Injuries

Its a hard knock life as an uchi-deshi. I’ve endured numerous injuries, ranging from annoying to those that make training difficult and unenjoyable.

The most common is your run of the mill scratch or bruise usually from someone stepping on your foot or landing on it with their knee. Scratches are most often from people who do not trim their claws.

Next is the split toenail that results from catching it on a crack in the mat or someone kicking your foot at a certain angle.

One of the most annoying of the common injuries is when the skin on the bottom of your feet splits because its dried out and overstretched. This crack commonly occurs between the little toe and the foot, making seiza and most techniques sting.
A good remedy for this is to simply wear socks or slippers all the time when you’re not training. To be a bit more aggressive a deshi might cover the area in petroleum jelly or castor oil and then wear socks over it at night.

There are the muscle pulls and strains that also occur frequently. My advice on these is simply to rest the affected area as much as possible. To prevent such a thing from happening, don’t be lazy, take proper ukemi and remain aware of your surroundings, also stretch before class and drink plenty of water.

Now I will speak of the slightly more serious injuries that one can accrue. In my own experience, my knees were just fine before I got here. Now they pop and click constantly. I cannot sit in seiza for longer than it takes to bow in to class without experiencing pain. I have been told this is because of my height. I have somewhat eased the pain by adjusting my ukemi to be slightly less flexible as in I fall earlier than I used to to avoid hyper flexing my knees.

The next injury I just recovered from is a head injury. I was too slow to move out of the way of a very enthusiastic shomenuchi and the result was a headache for two weeks. I’m fairly sure I had a slight concussion, but I’ll never know for sure because I didn’t find the time to get it checked out. The headache wouldn’t have lasted so long if I had been allowed a day or two off of practicing, but no such luck. The best I could get was an evening off of classes.

My first class ever at New York Aikikai two years ago I separated my shoulder when I took poor ukemi for a koshinage. It went “pop” and then hurt a lot.

I have also seen some grizzly injuries. One member partially tore his ACL in his knee. He was out of practice for a few months. One black belt candidate tore his big toe open to the bone and still tested anyway with the limitation of no knee work allowed.

I’ve heard of elbow and collar bone breaks before but never seen any, so I think those are fairly rare occurances.

All in all Aikido is worth the pain and medical bills. Most injuries can be prevented by watching out for both yourself and your uke.

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Categorized as Aikido

37 comments

  1. Are there any podiatrists in the school? I remember your telling me that you saw a podiatrist in Jax and he was a bit nonplussed by how your foot moved. I wonder if your knee pain has anything to do with that.

    You’ve got me concerned, especially about your headaches….

    Please take care of yourself!

  2. I have that knee thing happen from time to time after an especially brutal day. It clicks and pops for a day or two afterwards. Usually goes away if you take it easy for a day, but I don’t suppose you can do that up there in your position… That head ache sounds bad, though. Take some time off for brain damage.

  6. Yea, I had to fight all urges to make refrence to that scene since Tonya made that refferance… mostly because they are singing about being miserable while they are dancing and having fun. It seems oddly appropriate for Tonya 😛

  7. I actually was thinking about Annie when I wrote that. I used to watch that movie all the time when I was younger. My best friend even played Pepper in a play once

  9. Hey,
    As for your feet; when you get feet or heel splits avoid being barefoot as much as possible. Wear sturdy shoes that will keep the heels of your arches supported… like sneakers. NEVER use salt. Some people think that disinfecting salt heels splits, it doesn’t, it drys the skin out and makes them worse. Use a heavy moisturizer twice a day and keep your shoes on. I get foot problems soooo much, I’ve made healing splits an art I think at this point. >_<

    And in responce to Christine; I don’t know if you are being sarcastic but, Jerry’s gi always smells amazing!!!! 0_0 What does he wear, gillette or something? It rules!

  11. Who’s Christine?

    Jerry, are you serious? I meant to say that you seem to know the more aggressive moves, movements, and motives behind just about any technique we do. It wasn’t meant to be a reflection upon you personally.

