Martial Arts Injuries – an Excuse to Quit.
One of the inevitable facts that you must face when training martial arts, particularly in the systems of Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts, is that you will acquire injuries from time to time. These can range from simple bruises and cuts, strained muscles and connective tissue through to more serious bone breaks and tissue tears.
It is imperative that we learn how to handle these eventualities, when they occur, so that we manage them in a manner that will facilitate rapid and complete recovery. Often a short period of rest in order to give the injury a chance to heal is al that is required, however, for the more serious problems you must consult your health professional who can assess the injury more fully and provide a strategy for recovery.
It is during these times, when we are faced with an injury and a lay off from training, that some of us will be faced with a serious challenge to our motivation such that we will question our real purpose and need for training.
And it is at times such as these that I have seen several students drop out of training citing reasons ranging from an inability to train, all the way through to their doctor telling them that they would have to give up training all together.
In the majority of cases I have found that most of these students could have continued training by working around the injury or would have been capable of returning to training within a couple of weeks and the reasons for stopping training are merely excuses that raise serious questions as to their real motivation for training.
I have found that when I find myself in situations like this I need to ask myself: is what I am thinking a valid reason or just an excuse for opting out of something that I am no longer motivated to do?
Always remember it is important to be honest with yourself because if you continue through life continually making excuses for yourself, every time you get an opportunity to pull out of something that requires effort and focus, then this will seriously impair your ability to achieve anything worthwhile in life.
When considering the value of Martial Arts training consider how it has the capacity to equip us with so many valuable attributes, for achieving so many things in life, far beyond just the fighting and self defence aspects.
When I look around at my Black Belts and my fighters I see individuals who have suffered many injuries and critical challenges to their continuation of training. They all overcame these stumbling blocks and continued on to achieve their goals. These same people carry this attitude throughout their lives in every thing that they do and reap the successes that come with a positive self motivated frame of mind.
The ability to maintain focus and purpose so that you can overcome adversity and keep striving for a goal is a very valuable asset that will greatly enhance your life.
So don’t just accept the easy way out, question yourself then look at the facts and develop a way to work around any impairment to either compensate for it or wait until it is repaired.
William James (1842 – 1910)
William James (1842 – 1910)
I agree that many people will drop out rather than keep going due to an injury. I think the risk increases as you get older. I obtained my black belt after a long rehab from L5 disc surgery. In my early thirties, I was still motivated and young enough to do it. At about 40 I tore my cruciate ligament in traditional Japanese Jujitsu, which involved a lot of throwing. I decided even though I was Brown belt level, and after 18 months of rehab, to give it up and concentrate on teaching my kids classes. I could not afford to get hurt again, because my business depends on it. Rehab takes a lot longer as you age. Very interesting insights in your post, particularly about overcoming adversity.
I think it also depends on the life stage you are in. Had back surgery at 32, full knee reconstruction at about 40-something, decided to give up the high risk activity and focus on teaching. It’s all priorities. Can see how many use it as a cop-out however.
AS the popular cliche goes, “No pain, No Gain”. Aren’t you just wondering why there are still many people who pursue martial arts training? It is because they have learned to live with the pain until one day that they don’t anymore feel that way. So dropping out should never be an option unless you don’t know that martial arts training is painful.
From my experience there are two types of martial arts classes (a.)the air-fairly impractical, esoteric ‘mc dojo’ types where you get taught stuff that’s semi-useful and never get to put into practice what you learn or get a bleeding nose (b.) the full-on dojo’s where you get down and dirty. Mostly the first category is for the kids of rich kids and the other working class.
The problem for the later group is the students, which I gather you are referring to(?) don’t like getting their bones broken as they can’t afford time of work.
What you deem as merely a weak excuse to leave – I see as a credible, rather than a character flaw.
Since I left JJ I have completed an Ironman Tri and several multi-day endurance events, so to paint those who leave the sport as lacking motivation shows you have never actually asked your students “why did you quit?”
Instead you have rushed to judgment, made assumptions.
Getting your nose broken and two black eyes is not like a runner having a calf injury.
MA is after-all 99% training – stop enjoying training by getting constantly injured and you are finished.
There are plenty of other things for people to do and martial arts may be a big part of your life but not others.
As I discovered getting beaten-up learning to defend yourself seems to be counter-productive.
These people aren’t weak – they see the emperor has no clothes – MA is a high-risk fringe sport.
Some individuals bask in the physicality and have jobs that mean its O.K to front-up looking like you’ve gone through 3 rounds with Mike Tyson – others don’t have this luxury and live under the roofs of partners who prefer their other halves in one piece.
