ACL Reconstruction - Five Years

May 15, 2012 was the 5 year anniversary of my ACL surgery.  Five years!

The initial purpose of this blog was to interact and document my recovery from surgery and my return path to karate.  The anniversary posts are important to me.  They serve as a reminder of how far I have come and how fragile the human body can be.  I tore my ACL landing a jump during a two person form.  It was not a contact injury rather my body turned against itself.  My foot planted and my knee went in the opposite direction. 

The truth is that I have been thinking a lot about my knee lately.  I have been training hard and pushing my knee with intensity.  After some practice sessions, my knee feels gooey (it is the best word I can use to describe it).  I have been training on several different flooring surfaces - carpet, mat, padded surface. I have a variety of knee braces in my locker which I normally do not use.  Last month, I bought a thin brace at the drugstore after a knee challenging workout. The thin brace provides support without restricting movement.

And then there is jumping...

I have been hesitant to jump in kata since my recovery.  I do the jumps...kind of.  I added a column to my spreadsheet and listed the number of jumping techniques in kata (19) and the number of times you drop to one knee (13),  The numbers are approximate because I keep finding more.   The worst knee moment for me is landing a jump kick on my right (reconstructed ACL) leg.  I hesitate and hesitation is not good.  I am at a point in my training where I need to do the jumps.

Best of luck to all who are going through ACL surgery and recovery!  Thank you for all the emails over the past five years with your questions and comments.  Check out my ACL links page for more information.  If anyone would like to share their ACL success story and write a guest post, feel free to contact me. 

Spreadsheet Karate

In my work life, everything has a spreadsheet:  sale forecasts, production plans, customer master lists, inventory, purchase orders, bookings and invoices.  At home,  I use spreadsheets to track my monthly expenses and balance my checkbook.  I even put my Christmas gift purchases on Excel.  Spreadsheets are easily converted into charts and graphs.  The rows, columns and cells help me stay organized.

Over the next two months, my goal is to be organized in my karate training.  I started a personal karate training log.  I considered using this blog as a place to record my training.  I decided against it because the post format would be cumbersome to scroll through.  I decided to create a spreadsheet.   I set up a separate worksheet for karate and kobudo. The far left column lists the name of the form - 19 open hand kata and 27 kobudo kata (8 different weapons).  The rows across the top are separated by week.

I recognize that spreadsheets are not for everyone.  My sister Kim is a creative person with a career in marketing/communications.  She designs websites and makes jewelry in her spare time.  Kim hates spreadsheets and does not use them for work or at home.

I don't know if I will even like or find a karate training spreadsheet useful.  Only time will tell...

Do you have a training journal?   Is it a spreadsheet?  

ACL Injuries in Women

From Science Daily: 

For some reason, women tend to have knee motions that make them more susceptible to injury. Among other things, when landing from a jump their knees tend to collapse inward more than that of most men. They suffer significantly more ACL injuries during physical activity. "We're finding differences in nervous system processing that we believe are related to this," Johnson said. "The causes for those differences are unclear, but it may be due either to a biological difference, such as hormones, or a cultural difference such as different exercise and training patterns."

One...Two...Three

We count a lot in karate class.  One...two...three...ichi...ni...san.

In the beginner classes, it is an easy way to keep everyone together and practice safely.  Counting/pausing gives the instructor an opportunity to view the class and offer corrections.  We practice kata to a count, we count during drills and basics and we count turns when working with a partner.   Counting becomes less evident in the advanced classes and almost non-existent in the black belt class.

There is a downside to counting.  It gives the students an unnatural beat or tempo to execute their techniques.

one...pause...two...pause...three...pause.
block down...pause...punch...pause...step...pause.

We were working on tempo this week in the dojo.  The goal was to accelerate the beat and break out of the monotone count of a kata.

one,two,three...pause...one, two...pause...one, two, three....
block down, punch, step...pause...knife hand, punch...pause...kosa, step, block down

The class noticed they had preferences and certain kata were easier for them to break free of the standard count.   The dojo will be working on this concept again next week and in the upcoming months.

A big thanks to Kyoshi Baer for the training suggestion at a recent seminar!

