So Now what

[Xue Sheng]

Time for tough love. I think you are over reacting. You said it yourself,you haven't even been to see the Orthopedic dr yet. I have been there,tore up my right knee badly skateboarding. it took six months to get back to skateboarding on vert terrain,but I did it without surgery either. Go see the dr and just accept that this will take lots of time. You will make some adjustments and you will feel it for years to come,but you will overcome it. Maybe learn something from it. I'll be praying for strength for you!

Thanks and I do appriciate what you are saying but I don't think I am over reacting, all I said was I had a thought that it might be that I will not be able to train MA any longer. I did not say it was over, at this point I am still of the belief that it will get better, it is jsut taking waaaaaay to long. However the thought that I might not be able to train again did not upset me like I thought it might. It actually seemed to clear up a bunch of thoughts about other things.

Also I was not clear. I have been to my Orthopod.. twice. Actually I have been to the ER, my GP and the Orthopod. The first visit the Orthopod put me on crutches and the second time he drained the knee. He did not discuss surgery with me at all. If thing don't get better within the next month I will go for visit 3 and see what he has to say.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Well I don't think I would sit down and cry

What I would likely do is more Qigong related training and I am sure I would figure something else out.

Xue one thing I forgot to mention is the possibilty of just toning done your training and get involved in training others to help your system to keep going with the same tradition you have been tought over the years. There is nothing like becoming an instructor and seeing your student become better people because of you.

Should this injury actually mean I am done my problem is what I am qualified to teach is form heavy and I can't do the forms any longer. But it is a thought.

Injuries, as you know are not uncommon to the martial arts. I have found that what I did 40 yrs ago was good then. Now that I am in my late 60S martial arts has taken a new turn. I have to pace myself, and know how much I can accomplish without festering old injuries. I know I am not telling you anything you don't already know, but if you are like me, I have to convince myself of this fact, every time I train. Slow and easy, because we are training smarter now, because of time in grade.

Well I don't know how much smarter I am but I am trying REAL hard to listen to what the doctors are saying... and I did not do that in my 20s

And I most certainly do not train like I use to... that would kill me , I will very likely train differently when and if this thing heals

That said, some pretty amazing things can be done, and I'm not sure what could be wrong with your knee that isn't fixable.

Thanks, I think, if I am done, I will adjust fine, however from the workout POV I am not sure what to do the things I use to do. But I am sure i will, if need be, figure something out.

 

[matrixman]

Hi Xue, I faced your question, but with a bad back. I did stretching, merely laying across a bed and letting my upper body dangle, and it cured it totally. Even got rid of sciatica and the sacra-iliac problem. This may seem strange, but most injuries have some sort of compaction to them. Stretching, and I mean light stretching at first, undoes the compaction. It is the same as being in traction, opens up the joints and lets them reassume their natural shape and so on. The body can cure itself. After curing myself I went into Tai Chi, elongating the postures, and now am doing yoga, and I am probably at 90% of my nineteen year old speed, and doing Karate like I wish I could have when I started way back when. I'm 61 now. If this works for you, or you have specific questions, let me know. Sounds like your future has just opened up. Best. Al

 

[dbell]

I would say find another MA, may not be Chinese, and start over?

I had a prosthetic knee (bottom half of upper leg, and top half of lower leg plus knee) put in my left leg a few years ago, slowed me down a lot for a year or so, but I'm back to 100% of my original training from about 5% of what I was doing during injury and recovery. I have shift a bit in stances, etc, but back to training.

So, I think you can keep your MA/SD, but it MAY be a new art you start learning...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Hi Xue, I faced your question, but with a bad back. I did stretching, merely laying across a bed and letting my upper body dangle, and it cured it totally. Even got rid of sciatica and the sacra-iliac problem. This may seem strange, but most injuries have some sort of compaction to them. Stretching, and I mean light stretching at first, undoes the compaction. It is the same as being in traction, opens up the joints and lets them reassume their natural shape and so on. The body can cure itself. After curing myself I went into Tai Chi, elongating the postures, and now am doing yoga, and I am probably at 90% of my nineteen year old speed, and doing Karate like I wish I could have when I started way back when. I'm 61 now. If this works for you, or you have specific questions, let me know. Sounds like your future has just opened up. Best. Al

Thanks but I was doing taiji and yoga before this

The original injury was stretched ligaments, next it was a whole lot of fluid and now it is really stiff and on occasion (when walking) there is a thump on the outside of the knee joint but inside and a bit of pain. I was icing it last night and this morning and today I go to heat. I will see how that works and if there is little or no progress by next month I am going back the Doc.

I would say find another MA, may not be Chinese, and start over?

