Injuries that heal
So, this is a funny thing. One of the red belts in the school (in fact the one whose story I’ve mentioned before), had been having problems with a swollen knee — he wasn’t sure exactly what triggered it, but it was swollen up a lot. He rested it for awhile, but it wasn’t getting much better.
Then, a couple weeks ago, he and I were sparring. He did a nice turning back kick with the swollen knee leg that I was late in recognizing. I just checked the kick by raising a leg, which meant that he kicked my shin gear. It was a bit of a “thud” which didn’t hurt me at all. He ended up turning his ankle slightly, but was able to keep going after a short time.
Well, when I saw him the following week, he pointed at his knee, and the swelling was completely gone! It turned out that somehow the shock of that contact caused something or other to dislodge, and allowed the fluid to drain. Or at least that’s the operating assumption. The swelling had decreased later that same day, and was basically gone by the next day.
The only other time I’ve known about an injury that ended up healing something came early on when I started BJJ. I was rolling with a similarly inexperienced white belt in a no-gi class. I got caught in an inverted arm bar, and (stupidly) figured I would be able to slip out of it. So I fought it and he ramped up the pressure. Then we both heard something that sounded like paper ripping.
I had a little bit of pain, but really not like I was expecting. After a couple of days, that pain went away. It turned out that the ripping sound was some scar tissue. I had had shoulder surgery for a subluxing shoulder (kept popping halfway out and then going back in) as a teenager, and for the following 17 years or so I had limited range of motion in that shoulder. Put your elbow by your side with your fist in front of you (elbow bent at 90 degrees) and try to move your fist around your body without moving your elbow. Normal shoulders can go roughly 90 degrees, but my shoulder could only go around 30 degrees. After that arm bar, my range of motion improved significantly — now I can rotate that shoulder maybe 80 degrees or so.
Anyone else get an injury that ended up being beneficial?
My husband swears by karate training as being curative! When he goes to his jujitsu class he invariably come home with an injury – either a groin strain or shoulder pull. He attends a karate class the next day (still limping or wincing with pain), by the end of the class he’s cured!
@SueC Heh. Gotta love those endorphins! Those (relatively) minor aches and pains do usually seem to go away when you loosen up and get the body moving. Of course, my wife doesn’t understand why I’d even do things to get me limping or wincing in the first place…