  13. Mwh.. >_< you are a nice guy Jerry, not dark hearted.. just a lawyer.

    Sorry… Christina (probably still spelled it wrong… I suggest going by a syllable name from now on.)

  17. A nice overview of injuries. The only ones I am worried about in your case are your knees. I’d hate to think you had permanently damaged them at your age. I’ve noticed Joey, a former deshi, doesn’t sit in seiza much either.

    I recently awakened a sleeping giant in the form of an old shoulder injury that stretched my AC joint. I got it from taking a bad roll on my shoulder and seem to have done so again. It’s not bad, but nagging. That and my toes which being long are always getting snagged on something.

    Get a bottle of fish oil pills and take one or two every day since you probably are not getting enough Omega 3 and it significantly helps with inflammation among other health benefits.

  21. Interestingly, in the series, the exchange went like this:

    “Who is Number 1?”
    “You are Number 6”

    But in the script, (and yes, I have read the script), the exchange was always written like this:

    “Who is Number 1?”
    “You are, Number 6”

    Note the comma. Read this way, the final episode makes sense, when our hero walks back to his flat, and the door OPENS BY ITSELF, just like in the Village.

    ::cue spooky music::

    Be seeing you!

  22. Note the song that was playing when the village was being destroyed… How everyone he knew from the outside was already on #1’s side… It all leads to one conclusion!

    You should not worry about your heart so much as your gi’s smell aparently. It is the subject of great debate.

  23. “It all leads to one conclusion”

    Incogneto, YOU are number 1!

    I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.

    Be seeing you!

  24. My lords and ladies,
    This pointless arguement does but distract us from the founding issue of this councle… When will the Ikkyo hunt begin?!?

  26. Jerry that was what I was saying, in the script there is a commathere. and if you watch the last episode: Fall Out, when you remove Numer 1’s mask, number 6’s face is revealed if I remeber correctly 0_0

  28. incogneto, the ikkyo hunt will begin when Dee and I return from Orlando. Sorry about the delay!

    MM, ok, I understand. (For extra geek points, what was the FIRST image after number 6 removed that mask? And what song was playing during that scene?)

    ::Darth Vader voice:: I have you now!

  30. Thank you Tonya for your card! We had a wonderful time in Orlando. After eating a lovely breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton, we spent the day at Hollywood Studios, and this morning floated high above the earth in a hot air balloon.

    Your card was very sweet. Thanks.

  31. Number 1 is wearing a monkey mask under the black and white mask….
    I don’t remember what song was playing exactly when he was unmasking him, however there was a lot of weird music in The Fall Out episode… they played “all you need is love” … and that “bone will walk around song” freaky >_<

  32. Why not share the name of this show you keep referring to, despite the fact that you’ve spoiled the ending for the rest of us. Maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

  33. It’s The Prisoner, a British 1960’s sci-fi / spy / weirdo series starring Patrick McGoohan. Don’t worry, I could pantomine every episode while you read the script and you still wouldn’t understand what the heck was going on.

    MM, first of all I have to ask…Did you know the answer off the top of your head? If so, I am truly impressed. If not, then I’m sending Rover to collect you.

    BTW, the February newsletter has been on the site for a few days now. I should get around to emailing it later today.

    Be seeing you!

  34. Yes I knew it was a monkey mask, I saw the episode first when I was a kid… the damn monkey thing is one of the only things I could remember until I revisted the show when I was like 14-15…it scared me… also I had watched the interviews with the actors on Discovery channel a few years ago. They had this long-butt interview with the guy they chose to play the masked Number 1.

    However, I’m still not sure what song they played during the unmasking, I only have little slivers of memories of which songs were in that episode. It was freaky though. >_<

  35. You were right about the Beatles. All You Need is Love. The entire cast must have been on hallucinogens when they filmed that episode.

    What do you think of the February newsletter?

  36. I like the Feb Newsletter… you linked to my myspace ^_^ eeeeeeeee thanks, I’m a real person now. ^_^

    I hope we do do that 24 hour aikido thing too, that would be sooo sweet ^_^

  37. oh the play that song during the unmasking too.. all i remember is the weird jukeboxes playing the beatles as he entered th courtroom before he saw number 1.

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