I had a prosthetic knee (bottom half of upper leg, and top half of lower leg plus knee) put in my left leg a few years ago, slowed me down a lot for a year or so, but I'm back to 100% of my original training from about 5% of what I was doing during injury and recovery. I have shift a bit in stances, etc, but back to training.

So, I think you can keep your MA/SD, but it MAY be a new art you start learning...

That actually has been a thought should this not get better.

 

[wushuguy]

have you tried acupuncture for your knee?

 

[Xue Sheng]

have you tried acupuncture for your knee?

yup, but not since the new development with the internal pain in the side of the knee. but I will get more tonoght

 

[geezer]

...that was a long way to get to the question; What would you do if tomorrow you could no longer train MA and/or the SD of it?

If I couldn't train MA anymore, I'd get just as obsessive about something else. Maybe I'd put more time into sculpting again, pick up a musical instrument, learn a new language, travel, or stay home and get into combat shooting or back into hunting (all liberals should own guns and kill things. It keeps us balanced). Or, buy a stout cane and start working on adapting my self-defense skills to the new, crippled me!

...but first if I were you I'd get that knee fixed. As it is, I have congenital bi-lateral bone fusions limiting my ankle movement, traumatic arthritis resulting from several leg fractures from my youthful ski-racing days, a re-constructed ACL in my right knee... and I'm in great shape. I just move a little bit funny. Maybe you should move away from emphasis on forms where it's bad to look funny and put more emphasis on practical results where how you look doesn't matter.

 

[harlan]

Recently had similar thoughts as the original poster; Arthritis in the knees blindsided me this past year, and not being able to even walk got me very down this past week. For the first time, I considered the idea of quitting, but still limped to class last night.

Like Jenny, I'd probably get a good cry in, and then have to get on with life. As long as my teacher allows me in the dojo, I'll keep going. Even if it's as a cripple watching from the sidelines.

 

[Xue Sheng]

...but first if I were you I'd get that knee fixed. .

If it comes to that I probably will but so far the doc has not talked about surgery and I am not really keen on getting it either. The last time for my foot they damn near killed me when the ODed me with Novocain, because the damn thing wouldn’t go numb, for the local... I passed out and my heart damn near stopped.

Oddly enough, rather quickly after that... my foot got better all by itself.

 

[Nomad]

Hi Xue,

I'm going through something similar right now with my knee. Although I haven't been doing MA nearly as long as you (going on 9 years now), I've been examining the same thoughts in the past couple of months. In my case, I've got a developing arthritis problem in my knee as a result of an earlier surgery.

It's very exacerbated by my karate (especially stances and kicks, but all rotational transitions are problematic), and hardly bothers me at all when I'm not doing it (can still run 5 miles at 9 min/mile pace without a problem, but partaking in ~1/3 of an hour-long class while trying to baby it left it in severe discomfort).

Choices include:

1) look into potential treatments to alleviate the pain and slow the damage, including injections of orthovisc (effectively a lube-job for the knee joint), custom-fitted knee-braces, and perhaps the aforementioned acupuncture.

2) Cutting back on training, and modifying training to remove elements that cause the pain/damage. This is very much a trial and error process, and I'm concerned that it may result in too much compromise for me to feel comfortable with.

If the end result is that I lose the "fun" and can't do the parts that I love the most, then I'm not sure what exactly is the point.

3) Ending active training in my martial art. This is an option that I didn't think I'd ever consider seriously before this started to get bad, but is a very real option. As has been pointed out, life actually does happen outside the dojo as well, and it'd be a shame to miss it (or to have to sit on the sidelines and watch it go by because I've degraded the joint to the point where it interferes with lots of other things too).

At this point, I'm in a bit of a holding pattern as I consider these and any other options, and gather more information from my doctors and others. It surprised me as well that the thought of having to stop didn't really sadden me much.

This probably doesn't help much with your decision, but I definitely think I get what you're going through, and wish you the best of luck however you may decide.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Hi Xue,

I'm going through something similar right now with my knee. Although I haven't been doing MA nearly as long as you (going on 9 years now), I've been examining the same thoughts in the past couple of months. In my case, I've got a developing arthritis problem in my knee as a result of an earlier surgery.

It's very exacerbated by my karate (especially stances and kicks, but all rotational transitions are problematic), and hardly bothers me at all when I'm not doing it (can still run 5 miles at 9 min/mile pace without a problem, but partaking in ~1/3 of an hour-long class while trying to baby it left it in severe discomfort).

Choices include:

1) look into potential treatments to alleviate the pain and slow the damage, including injections of orthovisc (effectively a lube-job for the knee joint), custom-fitted knee-braces, and perhaps the aforementioned acupuncture.

