Back to Karate and I Survived
I went to bed last night at 10:30 p.m. I couldn’t deal with staying awake and stressing about going back to karate in the morning. I spent the night dreaming about blowing my other ACL. It was a pleasant night’s rest.
I woke up this morning, got my gi and obi together and headed out for class. As I was driving to the dojo, it was like a flashback of the last year. It was only the end of August last year when I returned to karate after my whiplash injury. This week marked 11 months since I blew my ACL out in the first place and 9 months since surgery. I was scared to death of stepping back on the dojo floor; but I knew it was something I just had to do and get out of my system.
I arrived at a quiet dojo. One of my instructor’s saw me walk in holding my wrapped up gi and obi and my ACL brace. Her mouth dropped open with surprise as she asked me "What are you doing here?" I told her I was there to try and she was thrilled. We went into the locker room and I strapped my brace on and tied my gi. . . the wrong way.
"One of us has her gi tied the wrong way," my instructor said. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be her. She’s a Kyoshi after all. We both laughed and I retied it before tying on my obi. It felt good, weird but good.
We walked out into the main area and Hanshi was standing there, having recently emerged from his own locker room. He looked physically shocked to see me in my gi and he took a few staggers backward.
It was time to start.
The class today was small. A young green belt, a new adult white belt and me, the gimpy girl. Hanshi did me a favor and we did the rei in standing up today. We spent most of the class working upper body self defense.
For the second part of class, Kyoshi had us work on bunkai for Nai Hanchi Shodan. We ran through the kata once before we started. I won’t lie. It hurt. Nai Hanchi stance is really rough. Any time spent in stance brings a shaking leg and a knee that starts to protest. The leg lift part made me wince and it became quite obvious that I’m going to need to accept the fact that my kata now is not going to be my kata of last year.
When we were finished with Nai Hanshi bunkai, we worked on Sanchin. It’s a second degree black belt kata in our system and I think I know it now. Hanshi and Kyoshi stress this breathing kata for its healing properties and I believe that is one of the reasons they wanted me to learn it. I made it through that slow moving kata just fine, although the turns were a bit rough in the beginning.
Throughout the class today, both Hanshi and Kyoshi kept reminding me to "take it easy." They didn’t expect me to be the same karate-ka as last year. Knowing that they’re not expecting me to come back and be perfect is making it much easier to return.
I left the dojo feeling a little sore (I think I put my brace on too tight), but very proud of myself. It feels good to be back. I just have to put realistic expectations on myself and not push myself to do things that just don’t work the way they used to quite yet. I’ll get there, one class at a time, but the "there" might be a bit of a different place than where I was before my injury. It’s just something I’m going to have to accept.
Excuse me while I freak out
Filed under: ACL Hell, Building the BBM House, Tales from the dojo
Mr. BBM is all zen. When we were selling our house, he was calm. My realtor and I were not. When I’m freaking out because I don’t feel they’re going to finish our house in time, Mr. BBM says, "It will all work out." Last night, I finally brought him to my side, the dark side of worry and pessimistic paranoia.
While I fully realize that a crew of men descended on my house like a hive of worker bee’s, completing the insulation on Monday and hanging all the drywall on Tuesday, when there is no activity on your house for three days post all this crazy activity, you start to worry a bit.
Tomorrow is September 20th. Our settlement date is October 20th. As of tomorrow, they have exactly 30 days, 29 really because they won’t be working on the 20th of October anymore. We’ll be moving in. There are also weekends in there, which brings the number of actual working days down considerably.
