Last night, for the first time in
about 8 months I went back to Krav Maga.
In September I had a knee operation
to repair a snapped ACL in my left leg. For 6 weeks I was hobbling around like
Blind Pew, my knee feeling like it had sunburn and taking prescription
painkillers.
After a couple of months I was able
to get in the passenger side of a car without doing advanced Yoga and ongoing
physiotherapy plus 3-monthly consultations with my 'specialist' at the hospital
meant we could get an accurate time frame for convalescence.
Problem was that Mr Robertson (a
surgeon so important that he had transcended the realms of Doctor and had no
prefix to denote his status, merely the knowledge that he was walking godlike amongst
lesser men) specifically said to me:
"Back in training in Spring
2016 we hope. But don't even THINK about grading again until at least
October."
This kind of stung.
I mean, I know he'd spent 2 hours
scraping gristle out of my knee cap and stitching back the flapping ends of my
busted anterior crusciate ligament. I know he was a renowned specialist in knee
surgery. And I knew that he was speaking the truth.
But....there was that other part of
me that wanted so much to just go back to Krav.
I've stayed in touch with my club,
blogging on gradings, seminars and popping in occasionally to say hi. They knew
I wanted to come back but agreed with my doctor's advice that I should wait out
my convalescence period until I was fit for duty again.
Guys who were taking P3 when I took my P4 (my last successful grading) were now P5s. Newbies I'd never met were P1 or P2. New faces were on the mats every time I showed up.
8 months is a long time to be spent
laying on the sofa watching Breaking Bad and eating Jaffa Cakes. My fitness has
dribbled away, my belly has started pushing against my jeans in an
uncomfortable fashion and overall I have felt grumpy at my inaction and
grounding.
Last week I visited the club and
Bartosz, the Chief Instructor said to come back in on Tuesday 26th to see how I
got on. Geared up and ready to go I got to the venue 20 minutes early and saw
Bartosz pull up in his van. Upon seeing me he started chuckling to which I
replied "You're not exactly boosting my confidence here!"
As we got into the training I
realised just how hard this was going to be. My stamina was down, my cardio was
almost non existent and it was only my determination that kept me going to the
10th push up or the 20th burpee. We then moved on to kicking and punching
combos with a melon bag. My front kick was lacking, mainly due to it being my
left. Upon seeing the lack of power, Bartosz told me to stick to punches only
as the leg wasn't up to repeatedly kicking just yet. Moving on to stick defences
I could again feel the lack of fitness and knew their were gaps in my knowledge
and rust on what I thought I knew.
Before when I both trained and
graded, I would find reserves of energy and use them to finish what I was
doing. No matter how tired or sore I was, I was always able to draw from a well
somewhere. Now, I found that that the wells had run dry. There is a difference
between running on adrenalin and keeping on solely because you know that things
can only get better next time and the times after that.
We finished the training with 20
push ups. Twist was that we formed a line and then got onto the floor, with our
arms touching, meaning that it was a genuine "push up" each time and
not a "push sideways". This was more tiring after the 90 minutes that
had preceded it and worse (albeit for less time) than my last two gradings for
P4 and P5.
I went to the supermarket on the
way home and wondered why I was getting funny looks off the staff. Later I
realised that I'd been so knackered I'd forgotten to take my groin guard off.
Walking around in a posing pouch is one way to get attention.
Once I hit the sack I woke up about
20 minutes later to excruciating cramps in my inner thighs. The pain was unlike
any other cramp I'd ever experienced and it took walking and down the stairs
repeatedly to shift it. I returned to bed a short time later, treating my body
like an unexploded bomb as any movement could trigger the cramp again. It was
only the next day when I finally found out that this unpleasantness was caused
by the high kicks I'd been doing (or any kicks above knee level tbh) that had
overstrained the pudgy muscles that had only faced cycling and yoga in the 48
weeks since I last had a groin guard on.
Today it has been a case of feeling
tired with a huge appetite spike. I am bruised. My inner thighs hurt from the
cramping. I'm swearing every time I bend over and I'm walking like my trousers
have too much starch in them.
Was it worth it?
Course it was.