A pain in the neck

New training equipment?

"Well", the physiotherapist started ominously, "you will have to lay off training for a while". 

"Ok", I responded feebly whilst in my head I was pleading "but, but, but . . . my name is on the website . . . I'm training for my first Dan".

This disappointment must have been evident on my face as the physio quickly followed up with "but it should only take 2 or 3 sessions and you will be fine".  That sounded much better.  Phew.

Martial arts is a contact sport and occasionally injuries will occur.  In this particular case, I had a really  stiff neck for about three weeks and it just would not improve.  Not being able to turn your head without turning your entire torso is great for playing Batman but not so good for training.  The strange thing is I am not sure what caused the injury in the first place. 

My last training session was on 22nd May when we did some takedowns and some wrestling but I cannot recall any obvious incidents where I hurt my neck.  However the following morning, I woke with a yelp and a sore neck and back.  The only thing I can think of was my own movement whilst practising double leg takedowns. 

Anyway, after three weeks and no real improvement, I decided to get some physiotherapy.  One thing I have learned over the years is to listen to my body. When it hurts for several weeks, there probably is something wrong and it should be addressed.  One of my favourite sayings is you don't win any prizes by making injuries worse.  This stems from bitter experience; in my pre-Shoto Budo days I played a lot of badminton and suffered a knee injury which I tried to ignore and kept on playing.  This pig headed approach didn't yield really improvement in my badminton but did result in a far worse injury and more than six months on the sidelines.  Lesson learned.  

So this time I am going to listen to both my body and my physiotherapist and wait until I am ready to resume training.  Hopefully this will be in the next couple of weeks as I hate being injured and really do miss training.  Sitting on the sofa being grumpy is nowhere near as much fun!

Until the "necks" time, keep your guard up!

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