Training Day!

I have just finished a great training session with Pete and Chris. Pete had spoken for a while about working through all the waza in the Shoden Mokuroku, both weapons and empty-hand. So I invited Pete to my dojo for a Saturday morning training session. We bowed on sharply at 9 am and set my phone timer going. Then we proceeded to work through every kata one time each to see how long it would take. We managed to do all the kata in 1 hour, 16 minutes. This included idori, paired weapons sets, the works. It was great to pressure test ourselves to see what we really knew. We managed to remember all the kata even though for a few of them we had to stop and think or work out certain parts, but we got there. Not bad considering there is something like 90 or more kata to learn. It was great to get the heart pumping and my limbs warm. It is a mild winter's day here and it felt good to get to that magical 'training warm' feeling.

Kumitanto!

Not long after finishing the whole Shoden syllabus, Chris arrived. He had just flown into New Zealand early this morning and wanted to work out some of the swelling from a long flight. So he joined us on the mat as we slowed down and looked at some key points on the idori kata. 

Chris emphasised the right attitude in the techniques, an attitude that presses an opponent and takes the initiative immediately. It was just the right amount of fine tuning we needed after blasting through the techniques. 

Overall Pete and I were happy with our progress. Despite the speed at which we worked, the main points of each kata remained intact (despite the odd technique not being our best). It certainly showed us what we need to work on now for future training sessions.

Pete suggested we do the whole Shoden set some time again to see if we have improved overall. I know it will be a blast. 

Training through/around injury.

So I have injured myself.

I woke up one morning to intense pain and aching in my right hip. I had trained the night before but had not noticed any problems before I went to bed. As I got up I found my right leg wasn't weight bearing without pain. I knew I had landed hard on that hip a couple of times during training and assumed I had bruised some part of my hip. After gently pressing different parts of the problem area I discovered the pain was coming from a protrusion of my femur known as the Greater Trochanter. I think I had bruised it and the area had become inflamed overnight as I lay on it. I was pretty sure I had damaged some of the soft tissue around the area as well because certain lateral movements caused me pain as well. After a quick bit of research online and talking to my wife who teaches anatomy and physiology to nursing students, it was quite probable I had tendinitis of the medial glute as well. This made sense as the same day as I had training I had a therapeutic massage appointment. The massage therapist had worked on my medial glutes as they were quite sore.

So here is what I think happened.

Last week I participated in the staff Tug o War (I'm a high school teacher). Now, due to a busy schedule with work and family I have only been getting to training once a week and teaching aikido once a week. Therefore my mobility and activity had dropped considerably over the winter months. Then to suddenly participate in some pretty serious isometric movements (Tug o War) didn't do my body any good. I had also stopped seeing my massage therapist over this winter term due to being too busy. Last year I made sure to see her at least once a month. 

This week I finally got back to my massage therapist and my body was a wreck. She did her best to iron out muscular kinks but more still needs to be done. I had that massage at 10 am of the same morning I had training. I then went to training that evening. Here is where I think my problems started. I had a fairly vigourous training session and pushed myself physically. I got home tired but not really sore. However, the massage therapist would have stretched and loosened muscles around my hips which, I believe, reduced my stability leading up to the training. In fact I believe that having a deep tissue massage PRIOR to training was my down fall. Nothing I did at training was unusual or new, other than increasing the intensity. Therefore the only thing I did differently that day was have a deep tissue massage earlier on. Also, knowing that the therapist worked on my medial glutes and that is the very tendon that is inflamed now seems to support this idea. 

Its my second day with the sore hip and it is healing quickly. It is most painful when I lie down so I slept with a pillow between my legs which reduced the tension on my hip tendons. Plenty of Deep Heat (Menthol cream) has been applied and I did take Ibuprofen yesterday to help with reducing inflammation. I am annoyed with myself for getting injured. However, it is in these moments that I find myself reflecting on my practice and what I can improve on. I will still go to tonight's training session but I will train around the injury. I know what planes of movement I can do without pain and I will stick with those. 

It goes without saying, that I will not be getting a deep tissue massage before training in the future.