Please Keep Trying!

First off, yes I know I suck for slacking, but things have been pretty busy lately, what with all the physical therapy and doctors visits. Speaking of, I went back to taijutsu last week for the first time in seven months. Incredible. It felt incredible.

All the daily physical therapy, icing, glucosamine, and strength training are paying off. The pain is still there, though not as much, but I can move unhindered more than I could before. When I’d gone to my latest doctor visit, I wasn’t as sore as I had been, and the doctor told me it would do me good to go back to training if I didn’t push it. I actually listened to everything the doc said, not just the part I wanted to hear (you can go back to taijutsu, you’re fine) and I iced Leftie throughout practice.

However, some cold hard facts came to light as I started getting back into the thick of it:

• I have a lot of catching up to do.
• My mental game still needs work.
• My knee is better but not well.

I love taijutsu. I don’t just love it because it’s a martial art or that I’m learning to defend myself, although those do factor in. I love it mainly because of the discipline and perspective it gives me. I’ve lacked those two things throughout much of my life and picking them up in such an unlikely place has helped me immeasurably.

Taijutsu has helped me lose weight because of the discipline and perspective it imparts. I’ve watched as it did the same thing for my senpai. Being able to step back and let things flow naturally is like learning to live for the first time. I have balance in my life now and black and white don’t have the meaning they once did. Because of taijutsu I see things more in the spectrum of gray and “never” is a seldom used word. Good ol’ perspective.

But right now, I have to play it safe with the knee and take it really slow. I was able to throw and be thrown for the first time in almost a year, yet my body and mind aren’t on the same page, or even reading the same book for that matter.

Although I sat in on practices throughout the months of my injury, my body can’t react to what my mind is saying. Sure, I know I need to be right there, and be there fast, but I can’t move like I did before the trouble started. I can’t even kneel properly to bow in. Thanks to my training though, I can say, it’ll happen. Thanks to training I can say, keep going. Thanks to training I won’t give up and snivel in a corner. I learned a new phrase last night which sums up how I feel about taijutsu in my life: Arigato Iroiro- “Thanks for Everything!!”