Monday, May 06, 2013

Looking Ahead

Oakland has been a kick-- fun and rewarding.  Two more days before I can do a full After-Action Report.  Got to spend some time with Toby and make nefarious plans.  Got to really appreciate how Maija moves with a blade.  Got to play and think with some extraordinary people.  Blood, sweat and tears make a perfect training day, and none of it could have happened without Peter.

Looking ahead.  I still have Missouri, Bremerton WA, and Germany coming up.  Then surgery.  The doc says a long recovery.  He says eight weeks immobile and eighteen months off the mat.  That's unlikely.  I'll definitely have to change some process and for a short while really hold back on some things that I love... but change is growth.

So one of the plans.  Physical therapy works for some things, and some things trained early enough and hard enough are far less perishable skills than we think.  But my body will be a little different after this, atrophy and the like, and building of muscles is not the same as the building of trust in the muscles.  Flow and timing will have to be established, reinforced and integrated.

So it makes sense to start a regular class in late 2013 or 2014.  Short term.  Worked around my travel schedule.  Focused on (safely) playing at high speed, all ranges and natural rules. (Natural rules are things like "we don't want to hurt each other" or "you develop bad habits if you go fast in a slow drill." Artificial rules are things like a specific winning condition or pretending that X always stops things.)

And mostly about me and building up my timing, speed, endurance and flow.  Students and fellow explorers would be along for the ride.  Somewhere IN SW Washington.

5 comments:

Jim said...

Wish I was closer... I'm going to be doing much of the same, starting later this week.

Randy said...

Best of luck with the surgery and rehab. Motivated people usually have far less trouble coming back afterward, so I foresee a speedy and active recovery. A few of our folks have tackled the knee surgery-return-to-training-against-PT's best wishes beast, ranging from an ACL to the "terrible triad." Here's one of their accounts:

http://tkri.net/injury-comeback-story-complete-acl-tear-part-1/

http://tkri.net/injury-comeback-story-complete-acl-tear-part-2/

Josh Kruschke said...

If life was easy, we would all be bored.

:-)
Josh

Anonymous said...

Rory, look into "cross education" effect in training for physical recovery. Another suggestion is check out Tim Andersons book "Original Strength" the movements he suggest will be some of the easiest to incorporate early and they help retain cross body movement. Hope all goes well.

Mark H

Kai Jones said...

My advice on this subject (as a person who is currently recovering from surgery that included opening my skull) would be in such a different direction because our goals are not the same here, but I certainly hope you get the advice you need.