Mr. BBM was asking me why I’m freaking out and I said this: "The siding guy hasn’t been back since Saturday. Only about 1/10 of our house has siding. The stone guys can’t come until the siding guy is finished. The stucco guy can’t come until the stone guy is finished. They can’t tape and spackle the drywall until the house is one temperature which means the furnace needs to be installed. They can’t install the furnace yet because they still have to saw through 10 inches of ribar-enforced concrete to create my new Bilco door basement entrance right near where the furnace goes. They also need to pour the new concrete basement wall where the door used to be. That has to sit for 24 hours. Then they have to seal it and that has to sit for at least 24 hours before they can push the dirt back. They can’t grade the yard or work on the sidewalk to the house or the driveway until the yard is graded. If the furnace isn’t installed and they can’t finish the drywall, then they can’t paint, install trim, put the floors in, or the cabinets, or the countertops or the lights. . ."
By the end of my little diatribe, he was looking pretty stressed. His whole, "the outside pace doesn’t have any effect on the inside pace" and vice versa thing fell through completely. Screwing up the bilco door screwed up the schedule and now I am having a fit.
I emailed the builder representative this morning and questioned him about when things are going to happen. His answer was pretty much "don’t worry about it." I’m sure there were matching hand gestures.
Here’s the thing. I am worried about it.
You see, I think we’re approaching the end of the honeymoon period of living with my parents. The other night my dad sat in the living room drinking directly from a near-finished bottle of wine. He didn’t want to make another dirty dish or glass. It’s probably just my paranoia but I’m thinking they’re tired of their dishwasher running all the time.
When I joked with my parents last night that they’re turning into my grandparents and bickering over silly things like opening the dishwasher before the dry cycle is over with, my Mom retorted with a "Well, we’re tired." I don’t know exactly what that meant but I knew it meant something and headed for the solace of our room above the garage, also known as the disaster area where the kids’ toys live.
When my Mom comes home from work and we’re not outside, she asks me if I’ve had the girls out for a bike ride. When I say "no," I get this look. The truth is that I would have loved to ride bikes with the girls, but I spent the morning washing my Mom’s sofa cushions when Lil C decided that my Mom’s sofa resembled a toilet and while I was still cleaning that up, the girls knocked over my glass of iced tea which splashed on the sofa, the rug, my dad’s magazines (gasp!) and everything else within a 10 ft. diameter.
To say that I am stressed is sort of an understatement. I’m tired of not knowing where my stuff is located. I’m sick of cleaning up after the girls non-stop. I’m tired of sharing a queen bed with Mr. BBM. I want my king back; and I’m really tired of sharing a bathroom with three other people.
I’m also tired of this knee business. When I wrote about my knee this week, my readers came out en masse and basically said that I’m mental, in a nice way of course. While I don’t disagree with this assessment, it’s also a fact that my knee hurts. When I took Big I to karate last night, Hanshi began asking me when I was coming back. I asked him when he had time to do a private lesson or two, to just walk through kata slowly without the pressure of feeling like I have to keep up with the class. We started trying to come up with a date and we were back to mid-October when Hanshi strongly suggested I make the trip in tomorrow morning.
Because I haven’t been able to think of an excuse worthy of blowing off a 9th degree black belt, I guess I’m going back to karate tomorrow. Why not right? What’s one more thing to stress about in the grand scheme of things?
Will I ever be the same?
Last week I was standing in the kitchen talking to my Mom when Lil C came out of nowhere and charged right into my left leg which was straight at the time. I screamed in pain. That knee is just not like the other one. If someone tries to force it beyond a certain point, it is agony-inducing. I fought back the tears and walked it off.
My knee hasn’t felt the same since. I’m back to having that squishy feeling in there and I’m sore, so very sore.
Whenever I take Big I to the dojo, everyone is always asking me when I’m planning on coming back. I was planning on coming back within the next week or two. I was going to try it, very slowly and not even commit to completing an entire class. Now I’m not so sure about when I’ll be returning.
I’m worried about kneeling. I absolutely can not kneel on my left knee and there is no way I can sit back on my heels the way I used to. My knee just doesn’t work like that anymore. I’m worried about not keeping up with everyone else. I’m stressed about kicking, pivoting and turning. If Lil C running into my knee can set me back this far, what if one pivot sets me back further?