Habit

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.  - Aristotle
 

Karate Provides Options

I am a parent, karate instructor and co-owner of a traditional dojo. School bullying is a complex topic that affects children, parents, teachers, school administrators and medical professionals. In studying karate, we learn control, self-defense and courtesy. In our dojo, kids who start fights or engage in bullying behavior are asked to leave.

My initial exposure to bullying was from karate students who came to class and shared stories about their day. The students would talk about bullies, the fear of riding the bus and frustration because teachers often did not witness the taunting. The bullies were smart, sneaky and inherently mean.

My daughter was bullied in elementary school. It is agony to watch your happy, smart, kind child begin to hate school. In second grade, my daughter announced, “I am a clique of one.” In third grade, she suffered with stomach problems and told the school nurse, “The kids have been mean for a while.  Now that they are older, they just find new ways to be mean.” In fourth grade, the homeroom teacher explained how my daughter had a larger view of the world and the other kids “will catch up”.

Two examples from our dojo:

Student at a crossroad

A parent brought his 11 year old son to the dojo for karate lessons. The parent asked if we would accept his son as a student. He cautioned us that other parents did not want their kids around his son because he was in trouble at school. The young boy was constantly picked on and tormented by other kids in his class. One day, the boy took a butter knife to school in his backpack with the intention to use it against the school bully. The teacher found the knife and luckily no one was hurt.

A young boy took a knife to school because he felt he had no other choice.

The father wanted his son to learn self-defense. We accepted the young boy as a student despite the protests of other dojo parents. The boy loved karate and found his place in the dojo community. He studied karate for 4 years. He was taught to use his voice, de-escalate or simply walk away. He knew techniques to escape and control. He learned options.


Target turned bully

A father brought his son to the dojo to learn self-defense. The pre-teen was bullied at school and on the bus. The father was excited to watch his son in karate class. After 8 months, the father informed us that his son had “learned enough”. He left the dojo. A few weeks later, we discovered the child became the bully. The father encouraged his behavior. We were heartbroken.


Whenever I research the topic of bullying and the role of a karate program, I inevitably ask more questions than find answers. Dr. Jay Carter, author and lecturer, suggests that traditional martial arts are excellent for the bully because it provides physical activity and a code of ethics. Dr. Carter led a program on anti-bullying at my daughter’s school for the students, educators and parents. His comment made me wonder who would be better served in a karate program – the bully or the target.

I would love karate training to a solution for the anti-bully movement, but there are limits to what a program can offer. Learning karate takes time. The decision when to use the karate training is not up to the instructor. Parents of school aged children need to be involved in the decision as to what is appropriate for their child. We do not use the words “You should” or “You shouldn’t” rather we present multiple options and levels of responses.

I can only speak from the perspective of a parent and a karate instructor. Through the years, I have witnessed shy children blossom into confident teenagers. At a wedding of former student, the father of the bride made a point to stop at our table. He thanked us for the time his daughter spent in the dojo. He believed karate training helped shape the self-assured woman who stood before us.  I watched my own daughter find her voice to stand up to bullies and help others in need.

My conclusion is simple. Karate can be a component in a bully prevention plan because karate training teaches us options. Increased confidence and self-esteem aid in the decision making process. We can decide how to respond – avoid, de-escalate, use your voice, walk away, escape or control. Perhaps a young boy wouldn’t need to hide a butter knife in his backpack because he felt he had no other choice.

What Would You Do?

Last weekend, I led a small group session on the topic of women’s self-defense. The group was great because they added to the discussion and asked good questions. The exchange prompted me to remember and share an incident which happened years ago.

I have been thinking about it and wonder if/how our reaction to the situation would be different today. It could be a great scenario for John Quinones series Primetime: What Would You Do?  It is a hidden camera show that captures how people react to real-life ethical dilemmas that call for action.  Excellent show.

Scenario:

A few of my family members went on a day trip to Atlantic City. We left early in the morning and were not expected to arrive home until well after midnight. Since we were getting home late, we decided to stay over night at my parent’s house. We woke to a loud banging at the front door. My Aunt thought it was my sister coming home late. My sister was asleep in her bed.

It was a man standing alone on the porch pounding on the front door with his fist. It was 3:00 a.m. He was yelling “Domestic violence! Domestic violence!” Now the whole household was awake - except for my Dad who can sleep through anything. Looking out the window, there was no one else in the street.

What would you do?

I would love to hear your comments!  I will share how the incident played out for us in the next post.