There will always be the ‘old school’ involved in Martial Arts that see injuries and the more blood that is spilt as being a badge of honour.
That’s why MA remains a fringe activity with limited demographics (testosterone filled males under 30) and perpetually massive turn-overs.
That’s my penny’s worth.
Perhaps try asking ‘ex’ members why they became an ‘ex’ member?
My bet is they’ll tell you they were sick of getting injured as did their employers & partners.
Cheers.
MarkNZ
Reply to MarkNZ Comment.
What a very interesting comment. You have clearly missed the point of the whole Blog post.
You have drawn conclusions with a very narrow-minded and completely flawed view of martial arts training.
In the first instance you say that there are only two types of martial arts schools and give your incredibly biased, cynial and, what could be interpreted as, prejudiced opinion of what is taught in them and who attends.
Perhaps you should look around at some of the higher quality schools.
I run a school that has 495 students, ranging in ages from 5 years old up into their 50’s.
I teach MMA, BJJ, Muay Thai and Philipino Stick-fighting.
My students come for all walks of life; I have several doctors, business managers, mums, sales people, school teachers, policemen, scientists together with numerous university students and people who do more regular jobs.
They all enjoy the martial arts that I teach for the reasons that they want to do them.
The majority of my students are there to engage in a life-style pursuit that will give them confidnce, great exercise and an ability to look after themselves.
In addition I produce some of the best fighters in the country. regional, national and international champions.
What I find even more interesting about your comment is that you make an assumption as to type of students that I am talking about and the injuries that they are incurring, then you proceed to criticize me on that view.
That view is a conclusion that you came up with and is not in line with my blog post at all.
In addition, I will add that I do know why my students leave because I do ask them, that is why I have the most successful and professionally run school in my region.
Please take a look at your comments, reread my post with a less biased point of view and perhaps even visit some of the more professionally run martial arts schools and you may come away with a different view.
One last thing martial arts is hardly a fringe activity with limited demographics; in my own city (340,000 people)there are literally thousands of people of all ages regularly training in martial arts.
Regards Geoff
Hey good article man! I agree with what you say, with people who are all too willing to give up when they discover that they will not be overnight champions and that progress in combat sports/academics/relationships is a product of hard work. injuries are part of the game and you have to adopt a mindset that takes this into account and work through it. That being said I’m not sure you gave proper due to Mark’s point, though he does sound a bit jaded, which brings up the question of priorities. You mentioned quitting as “taking the easy way out.” This is my only beef with your article, I imagine myself in 25 years, god forbid, with herniated discs in my back and a doctor that tells me to quit bjj or face impairment in other aspects of my life. (lifting my children, carrying groceries etc..) It sounds a bit like you’d tell me that quitting BJJ, the sport I love, is the easy way out when that forces a person to examine the way their life is structured and change it in a big way. Like I said, I mostly agree with you but I also think there are many activities people can engage in that can bring great benefits to their lives, be it yoga, gardening, whatever, that don’t carry the same risks as MA. At the end of the day your students are living the consequences of their choice to continue training, not you or me. Whether that’s just showing up to work with a black eye or serious back injuries from Judo, I think we as practioners/teachers need to respect that not everybody has the ability or the will to train like we do.
Appreciate the article + thanks for reading,
Tom
Hi Tom
I agree with you whole heartedly.
That if the reasons for quitting are valid, to you, then it is time to move on to other things.
Our priorities change in life and some of us do incur injuries that will prevent us continuing.
One of the main points of my article was that, when we are faced with an injury, loss of motivation to train and are considering quitting, we ask ourselves whether we are being true to ourselves in our decision.
Sometimes the decisions we make, during times, when things aren’t going very well for us, we come to regret later.
In addition, some people find it hard to stick to anything because they have developed a strategy of using any excuse to quit when they realize that it is going to take a lot of hard work to achieve the full benefits of the particular discipline, that they originally saw.
This is a character flaw that will seriously impair someone’s ability to achieve anything useful in life.
Developing the resilience to overcome adversity and stick to our original goals is a valuable attribute that training in martial arts will help develop.
I am still recovering from a serious shoulder injury which really tested my resolve to continue (see my latest post).
However, I never at any time wanted to give up training, I worked (and continue to work) around the injury, slowly increasing the strength, range of motion and subsequent ability of the joint to function again, so that now I am back training Muay Thai, BJJ and MMA at full capacity.
Thank you for your insights.
Geoff