Every great journey must begin with a simple step. This is mine. My Jiu-jitsu Comeback.
my patented and very high tech method of measuring the range of motion in my knee
After several months of inactivity due to knee surgery, I’ve decided it was time to get back into a regular workout routine – rehab excluded.
Behold! The Majesty!
20 pushups
15 situps
rest
15 situps
rest
7 pullups
TIRED
And that was it. It’s been a couple of days and I’m still sore. Ha!
The plan is this: to keep working out until I get to the same level of fitness I was before surgery. Lots of pushups (50), situps (100) and pullups (six meter rope climb).
For my legs after rehab is done: lots of squats, balance ball work and deadlifts.
After all of that THEN I head back into the the halls of jiu-jitsu, and work on my conditioning and body movement.
NO TECHNIQUE TRAINING OR SPARRING FOR TWO MONTHS AFTER BEGINNING MY CONDITIONING!!
My doctor and physical therapist agree. They’ve set a similiar timeline for me when I’ll be ready to pursue jiu-jitsu again.
As far as my range in motion and mobility in my right knee goes, I can “actively” bend my knee past 140 degree. With a little help, I can bend my knee so my ankle is within one fist away from my butt.
Major props to me – four weeks ago I couldn’t even get anywhere near my butt. Goes to show that with enough drive and determination we can all set out and reach our goals. Even if its simply getting a knee to bend.
My leg in Bionic Ninja mode – unfortunately adds -5 to ninja sneakyness
Cue “Wayward Son” by Kansas.
It’s been two months since my ACL/meniscus surgery. Obviously I’m still not training.
I was told a horror story by my doctor. A patient of his made an excellent recovery and was cleared to pursue a higher level of activity. He was helping his friend chop down a tree, carried a portion of it on his shoulder, turned to look behind him when his friend called him, twisted his knee and re-tore his ACL. I’m pushing my back my jiu-jitsu activities two months after I get cleared my my doctor.
I have been “studying” jiu-jitsu now and then though. Bought a new book that shows off Kempo Karate. It shows off the standard “punch-kick” routine all martial art books typically showcase. I got it because it devotes a large section to wristlocks.
For some reason I can understand wristlocks better and I’m seeing possiblities for them in all sorts of positions – stand up or on the ground. I just can’t test them out or practice them yet.
I am behind in my rehab. Strength wise I can do squats and lunges slow and easy. In terms of my range of motion and mobility, it sucks. I still limp and walk way too slow for my Physical Therapist – Aono-san – taste. Last session he made me take off my brace, went behide me and pushed me till I was walking briskly. After months of moving at a snail’s pace it felt like warp speed to me. I can’t run or jog yet, but I shouldn’t be limping or walking slow either.
I should also be able to bend my knee until my ankle is one fist away from my butt. Last rehab session, a week ago, it used to be five-fists away. Now it’s three-fists. I have two more to go before my next rehab session in three weeks.
One of the reasons I’m behind on my rehab – besides the pain factor – is that I never knew I had a new goal to work for.
First it was just barely walking, then making sure I didn’t fall down or get my leg wet. Then it was getting my leg strong again. I knew I had keep bending my leg as much as possible, but to what extent I had no clue. I do now.
I suppose that’s one thing to keep in mind going through injury recovery or even just plain old training. There is a goal to be met. Make sure the goal is known. And to never stop until that goal is reached no matter how difficult it may be.
Why yes that’s a Roy Dean Purple Belt Requirements DVD
next to the awesome Japanese MMA magazine Gong Kakutogi
I miss Matt…
Just thought I’d throw out a post on injuries.
Things have been going great with training. Sparring match after sparring match, the techniques seem to just flow on out. The submissions are crisp and steady. Training partners have been showering praise. Even the higher belts have been noticing. It’s been nothing but good times.
Then it happens. A perfectly harmless maneuver, one that’s probably been done a hundred times before. Only his time sound accompanies it – a sharp POP.
Sure, keep saying “it’s only a sprain” enough times and perhaps it’ll come true. But it won’t because it’s not. It’s full blown injury. And things go down hill from there.
That’s exactly how it happened to me – three times, same body part – and the chances are that’s how it’ll happen with other members of the Jiu-jitsu community. If you haven’t personally had a major injury yet, the safe money is that you probably know someone that does.
Here’s a short and sweet game plan when it comes to injuries.
