Attitude towards pain

[white owl]

Do you think that as a MAist, your attitude to pain has changed?

What I mean is like a cut or a graze, (or like I did again this week, a burn from the oven) doesn't bother you so much now that you have been in the martial arts? And that you are more perceptive to different types of pain and know when it could be something to be ignored or when its something you have to deal with instantly? I've found that compared to my non-MA friends I can withstand a lot more and can block out things if I need to but I also know hen something is a serius injury by what it feels like.

I'm not going to lie; I don't like pain, never did, never will. I don't mind feeling sore after a good workout but that's different than limping out of class with bruises and sprains. But, I don't believe in taking a hero's approach to it either. That being said, since I've been training all these years, I feel I do handle it differently and probably better, than I did before I was ever a martial artist. I can probably handle more than I could when I wasn't training.

I know a lot of people say, "well, you should feel pain so you can deal with it if you're ever attacked." To a certain extent, that is true, HOWEVER after all the injuries I've racked up from training, I want to be able to walk out the door and go home at night & be able to return to train. What good or how effective am I if I am hurt so bad I can not even defend myself?? Does developing nerve damage or carpal tunnel from repeated wrist locks where your partner hesitates to release make one better from dealing with the pain? No, it means that injury will probably affect your job or life. Same thing if you smashed up your knee or ankle or having your arm or leg hyperextended from your partner in class, or having a torn rotator cuff. These are not "prizes" or "medals" in pain management. I see them as affecting my job and my life.

Like everyone else, I have a job, responsibilities, bills, mortgage, etc. to pay. If me or even my spouse for that matter, get seriously hurt in class, there's no one to support us or pay our bills. So I take pain very seriously. If I'm doing wrist locks with a partner, I tap when I feel pain and if my partner doesn't release immediately, you can bet she or he's going to hear it from me or else I am going to react accordingly. I've got chronic pain now that I have to deal with now that sometimes alters what I can or can not do - - all injuries I've gotten in class. So that's why if I'm partnered with someone who has a macho outlook on pain, I make sure I set the record straight from the get-go.

This is the reason that instructors need to keep a close eye on kids especially, but also adults doing wrist locks or head locks or anything that involves tapping out or the similar. Someone can get seriously hurt - and permanently.

I agree with you Tiger. I sometimes I get partner with people(or new people) that do not release when I tap and do not check there power in striking. It hurts

[Tiger1962]

Ok, I probably did not explain myself as clear as I should have. I totally understand what you are both saying, but let me give a couple of specific examples to be clearer....

Let's say you're practicing wrist locks (and I use this as an example only because it's most easiest to explain or identify with) and in practically every class you practice this technique with a partner who uses a "death grip" on your hand/wrist. Let's say your partner is bigger than you, larger hands, stronger grip, etc. twice your size even; you allow him to grip your wrist in this extreme manner in every class and you ALWAYS hold out until you're grimacing in pain before you decide to tap. Well, now at this point, it's just pain. But, continuing to delay tapping out every time you do this technique until you experience extreme pain eventually goes from being just pain to being an injury.

Example #2 - you are instructing a kids class and they are practicing wrist locks. Well, you know how sometimes kids joke around and bend back each others wrist to show off or joke with their partner? Well, let's say you've got your eye on the other side of the class and one of the two kids goofing off during this technique ends up breaking his partners wrist....

This is what I'm trying to say...that constantly delaying release goes from being pain to being an injury and one that can be permanent. In the kids situation, they need to be taught that this is serious and delaying the tap can lead to seriously hurting their partner.

In situation one, I don't believe you have to constantly put yourself at the stress point to understand a technique or become accustomed to pain. A few times okay. Speaking from personal experience, I've only gone through this just a few times and developed a wrist injury, that's how I know.

Experiencing a certain amount of pain is okay but again, I don't think you really need to risk injuring yourself to train because like I said before - constantly experiencing pain in class might up your tolerance for it but it will also up your chances of the pain moving to the injury category. I don't need to grimace in pain every time I do this technique with my partner in class. I understand it, I know what the pain will feel like. I *get* the technique.

Also, there are people who have trained for 20 plus years and never got an injury. I think that's fantastic. But then there are those who have trained less than that and have a number of injuries and not because of improper technique. Everyone's body is just built differently inside.

[joesteph]

Experiencing a certain amount of pain is okay but again, I don't think you really need to risk injuring yourself to train because like I said before - constantly experiencing pain in class might up your tolerance for it but it will also up your chances of the pain moving to the injury category. I don't need to grimace in pain every time I do this technique with my partner in class. I understand it, I know what the pain will feel like. I *get* the technique.

