Written by It finally happened! I crashed with my bike on the way home from the dojo. Over six month I made it through the black belt test without any major injury, besides some minor bruises and pulled muscles. Nothing that really held me back doing my daily exercise nor doing my sparring rounds. But I knew I was living on borrowed time, it will happen eventually.
And it did on that beautiful early summer evening. One small groove in the road and one moment of not paying attention – there I went over the handlebar. However, my catlike reflexes 😉 made me roll nicely. When I got up, I felt pretty good and there was just a little bit of road rash. Maybe I should have been more concerned about it, because all traffic stopped and people left their cars to check on me (thank you strangers). However, I got back on my bike (lightly scratched) and went home.
It dawned me that I may have damaged a little more than just having a superficial rash, as I had issued raising my right arm over my head without having a pinching pain shoot through it. Well, one night of bad sleep later I got my confirmation by my arm turning blue and red. My wrist and elbow were nicely sprained.
No pushups, sparring, nor partner exercises for me for a while. My two black belt candidates companions (Geneva and David san) had their own setbacks during their journey so far -broken wrist and concussion. From them I learned to push through and change up the rigor. I am doing sit ups now where I do not need to use my arms. Kata practice is doable as well, I just concentrate on foot work for a while. The only real downturn is losing sparring time. I am already behind with my number of rounds, this is setting me back even more.
Oh, well, it means to step up the game during the next 26 weeks until end of December. It is all doable and I will find a way.
Dirk-san, I am glad you are ok and the injuries while a minor setback paired with some pain and discomfort, are not too serious. It could have been much worse had you landed on your head! Or maybe not since you have a big, hard head. But still…could have been broken bones or such, so thank goodness you are A-ok and healing up. Listen to your body and let things heal up; I know you know this but we too tend to push ourselves and as you are well aware, this can too lead to more injuries and setbacks.