- Properly warm up and cool down
- Stretch afterwards
- Avoid hazardous sparring partners
- Pay attention to your body
- Massages help and yeah they feel good
- R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compress, elevate) minor injuries
- Seek medical attention for major injuries
- Need surgery? Sports doctors or those that compete are gold
- Going into surgery? Have a good support system in place
- After surgery do your rehab, workout harder and don’t forget your prehab
- Stay positive; you WILL heal up, you WILL get back to jiu-jitsu
- And for any type of injury, a complete and full recovery is better than a quick one
That’s pretty much it. Oh, there are some things from my own experience I’d like to share as I just had knee surgery on the 14th of August.
Big injuries suck – mentally, physically and financially – that’s were the support system comes in. Friends, family and loved ones you can count on when you’re hurting.
Here’s something I learned from the 171st episode of the Fightworks Podcast with Danny Dring and took to heart – prehab is just as important as rehab. Rehab is the foundation for your physical conditioning. Prehab, from what I understand it to be, is supplemental training specifically for that recovering body part to prevent future injuries. It’s addition exercises to your regular workout routine long after rehab is finished.
And finally, I learned from that it will probably be far more longer that I’d like to before I can really get back to doing what I want to be doing. Pre-injury-me, in January of this year, was in top shape. I could do a hundred sit ups, a hundred push ups and immediately spar for 30 minutes easy. And that version of me still got injured. Post-surgery-me has to work twice as hard just to get back into shape and unfortunately that’s nowhere near the same fitness level of pre-injury-me.
My physical therapist, Toru, who I met with a week before my surgery, told me flat out one year. To walk somewhat comfortably – one month, give or take a week. To jog – four months. To play sports at a low level – around six months. It’ll probably be one year before I can normally train again. To go at full intensity, longer still, because, no offense to basketball players out there, BJJ is definitely not Basketball.
His exact words in English were, “Basketball, easy. Run, stop, shoot ball. Six months. Newaza, hard. Legs all over, push, pulling, lots of stress on knee. One year, better to wait.” Knows his stuff, helped lots of Judoka on their way back to the mats. I’m in safe hands.
There is the dire feeling to rush things, especially after surgery, but if there’s anything we learn from training jiu-jitsu, patience is the key to getting better. There are no short cuts to excellence. Obtaining a black belt takes hard work and perseverance . Injury recovery is no different.
As I go currently through my own rehab, I wonder how long it’ll really take me. But you can bet I’m going to approach my recovery with the same work ethic and drive I did when I trained BJJ.
The way I see it; the better care you give your body now, the longer your body will be able to do things you want years later.
And I see myself doing jiu-jitsu for years to come.
A lateral view of my right knee via MRI. Unhappy face via me.
My ACL is indeed torn. I’m going into surgery on the 14th of this month.
Now that we got that out of the way…
First off I’d like to thank Caleb and Dan for their tireless effort and everything they do for the jiu-jitsu community. Most especially to Caleb, he is a personal inspiration to me that despite being sidelined by his injury and his surgeries – he has not let that be a hindrance in preventing him from remaining an active member of the BJJ family, ever supportive to the Mighty 600,000.
I’m also very grateful for Caleb’s interview with Danny Dring. No stranger to injuries, Danny Dring overcame major hip surgery to continue practicing the various martial arts he has attained black belt in, including BJJ. After listening to it recently for a second time, it is a particular episode of the Fightworks Podcast that has strongly hit home with me. I found it to be very insightful, encouraging and extremely helpful.
In the episode Danny Dring addresses many issues, most of which I knew very little about; finding the right doctor, dealing with our athletic mindset, rehab and the much looked over prehab aspect of injury treatment. I was also pleased to hear (but reminded of how clueless I was previous to my three-peat injury) that Danny’s recovery time to reach the same level of performance he had before took years to achieve.
I did so many things wrong and even when the interview was originally launched I paid no particular attention the first time I listened to it as I thought I was on the mend.
I highly recommend anyone with an injury – however minor or serious – to head on over to the Fightworks Podcast and listen to it.
Caleb can be reached at The Fightworks Podcast and on Twitter.
Danny can be reached at his site Living Defense and he has a book on injuries and recovery coming out entitled Stay in the Fight.
I re-re-injured my knee. Went through some major crazy thinking. I’m still going through it.
Although I have a full week to wait for the news as to the full extent of my ACL injury – so it make seem like I’m jumping the gun here, and regardless of whether or not I go into surgery – I’ve decided to stop jiu-jitsu for the rest of the year.