As much as I would like to return, I just don’t know that I’m entirely ready yet. I’d like to be, but right now I hurt and I’m scared. The combination of the two does not make for a very triumphant return.
Lately I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed with this knee business. I’m angry that it’s taken away so many things I like to do. I can’t dance with confidence anymore. I can’t really run that well at all. Walking up and down hills is annoying and uncomfortable; and when it’s wet outside, I am terrified of falling as I walk down inclines. Walking on the beach is difficult. I won’t even consider going in the surf for fear I’ll step on uneven sand and screw up my knee even worse. I can’t kneel or squat down to play with the girls or tie their shoes. I have to do this adjusted squat which is just plain weird.
I can’t tell you how much I wish I had my old knee back. If I could go back in time and sit that last round of sparring out, I would do it in a heartbeat. I feel like I am never going to be the same again. I hear about other people returning to their activities and wonder why I can’t. I worked hard at PT. I was extremely dedicated, yet the only thing more exercising gave me was more pain.
Before I hurt my knee, getting that black belt seemed very difficult. Now it seems almost impossible. I know it’s not about the color belt. For me, it’s about the accomplishment. It’s about getting that black belt to prove that even a torn ACL couldn’t hold me back. It’s symbolic of the fighting I’ve done to get back to normal.
Right now, my knee is holding me back. Getting back to karate seems to be near impossible when you consider that walking down a hill is still a challenge.
I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal again. It’s a horrible feeling. Like the knee pain, I wish it would just go away.
Full Speed Ahead
I would like to be able to show you pictures of the inside of my newly drywalled house. I can’t do that though, because when we arrived tonight at about 7:30 to check it out, there were still eight very busy men walking around my house on stilts installing drywall at the speed of light. From what I could tell from the street, the entire entryway, family room and most of the rooms that are visible from the front were completely done.
Now I know why the electrician told us that sometimes the guys go directly over the electrical outlets. They are moving. As much as I would have liked to walk in there and check it out, there were saws and screw guns operating almost non-stop and I really didn’t want to interrupt.
Plus, I was kind of scared that they’d drywall me if I didn’t move fast enough through the house. I am wondering if they finished the entire job tonight. If not, they’ll be back at 6 a.m. tomorrow. My neighbor told me this is the time they wake her up each day.
For the longest time, things were moving so slowly. I guess hitting the one month until settlement date kind of lights a fire under them. Monday, our entire house was insulated and today, most of it drywalled. At this rate, I’ll have my floors in by Saturday.
Lil C said yesterday, "Wow Mommy, it’s really starting to look like a house now." The girls are brimming with excitement; and I can’t wait to get in there in just one more month.
One more month people!!!
Back from the Beach and Feeling the Love
We had a fantastic weekend in Ventnor with some great friends. We spent the weekend eating lots of barbequed goodies, splashing in the waves, and playing some really fun games. The girls created "habitats" in beach buckets today. They both picked up tiny clams and enjoyed watching them burrow back into the sand. I even found a hermit crab for them that didn’t do a whole lot, but they loved it anyway. When all was said and done, we put the little creatures back on the beach, packed up, and drove home.
We made a brief stop on the way home and were very pleased to see that our siding is going up on the house. My parents stopped by over the weekend and said the guy was working all day Saturday. He got a lot done. By the end of this week, we may actually have a house that’s not green with rain guard wrap.
Usually when I go away on a little vacation, something bad happens. People write mean things about me on their websites or my cat starts barfing a lot. Tonight I came home to this award from one of my favorite bloggers, Karl.
So a special "thank you" goes out to Karl (who would obviously be on my list if he hadn’t already won the award). Here are the rules of the award:
- The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
- Link the person who awarded you.
- Nominate at least seven other blogs.
- Put links to those blogs on your own blog.
- Leave a message on the blogs you’ve nominated.
Here goes, in no particular order, and this is in no way a complete list of blogs I love:
I hope this award helps all of you start your week off with a smile.
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