Me and My Annoying Knee
I went to the dojo tonight for the early class. I figured if I was feeling good enough, I’d stay for the late class. I wasn’t so I didn’t.
Stretches went fine until we got to the sit-ups. I had no idea that ACL surgery also eliminates stomach muscles, but apparently it does. I haven’t exactly kept up with sit-ups in my months away from karate. I’m going to pay for that tomorrow.
Push-ups went better if you ignore the awkward girl stance I was in with my bad leg out straight and all my weight balanced between my hands and my one good knee. Something tells me my good knee may soon be my second bad knee.
We started off class with some basic moving drills; and they were uncomfortable and nerve-wracking. I wanted to be concentrating on my hip movement, my stances and making my arms do the right things at the right time. Instead, I spent the entire moving drill concentrating on that sink, twist and step out motion that was causing twinges of pain every single time I did them.
We then stood in Nai Hanchi for a while and worked on different strikes. While I wanted to concentrate on my punches, I ended up watching myself in the mirror and the obvious lean I was doing onto my good leg. I kept trying to make myself center up again, but I’d always find myself leaning back to the right side again.
Then I got a cramp in my calf muscle. My leg muscles just aren’t conditioned enough yet. Nai Hanchi stances kills. When we moved on to some kicking drills, I bowed out for a bit. Soon, I was called to go downstairs for Big I’s promotion. She got a promotion and a stripe tonight and another green belt dad and I got to play the role of "yudansha."
Big I thought it was fun to bow to me after she was given her certificate. I was just relieved when I could get off the floor after agonizing in an awkward seiza which was pretty much me kneeling on one knee with my left leg hanging out awkwardly to the left.
When I went back upstairs, they were working on more kicking drills. I don’t have clearance to do that yet, and I was feeling sore and tired so I went home.
Unlike the week before, I didn’t have a good ride home. This knee business absolutely sucks on so many levels. I’m one of those people that wants to do something and do it well. Right now, I can’t do anything well when it comes to karate. I can’t clear my head because I’m always worried about my knee; and I can’t do anything the way its supposed to be done.
I feel like a slacker and a loser and I don’t like it one bit. Maybe it was too soon to go back. Maybe I’m just not there yet. On the drive home, all I kept thinking is that I may not ever get back to where I was before and that is beyond frustrating.
I’m going to try to just get it out of my head. I’m reading a book called "Me, Chi and Bruce Lee" about a guy who attempts to get a black belt, gets a bunch of injuries, and "learns what the martial arts is all about." I’m on Chapter 3 right now and I’m thinking this is just the book I need to be reading right now.
Jumping Back In with Both Knees
I don’t know how to ease my way back into karate, so I just jumped right in last night. I figured that while Big I was in class, I would take the early class which consists of mostly white to green belts. I adapted what I needed to, doing punches at full force but snap kicks in a very slow and controlled manner. Hanshi kept reminding me to take it easy, and I appreciated his acknowledging that it’s o.k. for me to do things differently.
When the class moved on to kata at full speed, Hanshi asked me to take a new white belt aside and teach him the 10-step blocking drill. The guy knew only the first block, but by the end of the class he was doing the entire drill correctly. I really like working with new people; I always have liked it. It gives me a chance to work on basics; and you always learn something more effectively when you’re teaching it to someone else. Plus, concentrating on someone else helps distract from your own worries about your less-than-perfect knee.
I figured I’d see how the first class went and then decide whether or not I felt like staying for the advanced class. As I watched my friends filing in for the second class, I decided that I really wanted to stay. I was feeling pretty good and figured I would give it a try. Before going to the dojo, I thought about grabbing my karate bag, but ended up leaving it at home figuring we wouldn’t be working weapons at all.
I was wrong. Since I didn’t have my own, I was given an incredible set of Hanshi’s sai to use. I believe they are Shureido; and they were easily the most incredible sai I’ve ever had the pleasure to use (Hint, hint Mr. BBM-Christmas present???). Before we started each weapons kata, I would stand there and try to get through it in my head, trying to predetermine areas that would be tricky for my knee or altogether impossible. I kept drawing a blank. My open hand kata are in there, but my weapons ones had started to fade a bit.
However, once we started moving through the kata, they started coming back to me. It felt so good to work through the moves and see all of the ones I can still do. As the night wore on, it became quite obvious that the sai kata are my friends, while the nunchaku kata is not. There’s a kneeling move in Odo No Nunchaku that just wasn’t going to happen. The second tunfa kata was difficult too. The fades to the back, followed by big pivots and quick movements were really hard. I found myself compensating by putting much more of my weight on my right leg. We won’t even discuss the jumps, except to say that I didn’t do them and my own version elicited a chuckle from Hanshi (Personally, I think he was relieved I didn’t try them).
The entire night, I kept hearing my surgeon’s wise advice, "You can go back, but you’re not going to be any good at it for a while." Every time I messed up, I repeated that in my head. It served as a comforting mantra for the night.
When all was said and done, I had completed two hours of class (the second being the most challenging), and I had a soaking wet gi (for the first time since the night I injured my knee) as my reward for all the hard work. Today, I am sore in the all the places I expected to be sore. Although my knee felt like it was going to mind it last night, today it feels pretty good.
The feeling I had driving home last night was so wonderful. The satisfying exhaustion that comes from a hard class is something I haven’t experienced in almost a year. Karate always made me a better person. I was able to get rid of the stress that was building up. After a hard work out, I was always in a better mood. The release after being unable to do karate for almost 11 months is just amazing. It had been building up all this time and going back is the biggest stress reliever ever. I am so happy to be back, slow pivots, lousy jumps, shaky nunchaku kata and all.
I’d like to wish my mother-in-law a very Happy Birthday! Your card from the girls is going to be late and it’s totally not their fault. I take full responsibility.
If you’re interested in buying some affordable and totally awesome bags for your weapons, check out Bags of Character.
New Attitude
Going back to class on Saturday lit a fire under me. Yesterday, I strapped Lil C on the back of Mr. BBM’s bike and went riding for 30 minutes. No small feat when Lil C is getting bigger everyday and on a bike that is too big for me. When we returned from the bike ride, we took a walk for another 15 minutes. Then we played soccer in the front yard. I am convinced Lil C is going to be a soccer Olympian one day. The kid dribbles the ball better than I do (of course, this is not saying much).
Today, the only thing sore on me after all that exercise is my knee, my right knee, not the knee that got the ACL reconstruction surgery. I’m contemplating finding a nice comfortable, supportive brace for my "healthy" knee. I don’t want to repeat the ACL saga on the other side. I just can’t do it again. I think my right knee has just had it with all the extra responsibility I’ve been placing on it for the past year. It wants to be babied too. The problem is that I can’t baby them both.
I think I’m going to try one of the evening classes this week at the dojo. These classes have a lot more people in them and they tend to have a lot of high ranking belts in them, but I see it as just another step in the process of getting back to the dojo full time. If I need to sit something out, I’ll do it. If I’m the only one standing for the rei in, so be it. I’m learning to accept these hopefully temporary restrictions and everyone else will just have to as well.
Since I went to class on Saturday, my attitude has been completely different. Going to class and getting back to the routine that was once so therapeutic for me just feels so incredibly good. I honestly don’t know how I stayed away for so long. I need this and I’m going to make it work.
If you are a martial artist, don’t forget to check out "Bags of Character." A friend of mine from the dojo makes beautiful, hand-made kobudo weapons bags and you can view them here.
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?
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