Shrugging off Injuries

I had a slightly weird class last night. It was me who was weird not the class. It was a perfectly normal good class. I was okay to start with, I looked forward to the class and I enjoyed the warm up.

We started with a whole class kata practice - all doing the same kata together. I enjoy doing kata but not in a big group like this, I prefer practicing on my own. The problem when we do it together is that I get the feeling we are racing each other to finish first. I find it a bit distracting when I am aware that the people next to me are one or two steps ahead. But I try and resist the temptation to speed up because I know my technique will then get sloppy.

I was then sent to the back of the dojo with the other purple belts to practice our combinations and other things off our syllabus. This is when I managed to injure myself. My partner and I decided to practice some kumite combinations. Stupidly I decided to block a kick with my forearm instead of just pushing it away. Ouch! It hurts. I now have a bump and bruise developing on my arm.

The problem was I found it difficult to get over this relatively minor injury and just get on with the karate. My arm was throbbing a bit but it wasn't broken. It made me realise I still have a lot of toughening up to do! I was a bit subdued for about the next 20 minutes. Even sensei asked me if anything was wrong because I didn't seem myself.

Anyway I decided to try and get back into things so threw myself into some break fall practice. I thought that smashing my arm down onto the mat would be good for me (not my arm, just me).

Finally we did a mini kumite competition and I finally woke up again! Sparring took my mind off of my throbbing arm and I really enjoyed it. In fact I even volunteered to do an extra round at the end!

So at least the class finished on a high for me but I do seem to have a problem dealing with injuries acquired during the session. I need to learn to shrug it off better and not let it affect my mood so much.

How do you deal with injury? Can you shrug it off and just carry on?





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