A question that I feel is difficult to answer. I say this as I have just recovered from an injury to my right knee.
When I was about 12 I strained both my knees quite badly after a PE lesson at school. I was off sport and dancing for about three weeks, dosed up to the eyeballs on ibuprofen. Since then, having 'noc-knees' (meaning my knees turn in) I find that my knees can strain quite quickly.
I admit that this injury was entirely my own fault. I decided to go on a walking holiday in the Lake District on my week off from work. Unfortunately, I pulled my right knee when out one day-and boy, did it let me know that it wasn't happy.
Anyway, my first thought was 'not again'. I knew that the only way to recover was to take some anti-inflammatory pills and wear a support for a couple of days. Not really a problem you might think but I was hoping to go back to Aiki that week.
So, what to do? I tend to find that if I take anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen before Aiki, I can't feel any joint locks-something that isn't such a great idea as you might think as you can end up with another injury since you can't 'feel' the right time to tap out. I decided to go and wear a support but not take any ibuprofen for about 4 hours before going. Before you think I am absolutely crazy, there is method in my madness-I will explain.
When someone says 'pain is your friend', they are right. Pain is our body's way of making us rest and stop when something isn't right i.e. a sprained ankle so that the body has time to heal and you don't do anything more stupid like breaking said sprained ankle. So, I decided to tap into this. By taking a baseline dose of ibuprofen, this prevents most of the pain and helps the sprain/strain heal more quickly. However by not taking the dose before Aiki this gave me a 'threshold' to work to-meaning I could still go to Aiki but would know when my knee had had enough, and so prevent me from doing any further damage.
However, I knew that it wouldn't be Aiki that would finish the knee off-it would be my dance class. As I am an Irish dancer and have been dancing for about 13 years now, my knees are not exactly in the best of shape as in Irish Dancing the jumps and kicks we do mean we land with our knees straight-not great for preserving the knee joint or helping knee injuries heal. So with great trepidation, I started warming up and found my right knee began to stiffen up. But the strange thing was by keeping to basic dance maneuvers with no jumping or kicking my knee began to slacken off and the next day when I woke there was little or no pain.
When I've strained my knees before in the past, I will be honest-I've rested up and found it took a week to heal. This time, it took less then that-maybe about 5 days and I'm not sure why. I suppose you could say that by carrying on carefully I didn't let the injury 'beat' me and caused no further damage.
So, to carry on or not to carry on training? I think this depends on the injury. Some injuries need time to heal whilst others can be trained through carefully. But just in case, my knee support is staying in the bottom of my aiki bag...
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Chapter 39: I'm going to be very honest with myself...It would seem my short break from Aiki has made me more crazy then before!
Yes, it would seem I am now an official 'Aikiaddict'. Seriously. After only one month returning to training and seven weeks post-op, I decided to enrol for summer school again. Apparently, I should have taken six weeks off training not three so that my muscles could 'knit' back together- but I was told three! (Honest). So you guess I was a little nervous about going as I was still healing but I'd 'survived' two club sessions a week for a month so was ready and rearing to go.
This year was fantastic. It really was. There was a huge variety of different aspects of Aikido covered so we covered a fair bit over the two days that I was there.
But it came to me that I definitely an 'Aikiaddict' when I sign up for two days of pain. It would seem that there are two aspects to the pain associated with martial arts- mental and physical pain. I've found summer school to be both. It's an absolute out of this world experience as you can train with many different people and learn different techniques and skills not covered at club level but at the same time you have to fight physical and mental exhaustion. After the first day, you tend to be a bit sore and stiff. By lunchtime of the second day, you feel that you may never breakfall again. And I will be very very honest here- there are times when you don't want to get back on that mat, but you know you have to as the moment you stop you stiffen up, so it's far less painful to keep going.
Funnily enough, I was less sore this year. But I don't think this anything to do with me being 'tougher'- last year I experimented with Deep Heat and found it useful. This year I was prepared- I used Deep Heat before and after each day and found it really helped. So, why did I do it? Well, I really enjoyed last year and wanted to meet up with everyone I had trained with-but I also wanted to see if I could do it again and 'survive' the pain.
My advice is if you get the chance at training at a summer camp or any camp for that matter, do it. You won't regret it. At the time you may feel that you never ever want to do anything like that again, but you will recover...and find that the physical and mental pain that you endured during that time was worth it.
