It was about 2 weeks ago in our Saturday meeting that I shared that I was feeling pretty decent. Numbers were on track. I felt I was doing what I needed to (and could) be doing. Less than 2 weeks later and it's a very different story.
Let's start with last week, where I was starting to feel a bit frustrated with the progress of my knee.
At my last appointment, we didn't see much improvement. So I'm going to be heading back to the doctor to see if he'll refer me for an MRI. I still can't bend fully, both due to pain and inflammation. There is still a lot of localized pain when I try to move laterally. I will feel fine in stances one minute, and then suddenly can't the next...for no obvious reason. This in itself makes modifying difficult. I can't really determine what I should or shouldn't be doing. I'll do something that was fine the day before, but this time it goes badly and sets me back again.
I continue to modify. I continue to remove myself from certain activities. This has now been for the majority of the year. I injured myself March 9 and have been modifying since. I've spent more than 13 weeks of my grading year modifying my training, and counting. And it's really starting to weigh on me mentally.
At double brown I'm definitely not looking for reasons not to be doing things. I get that there are things I will likely never be awesome at. But I still want to be able to do them, even at a low level. I absolutely hate saying, "I can't do this right now." And I hate even more that I'm starting to think this phrase is actually turning into "I can't do this" period.
Last year with my spear, I was working on the inside cyclone/spinning flying outside cyclone/inside cyclone. Was I awesome at it? No. But I was making progress little by little. At this point though, will this be a kick I ever attempt again? I think it's a serious possibility that the answer is no. And the same goes for a lot of things.
I'm just feeling myself getting further and further behind. I've been removing myself from free sparring in class. And although sparring is one of those things that intimidates me, that doesn't mean I don't want to do it. It's the opposite, in fact. I want to do it because I want to get better at it. Watching these past classes and not being able to participate has left me feeling like I'm missing out on all this opportunity. Every class I sit out feels like time I can't get back. Everyone else is building experience while I'm standing still. And in a grading year, that feels especially hard.
I can't grapple. I can't do throws. I can't do most kicks. I can't work on my 5 applications. Sure, I can go through the motions. Maybe do bits of this or that. But everything is modified. And I get that this is necessary at times. But when will I get back to being able to do this stuff in full? It's just not enough. Not in my grading year. I need to be ON right now. Operating at my best. And I'm simply not. I feel like I don't even know what I'm doing.
And these are all the feelings and thoughts that were bubbling up LAST week. It's sad to think...but I would give anything to go back to last week.
Fast forward to now and my situation feels even worse.
I was having a great day in my garden on Sunday when I realized that my back was starting to hurt. I did NOT push through, but stopped right away. Within the hour I was bedridden, unable to move without a lot of pain. I was out for the rest of the day.
Monday was a little better, but I still kept things low-key and remained mostly stationary. Tuesday better yet. I felt I was good enough to go to classes, but playing it safe, I had others lead and I took on a more supportive role, refraining from anything strenuous. Yet by the time I got home, I was in so much pain that I felt worse than I had on Sunday when it first happened.
Yesterday was bad. In the morning, I literally had to crawl back to my bed. It was humiliating, scary, and incredibly disheartening. There has been some progress. I can now walk short distances in the house, and I can manage getting in and out of bed. I made a chiropractor appointment for tomorrow, but I honestly don't know if I'll be stable enough to get out of the house.
So now, for the last few days, I HAVE been literally doing nothing.
The knee injury alone doesn't even feel like a big deal anymore. Adding my back to it all, and I'm really feeling lost.
I can't help but think about what this will now mean. More modifications moving forward? More taking it easy? More time spent on the sidelines? All the feelings that were starting to bubble up last week with my knee are now a lot more intense with this additional injury.
I'm trying to stay positive. It might not seem that way from everything above. But I don't necessarily think positivity means putting on a false front and pretending everything is okay. Because honestly, it's not.
Right now I feel lost and disconnected from the path I thought I'd be on.
But I am also holding on to this tiny thread of hope that if things can take a downward turn in less than two weeks, there's a chance they can change for the better in the next two as well. Things have felt dire before. Not this dire, mind you. But I've always come out the other end stronger and with a better understanding of myself than when I went in.
So while I don't know what comes next, and while things certainly don't feel okay right now, I'm trying to remember that difficult periods have happened before. Eventually they passed. I can only hope this will be the same.
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