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 Investment

In late 2001 I snapped the anterior crusciate ligament in my left knee. I was sparring with a kickboxing instructor named Bertram who was basically kicking my ass. When I tried a roundhouse kick,  I kept my entire left foot on the floor instead of balancing on the ball of it, and the strain snapped the ACL. There was a "crunch" noise and I signalled to Bertram to stop beating me, then hobbled off the mat in order to soothe my sore appendage.

Next day the knee was horrendously tender and swollen to the size of a small grapefruit. I didn't know what was wrong and simply waited for the swelling to go down and then strapped the leg up and carried on. Months later I was told that I had almost certainly snapped the ACL and while I didn't think much of it, as the knee was 'manageable' and the pain almost non-existent, I found out in 2004 that this was a much bigger deal than I'd imagined.

I applied for the City of London police Special Constabulary (volunteer cops) and was rejected on medical grounds due to declaring the knee injury. The force medical officer was polite and to the point, and said that if I'd waited to apply in 2005 it wouldn't matter as new laws were coming in that would make it wrong for them to reject me on these grounds. However...now the old rules applied and she reluctantly had to say no to my application. I asked if I could be allowed an appeal, if I could get the knee repaired. She said yes.

So I went back to the doctor and began the long process of consultation, MRI scan and visits to a specialist. After several months I was booked in for an operation and spent the night in a hospital bed, in preparation for my early morning op, kept awake by two old men squabbling in the adjacent beds. Morning came and the anaesthetist arrived to prep me for my time under the scalpel. Then he told me to put on a backless gown and wait. An hour or so later the consultant surgeon arrived (a man I had only glimpsed from afar up to this point and had always been seen by his underlings). He breezily asked me to swing my legs up on the bed. I'd had the foresight to keep my undies on, despite being told not to, which was a good job as he was with two junior, female doctors. To make matters worse, one was very pretty. He then proceeded to twist and manipulate my lower leg, regularly asking "Does this hurt?" When he realised it didn't he then said "Leg's healthy. You don't need the operation. You can go home."

Overjoyed, I sped home and sent the forms off to the COLP medical officer who then accepted me as healthy, I got interviewed, accepted and joined in October 2004

However....

It turned out that far from what I naively believed had been a case of 'self healing', the leg muscles around my knees had simply grown bigger due to the amount of cycling I was regularly doing in London. The ACL was still broken but, like having a strong set of core muscles in your belly, all that exercise meant that the knees were now having the majority of the strain on the surviving ligament, dealt with by the increase in muscle.

Years later and the knee still twinged. Like tectonic plates grinding into each other, the knee cap would rub into other bits and acidic, sharp pain would shoot up my leg. I was rejected by both the Territorial Army and the RAF Reservists on my paper applications, without even being seen, solely due to the ACL damage. Both said "Get it repaired, then reapply after 18 months."

In Krav training I would have to wear not one but two knee supports on that leg and also take a shit load of painkillers after gradings, due to the soreness and swelling after 4 hours of beasting, with at least 30 minutes of full on sparring to top it all off. I couldn't sit on my heels when I knelt down. I was advised in the strongest possible terms by a knee specialist that I NOT go jogging. The impact would cause inflammation to the knee and put me back. Cycling was fine but running, which I love, was out.

This year I decided what I really want to do is be fully fit again. I want to run, jump and twist without fear of having to open the Ibuprofen. I want to grade in Krav Maga without fearing that someone will boot me in the kneecap and send me howling to the floor. I want above all to be a Fast Defence instructor with Wayne Hubball in 2016.

I went for another MRI scan on my knee a few months ago after referral from my local doctor. I then got to Warwick Hospital to see a consultant. They put me on a waiting list and last week told me that my operation to repair the ACL will happen on the 25th of August 2015. Convalescence time is 6 months, meaning no Krav for that entire time.

This dictates that I will miss both chances to retest my P5 exam in October and December. I will miss shit loads of training and also the seminars run nationally and by my own club Krav MagaMidlands. Guys who are currently P3 will be probably taking their P5 the same time as me. Guys who are currently P4 could well be taking G1.

But....the light at the end of the tunnel is that I will come back fitter, healthier and with more endurance. Things I cannot do now without pain and physical instability will be much easier to perform. I will be able to fight without the paranoia of wondering if my knee will get hurt during the kicks and punches, takedowns and ground work.

It's an investment and one I wish I'd taken a long time ago

Short term gain gives short term pleasure. One thing Krav Maga has taught me is that sometimes you need to be patient and put your ego and desires to one side in order to be all you can be.

The Shovel or the Paintbrush

Many years ago when I was a little boy, I was sat in class listening to Mrs Drakeford telling us about archaeologists (thank Christ she never put that word in our weekly spelling test) and she asked us offhandedly if we knew what they used to dig up dinosaur skeletons. After much humming and hahhing and being told that spades, shovels, forks and JCB diggers were not the answer she then wrote on the blackboard.

"Paint brushes."

We all scratched our heads and made surprised noises for a couple of minutes, unable to grasp in our little brains how a tool we used to paint pictures with every Tuesday afternoon, could possibly be used to dig up a Stegisouraradasous or a Triangelerotops.

She patiently explained that an archeologist couldn't get a spade and "just go dig, dig, dig!" but would instead have to patiently rub away with gentle bristles, the dirt and detritus covering what they wanted to unearth. When we pointed out this could take weeks Mrs Drakeford said, "It takes YEARS."

I've been doing Krav for about 3 years now and something I've learned is that it's very easy to reach for a shovel when a paintbrush is sometimes required.

When I took P3 in October 2013 I remember Jon Bullock, head of KMG UK saying to us, with examiner Rune Lind stood by his side, that it was from this point forward "no longer about collecting patches." We had a much harder journey ahead of us and blindly or short sightedly charging forward to grasp the next grade's memorabilia was something that wasn't going to happen. Anyone who's taken P3, 4, 5 and up will know just how different they are from P1 and P2.

A paintbrush is a useful tool when aiming for higher grades as the shovel you are handed at your grading is good only for 6 months until your pride calls you to take the NEXT grading. I know for a fact that I cut corners and try to cram in as much as I can as late as possible, hoping that rolls will be cut for time (or lack of mats) and that I'll get the much coveted "group of 3" like I did on P2, so that there is less attention on me and more time to take a breath and watch how my partners do the techniques.

My "shovel" is that I don't go about my planning, training, and technique revision with patience, attention to detail and a desire to get it all "just right" but that I bludgeon my training, trying to get the most difficult moves done to satisfaction and hoping the other candidates are huge in number on the actual day.

I remember feeling at my P4 grading that, had I failed, I probably wouldn't come back any more. The week before I'd been nervous beyond endurance and my fingernails were bitten to little bloody stumps. I wasn't doing this as a sulk or a protest but simply because I didn't want to feel that bad again.

Not a noble, warrior-esque emotion to hold and one I'm most certainly not proud of...but it was there and I acknowledge it.

Overall, a paintbrush is a better tool when preparing for a grading. Take my time, relax and go over the moves at home in front of the DVD appropriate to my level. Learn for at least 2 months before I go, the moves specific to my upcoming grade and go in with the knowledge that I have drilled things as well as I possibly could.

Had I used a paintbrush for P4 I would have felt more confident and loose. Not ice box levels of coolness, but enough so I was sure that even with an Israeli E level examiner's eyes boring into me as he hovered with a clipboard, I would be able to give it my best, and not simply "hope" that it all came together.

Some things take time.