Kendo michi continues. BP is well controlled. Went in for my MRI and my right shoulder has an osteophyte, tendenosis, bursitis and a "frayed" labrum. Here is a link to shoulder anatomy. All well and good, I can limp it along for a bit while my orthopedist and I decide what to do.
Then, an old skiing injury rears it's ugly head and then next thing you know I can hardly walk with sciatical pain radiating through my right buttock down to my right heel. Positive cough and straight leg signs as well. Here is a link to sciatica. Yuck. My wife and best friend got tired of my complaining and I was told to either see a neurosurgeon or a chiropractor. Neither appealed to me but I could get into the chiropractor quicker. So off I went, and got a sacral manipulation. Surprise, the numbness in my foot resolved over the next 24 hours and my back actually felt better. It's not completely healed by any stretch of the imagination.
Accordingly, I took the good natured butt kicking that Stroud Sensei gave me (citing Henry Smalls and Asai Sensei as examples of kendo-ka who over came adversity) and I went to kendo last night. I was able to do kata but wanted to avoid uchikomi because I knew I would to fumikomi (which I was specifically told not to do by the chiro). Mitori-keiko time instead. Wow, what an eye opener for me. Everyone was off balance and had terrible footwork! What did that say about me? It said back to basics is what it said.
So for me the next three months will be devoted to focusing on my kamae and footwork. It is said that after Tiger Woods won his first Master's Tournament he went back to a golf coach and completely reworked his swing since he realized that the one he had could not take him as far as he would like to go. For me, it's back to basics and a re-working of my kendo.
I got a lot of great sciatica information from these sites:
http://www.sciatica-treatment.com
and
http://www.nervesciatic.com
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Theresa | December 18, 2008 at 04:51 PM