State of my … Health
A little over three months ago, I ended up as a substitute instructor for a Hapkido class. There were half a dozen of us, including a new-ish student. Considering I’m only a first dan in Hapkido, I worked on basics for about 50 minutes of the class. In the final 10 minutes, I decided to do just a little bit of grappling, since we don’t emphasize groundwork at my primary school, and I’m the most experienced grappler of those who train regularly.
I demonstrated a basic guillotine choke, falling backwards into the choke. Good example: Submissions 101 Guillotine Choke. Then, in my wisdom, I decided to demonstrate a couple of variations, such as rolling it into a sweep. And then I demonstrated a move I had been working on recently in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is basically a forward flip fall over the opponent into a choke. Set up the basic guillotine choke with the opponent seated in front. From a standing position, you’re basically jumping up and over the opponent while using their body to control the descent. You end up landing more or less on your back, breaking your fall with your feet. The choke is then finishing while you are on your back. It is fun when it works right – I almost got a submission out of it one night at BJJ practice. So I thought I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately for me, I set my partner up in a kneeling position. When I went up and over, he had no way to fall backwards. So I went up, and then down on my left shoulder, with his body weight adding a bit to the process.
That night, I went for an X-Ray, which disclosed a Grade 1 shoulder separation. A separation occurs when the collarbone pulls away from the shoulder blade. They grade separations in severity from 1 (mild, heals in a week) to grade 6 (severe, surgery recommended), though actually grades 4 and 6 are fairly rare. The next day I went to an orthopedic guy (not a shoulder specialist) who didn’t spend much of any time with me, took a look at the X-Ray and confirmed a Grade 1 or Grade 2 separation.
I restarted my TKD training after about a week, took physical therapy, and regained some strength. Eventually, it became obvious to me that something was pretty wrong with my shoulder. I can push my collarbone back and forth when I’m lying on my stomach. Pushups are extraordinarily painful. 10 weeks after injury, I went to a shoulder specialist who diagnosed it as at least a Grade 3, and more probably a Grade 5 separation. Surgery was optional, but rest and rehab aren’t really going to help it at this point.
So, they’ll be shaving off part of my collarbone, drilling into the collarbone (which has a chance of breaking the bone while they are at it), and giving me some cadaver ligaments to tie things together. I’ll be 6 weeks in a sling, and then I will be trying to regain range of motion from 6 weeks to 3 months. From 3-6 months, I’ll be increasing strength. I won’t be doing BJJ for at least 6 months, though I will continue to teach TKD while I am still in a sling. Surgery is scheduled for Jan 19, exactly one week from today.
As if that weren’t enough, two weeks ago at TKD training, we were doing some kicking drills with partners. Just loosening up with some basic kicks. I was working across from a 1st dan, and, well, we worked too close. My axe kick was going up, his was going down, and we clunked feet. I got the worst of that, by far. His heal came on the top of my foot, and fractured my 2nd toe. I’ve trained through broken toes before, and that never bothered me as much as this one. It still hurts to put weight on the ball of my foot, and the top of my foot is still sore to the touch. So I think most of my problems have been soft tissue issues, which are definitely improving, though not enough to continue with my training regimen.
As you can imagine, my blog will be focusing on my recovery from my shoulder surgery in the coming months.