And as a result of that, this blog will go into hibernation.
A jiu-jitsu blog about a guy who can’t jiu-jitsu. Boring, if you ask me.
As much as I enjoy seeing the progress of my peers and friends, it’s really heartbreaking to be there on the sidelines and not be an active part of it.
I like the personal approach to coaching, working with or against my training partner, letting them figure out how to work the technique against me and then turning on the pressure, seeing how they’ll deal with it.
It’s the aspect of training jiu-jitsu aside from the actual training that I’ll miss the most. I’ll miss being a jiu-jitsu training partner than training jiu-jitsu.
There are a few loose ends to tidy up, so there probably might be an occassional blip here or there with a report on an OJJ event or a competition and, of course, what the heck is going on with my knee.
But for the most part, I’m going to be keeping a low to non-existent profile.
I’ll leave with a few personal messages. read more…
SUCKS TO BE ME!!
Here’s a vid of good old Rumina Sato at the UFC 100 fan expo Grapplers Quest tournament.
What I picked up from watching the clip:
1) Never pull guard if you’re not following up with a sweep or submission.
2) Go for submissions like Rumina does – he’s a hungry dog and his opponent’s limbs are doggie treats.
Finally strapped on a gi for the first time since I re-injured my knee yesterday. Didn’t do any sparring. Didn’t do any drilling either. Just joined the conditioning warm ups and showed some techniques to the guys. That’s it.
I sort of kept up with the warm up. I wasn’t grunting and groaning, but I didn’t really do all of the reps either. And I totally forgot about the gi!
Geez, it’s super hot ! Gah! After the warm ups, I just stood on the side and was constantly sweating for so long I soaked my gi.
Originally I wanted to work on some stand-up, but after Brent brought up not being able to finish Morimatsu-san in the back mount, I taught some escapes and my high percentage collar choke. I then had everyone do two minutes of positional drills from the back mount. One trying to submit, the other trying to escape. Kinda obvious.
The last time I did that particular drill I had finished my training partner four times within the two minutes we had for the drill. Everyone there had trouble finishing with the exception of Brent and Carl.
That along with asking the question of “do you guys know how to breakfall?” with the reply being, of course, no, made me realize just how green everyone else is compared to seasoned crispy leaf old me.
Eventually I did work on some stand-up. It was just drilling the entry to the throws and takedowns I wanted to work on, but I couldn’t follow through on them. Not without potentially hurting my training partner, Oguni, who has yet to learn how to properly breakfall.
I also wanted to practice jumping into guard, but didn’t really get a chance to. Everyone was tired and it was towards the end of the session when I finally got around to asking if they wouldn’t mind a 64 kilo heavy guy jumping up on top of them.
I’m still good on not sparring. Still building up my leg strength. I’ve gotten to the point that my legs are able to handle a good workout but the days following it are hard on my knee. Other than that, I’m also getting better at kneeling, I can stay in seiza for more than a minute! Huge when I couldn’t even do that a month ago!
I am getting close to really coming back. It’s a nice feeling.
Oh, btw, here’s Teppo Ebi’s new homepage. You can see me kneeling with a smile on my face.
In order to signify proper achievement and rank in the martial arts I propose a new belt rank system, the Super Duper Action Belt Patch Series 3000.
It has long been established (thanks Jigoro Kano!) that universally the most respected belt rank is that of black belt. (the issue of red-black and red belts are for another post entirely) The black belt should represent in depth knowledge and superior skill above any other belt color within the respective combative art.
Unfortunately, with the advent of other martial systems adopting a wider color scheme, false and self promotions, more systems based on effectiveness, technical merit vs competitive skill vs ready4dastreetz practitioners, the current status of measuring skill in a martial art via belt color is severely faulty at best.
I submit the Super Duper Action Belt Patch Series 3000 as an attempt in clarifying the large skill gaps within the martial world.
Thumbs Up Patch
Your rank is genuine and official. Your peers agree that you have earned the belt tied around your waist. Be proud.
Two Thumbs Up Patch
You are an instructor, and your rank is genuine and official. Your students enjoy learning from you. You treat everyone with respect and you represent your martial art with great responsibility and honor. It is your hope that your students become better people through the study of martial arts rather than World Champions. Although both wouldn’t be bad.
Five Star Patch
You are deadly efficient in your combat system. You can handle a Professional Rugby Player OR a Firefighter OR both with ease. Anyone foolish enough to call you out on your skills are required to immediately apologise.
