Like an Advent Calendar

Since September of last year I've been slowly recovering from a knee operation. The op was relatively simple and was keyhole surgery to repair a flapping ACL in the left leg. After a fairly surreal stay in hospital following the procedure (unrestricted access to social media mixed with loads of sedatives do NOT go well together), I limped home and got into the process of rehabilitation.

For the first 3 weeks the leg was swollen to buggery and I could barely bend it. The op had involved drilling or cutting into various places on the knee, shoving cameras in there, and then not only restitching the tattered ligament but also scraping a load of gristle out of there.

Not nice.

I was on painkillers that made my piss go orange and had to inject my belly every day for 10 days so my blood didn't coagulate. Morphine helped me sleep and I would hobble around on crutches for my requisite 15 minutes stroll per day.

Gradually the pain eased and slowly, very slowly the leg began to calm down, the knee became more stable again and finally at nearly four months down the line, I feel that all that pain was a wise investment as I can feel more flexibility and strength in the foundations of that knee.

The thing is...

For the last four+ months I've sat on my arse, getting love handles and watching lots of television. I've recently begun yoga in order to regain my flexibility but one thing that has become woefully apparent is my lack of core stability. Basically I've become unfit.

In March of last year I took and failed the P5 test. With a score of 66% and feedback from examiner Nadav Shosan that I would do better the next time, I looked forward to a retesting in the following October exams. Then the hospital got in touch to finally offer me the knee operation and that was that.

The March 2016 gradings are about two months away but I won't be able to attend. I haven't trained in months, my cardio is shot to hell and I would need at least a month just to get back on top of not only fitness but also revision of techniques.

My consultant surgeon for the operation specifically told me that I can GO BACK TO TRAINING AT KRAV MAGA in the Spring but he then added that I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT GRADE AGAIN UNTIL OCTOBER. This means it will be 18 months between my original P5 and the retest.

Like a pre teen child looking at a Christmas advent calendar on December 2nd, I want to open all the windows, get all the chocolate and get straight back in there again. However December 3rd through to December 15th's windows need to be opened gradually, slowly and with patience. 16th will be going back to training. 17th will be beginning revision of my techniques from P1 back to P5. 18th will be joining the sparring classes...and so on.

Keeping patience at a time like this is infuriatingly hard but I know that I cannot just undo the pain and convalescence of the past few months by being impatient.

I'll get all the chocolate eventually. Just one day at a time.

The Kraving

While recovering from my knee operation I have spent a great deal of time laying on the sofa catching up on TV shows like Gotham and Burn Notice. I've also read a few books and managed to tidy up the flat. Hell, if really bored I might even wrap my protesting, spitting cat up in a towel and clip her claws. I managed to get the final, final draft of my latest book WALK IN PIECES: Diary of a KravMaga Practitioner done and dusted and published for all to buy as a Xmas gift.

However...as my fitness levels slide and my belly starts to push against my belt like the last person trying to get on to the rush hour Tube train....I miss Krav Maga training and the feeling of, as my normally wankish Headmaster used to put it, getting "out of breath".

It's only when something's gone that you realise what you had. This sounds cheesy but the problem is that you need a new perspective in order to look back and go "hmm, yeah, I deffo miss that!"

Training that is as cardio based as Krav Maga (twenty minutes warm up...MINIMUM including a shit load of stretching) will push fitness levels to their best limits and something I miss above all else is feeling that I always had energy, even when I didn't.

Getting up in the morning to a job I didn't like very much I would nevertheless rise about 90 minutes before work started, have a leisurely breakfast and catch up on some news, my emails or Facebook. I'd get to work with time to spare (only a few minutes mind) and have enough energy to face something I did only to pay the rent and put food on the table.

Now that I'm signed off sick, I feel sluggish and despondent until about 10am when I reluctantly heave my carcass off the mattress and downstairs for a cup of coffee and a wash. It can take my brain up to half an hour to get going, like a grizzly coming out of hibernation. I force myself out for a walk with my knee wrapped up in a sports brace and hobble around town, feeling like Victor Meldrew at every red light or queue I come across.

No longer do I come home like I did after Krav, with my T-shirt stuck to my back, my face beetroot red and craving the biggest pepperoni pizza on Domino's menu. Now I come home feeling like I could possibly be doing more. Then I turn a little too quickly or catch my foot on something...and that twinge of newly stitched flesh kicks in and the swearing starts. In front of the TV I once again find myself, with the "other" knee brace fresh out the fridge. This one's full of water and gently soothes my aching and irritating knee from the new ACL and where they scraped out the gristle to make up for 14 years of grinding bone on bone.

Last week I spoke to the consultant surgeon, the very chap who had in fact drilled holes in my knee and repaired what was wrong in there. We'd met once before but as I was spark out on an operating table I have no memory of this encounter. He specifically told me that it will be next Spring before I can train again and October 2016 before I can grade. A woman in my club has just taken P3 and I had joked with her that maybe we'll be partners when I retest for P5.

She was P1 when I was P4.

Looks like that's one time I tempted fate when I shouldn't have.

So as my days stretch into weeks and slowly, ever so slowly into months and I keep to my convalescent plan and try to avoid getting a gut so large that it restricts a vertical view of my toes...I miss training at Krav Maga and I miss helping out with the kiddy Krav class on Mondays with Russell's JSKM.

I need to be patient and wait this out. Going back early would possibly fuck my knee up for the rest of my life. Once fully fit I can jump into my groin guard and pound the floor with the rest. For now, I just need to catch up on seasons 1 to 5 of The Walking Dead and maybe buy some more coffee beans.

The Kraving can be tolerated, but it's always gonna be there. Until I go back.