2) Cutting back on training, and modifying training to remove elements that cause the pain/damage. This is very much a trial and error process, and I'm concerned that it may result in too much compromise for me to feel comfortable with.

If the end result is that I lose the "fun" and can't do the parts that I love the most, then I'm not sure what exactly is the point.

3) Ending active training in my martial art. This is an option that I didn't think I'd ever consider seriously before this started to get bad, but is a very real option. As has been pointed out, life actually does happen outside the dojo as well, and it'd be a shame to miss it (or to have to sit on the sidelines and watch it go by because I've degraded the joint to the point where it interferes with lots of other things too).

At this point, I'm in a bit of a holding pattern as I consider these and any other options, and gather more information from my doctors and others. It surprised me as well that the thought of having to stop didn't really sadden me much.

This probably doesn't help much with your decision, but I definitely think I get what you're going through, and wish you the best of luck however you may decide.

Good luck to you as well

and thanks

 

[Xue Sheng]

OK a bit off topic but I will be going back to the Doc on Thursday to see what he can do, if anything.

And if there is nothing and on Friday, if I find I can no longer train MA and/or the SD of it... I have decided to take my cane, learn Canefu (aka combat cane)....

So I can make everyone on the planet limp just like me :EG:

 

[Drac]

OK a bit off topic but I will be going back to the Doc on Thursday to see what he can do, if anything.

And if there is nothing and on Friday, if I find I can no longer train MA and/or the SD of it... I have decided to take my cane, learn Canefu (aka combat cane)....

So I can make everyone on the planet limp just like me :EG:

You'll have fun with that I promise...Hope you can catch GM Mark Shuey Sr. at a seminar near you....

 

[khand50]

ive been in martial arts for 40 years. i am 50 years old. three years ago i suffered from a great deal of pain in my right big toe. it got so bad i could barely walk. i worked in a walmart and my job was all about walking and standing.
finally got to a doctor who sent me to an ortho who said i had a bone spur and shoved a needle in my toe joint to see if the cordizone would help. it didnt. later he gave me three options. live with it. get it scraped out and it might come back again. have it cut out and have my toe fused, which meant putting in a plate and some screws to hold my toe there. after being rushed to make a decision because of the pain, i chose the fusion. hindsight being what it is i think i should have tried the cleaning procedure first, but now its too late.
after the first surgery, i was still in considerable pain which i was told would subside. he also assured me that i could do many normal things like walk and run and so on. i was very concerned about my martial arts and he told me that i probably wouldnt be able to do that anymore.
that is when the depression started to set in for me. just slightly. after about four or five months i still had pain but i was working again and decided to take an isshin ryu karate class. i figured, if i could walk i could karate...as long as i didnt spar much or use that foot to impact. after about three months of class i had to drop out and the pain was really getting bad.
i went back and was told that the plate that was holding my toe was broken. my toe didnt fuse. another surgery. i had bone taken from my hip and a new plate and now eight instead of six screws put in. this time the surgery went much better. my toe is healed. i can walk now as long as i use the ortho inserts i got. without them there is much pain.
after the surgery i was sure i couldnt do anything anymore. i sold my heavy bag and my ab bench. i was considering selling all my books (over 200) and getting rid of most everything martial arts that i had. i was heartbroken.
my health as a whole went downhill after that. i was diagonosed with hypothyroidism and i started having high blood pressure issues. im sure i was suffering from depression deeply but i find ways of working through these things on my own.
now i am back to working out. ive created a split routine with light weights to get my tone back. my neighbor asked me to start teaching him jkd. i have started training in moy yat ving tsun. and i am seeking out some filipino arts instructors two hours south of where i live. i have my setbacks in life but i dont ever give up. and you dont have to either. there are many arts out there that may be more suited to your physical issues. seek them out.
when i teach and when i train i let others know about my impairment so they dont step on my foot. and i am right handed and keep in a right lead. ive thought of changing leads but i dont really need to.
emotionally, i was devastated. ive done martial arts virtually all my life. it has been my life. i have also been doing art for 40 years and playing guitar since 1976 but martial arts is my first love. im a good artist and a mediocre guitar player, but martial arts has always been out front for me. i lived and breathed it. so when the idea of having to give up completely came around it really set me back. and to be honest, there was no one around me to empathize with me. so ill say this to you. ive been there. i still have moments when i think it is futile to continue and feel like giving in and giving up. but if i did, wouldnt that be against what i have been training for all these years? that is what has kept me going and trying and continuing on. that very thought. there is always a way. you just have to find it. and it isnt always going to be easy. but keep trying. like others have said, even if you are in a wheelchair, you can do martial arts. good luck.