This year was fantastic. It really was. There was a huge variety of different aspects of Aikido covered so we covered a fair bit over the two days that I was there.
But it came to me that I definitely an 'Aikiaddict' when I sign up for two days of pain. It would seem that there are two aspects to the pain associated with martial arts- mental and physical pain. I've found summer school to be both. It's an absolute out of this world experience as you can train with many different people and learn different techniques and skills not covered at club level but at the same time you have to fight physical and mental exhaustion. After the first day, you tend to be a bit sore and stiff. By lunchtime of the second day, you feel that you may never breakfall again. And I will be very very honest here- there are times when you don't want to get back on that mat, but you know you have to as the moment you stop you stiffen up, so it's far less painful to keep going.
Funnily enough, I was less sore this year. But I don't think this anything to do with me being 'tougher'- last year I experimented with Deep Heat and found it useful. This year I was prepared- I used Deep Heat before and after each day and found it really helped. So, why did I do it? Well, I really enjoyed last year and wanted to meet up with everyone I had trained with-but I also wanted to see if I could do it again and 'survive' the pain.
My advice is if you get the chance at training at a summer camp or any camp for that matter, do it. You won't regret it. At the time you may feel that you never ever want to do anything like that again, but you will recover...and find that the physical and mental pain that you endured during that time was worth it.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Chapter 38: Finally, I'm back after a three week break-it feels as though I've never left...
Hee hee...I'm officially back on the mat, including breakfalling! It feels really great, the three weeks I was off was an absolute nightmare-I honestly felt like climbing the walls sometimes and can't really explain why.
I was a little nervous about going back, especially after the op as I'm still healing. But I was so desperate to get back (very sad I know)that I wasn't going to let the fact that I only had a month to gain back my mat fitness before Summer School this year stop me from at least trying.
Our new dojo is great. We're sharing the dojo with a local jodo club so as a result we have proper competition mats (as comfy as concrete to breakfall on) and lots of space to train.
I've really missed Aikido-I don't just mean that I missed the training, I've also missed the social aspect as well and meeting up with everyone on our first session back was like a reunion almost. It really struck me how close we are as a club despite all the different grades that we have.
I've also recently started training at another Aikido club (with my Instructor's blessing of course)so that I can widen my training experience. I felt a little like a thief in the night at first, like I was betraying my club-even though I had my Instructor's blessing. But I've come to realise the only way to progress in a martial art like Aikido is to train with as many different people as possible.
With training at two different clubs I've come to ask myself-what makes a club a club? Some I suppose would say the dojo and the facilities it offers, but I like a response from a First Dan that I know- what makes a club a club is its members. The place you train is important, you need somewhere-our temporary closure has illustrated that, but you don't need Olympic standard facilities to train-just a few mats but, more importantly, members. Without members there is no club. All members are as valuable as each other; a white belt is as important as a Dan Grade as it is the white belts who bring in fresh blood to keep the club alive-but the Dan Grade is needed to pass on much valued experience.
I was a little nervous about going back, especially after the op as I'm still healing. But I was so desperate to get back (very sad I know)that I wasn't going to let the fact that I only had a month to gain back my mat fitness before Summer School this year stop me from at least trying.
Our new dojo is great. We're sharing the dojo with a local jodo club so as a result we have proper competition mats (as comfy as concrete to breakfall on) and lots of space to train.
I've really missed Aikido-I don't just mean that I missed the training, I've also missed the social aspect as well and meeting up with everyone on our first session back was like a reunion almost. It really struck me how close we are as a club despite all the different grades that we have.
I've also recently started training at another Aikido club (with my Instructor's blessing of course)so that I can widen my training experience. I felt a little like a thief in the night at first, like I was betraying my club-even though I had my Instructor's blessing. But I've come to realise the only way to progress in a martial art like Aikido is to train with as many different people as possible.
With training at two different clubs I've come to ask myself-what makes a club a club? Some I suppose would say the dojo and the facilities it offers, but I like a response from a First Dan that I know- what makes a club a club is its members. The place you train is important, you need somewhere-our temporary closure has illustrated that, but you don't need Olympic standard facilities to train-just a few mats but, more importantly, members. Without members there is no club. All members are as valuable as each other; a white belt is as important as a Dan Grade as it is the white belts who bring in fresh blood to keep the club alive-but the Dan Grade is needed to pass on much valued experience.
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