Also, there are people who have trained for 20 plus years and never got an injury. I think that's fantastic. But then there are those who have trained less than that and have a number of injuries and not because of improper technique. Everyone's body is just built differently inside.

"Pain" is something whose degree we can interpret as acceptable or unacceptable. When I weight-trained, if I felt sore the next day, maybe sore all over, if I felt a dull ache, these were signs that I hadn't injured myself; a sharp pain, especially while doing the exercise, meant stop immediately.

Pain can be a warning sign that injury can come, or that there is an injury. When it comes to joint locks, and it seems that often we use wrist ones, I can let the person go to a point that perhaps someone else would be too uncomfortable with. It just means that that's how my body is, just as someone else might have a tighter midsection and take a harder shot to the solar plexus than I can. I've even learned with whom I can "go further" in a wrist lock (and receive the same in kind), and with whom I have to be more careful. With one fellow adult, he feels it very soon. With another fellow adult, he's very concerned as soon as he feels something because he's been injured before (although not in our dojang). There was a teenager who left to join the Marine Corps; he was someone you could do the technique with and know that when he tapped, it was because he really felt it but was not injured. There's another teenager who's the same way, and if I can partner up with him, we can really work the joint locks without improper discomfort--or harm.

[JohnC]

Tiger,

I agree with you. I was unclear. I meant that one should level set pain as to being able to function. Once set, there's no need to keep doing it. I think we're on the same page.

[Truestar]

I'd offer a word of caution on the tap out refusal. As nice as it is to gut thru this sort of thing, remember you're tapping for a reason. Usually to avoid the destruction of a joint.

If it's a pain compliance only sort of thing, that's one thing. But if anything is in a position to get torn or injured tap. It's what training's for.

Absolutely, I figured the leg lock wasn't going anywhere drastic so I should fight it.

I've hyper extended my arm from an arm bar, so I definitely know some battles that can be won or lost.

[Tiger1962]

Tiger,

I agree with you. I was unclear. I meant that one should level set pain as to being able to function. Once set, there's no need to keep doing it. I think we're on the same page.

Exactly.

When I was a lower ranking practitioner and began to learn, say wrist grips, for example, we would go through them slowly as we learned them and then at a regular pace when we felt more comfortable. As I moved up the ranks and learned more advanced ones, the same thing. I recall a student who used to attend my school that I was very often partnered with. He was tall, and of a stocky built and his grip on my wrist during practice sessions always left my wrist sore and tingling. Every time I would tap out, he would always give it that extra "twitch" before releasing his grip INSTEAD of releasing immediately when I would TAP either myself OR him. Our instructor would often have to remind him "TAP MEANS STOP". Gradually this "day after practice soreness" became worse and I had to see a doctor because of it.

So, you see, this is just an example of "mere pain" graduating into an "injury".

I have practiced with a lot of different students and while there was minor pain or discomfort, it was not necessary for me or my partner to "lean on it" to understand the technique or apply it on my partner. Of course there are people who have what I call "iron wrists" - my husband being one of them. He doesn't feel pain that easily performing this particular technique and has a strong resistance to an opponent applying pressure. I do believe that bone type plays a part in this.

[Tiger1962]

I'd offer a word of caution on the tap out refusal. As nice as it is to gut thru this sort of thing, remember you're tapping for a reason. Usually to avoid the destruction of a joint.

If it's a pain compliance only sort of thing, that's one thing. But if anything is in a position to get torn or injured tap. It's what training's for.

Absolutely, I figured the leg lock wasn't going anywhere drastic so I should fight it.

I've hyper extended my arm from an arm bar, so I definitely know some battles that can be won or lost.

Yikes! Yes, I've also done armbars - you definitely want to respect a person's pain tolerance during that !!

[the beast]

I have always had a very high threshold for pain (maybe Im just a bone head) so I just ignore it and work through it.

[JohnC]

One of the things I teach is to go for the prep position hard and fast and then apply the hold slowly to give uke time to react to the pain level. On the vast majority of holds / locks / chokes, if done right, uke can't get out of them once prep position has been achieved. This approach has the added advantage of pointing out bad technique because if uke can get out then tori didn't do the entry correctly. (That is, once tori begins a technique, tori should be in control of uke throughout the technique, not just at the end.)

Caveat: I don't teach high flying moves like the typical Kote Gaeshi throw from Aiki. I figure if I can completely control uke to the ground then I can make uke somersault, if need be. But that's just me. 2nd Caveat: I don't teach that every technique should work on all opponents. Thus, I teach that if a properly applied technique doesn't work against a particular opponent (e.g. the iron wrist problem) then the right answer is to move to a different technique rather than continue with the one that isn't working. One finds this problem in many venues where the student refuses to adapt to the situation preferring to keep trying to force a technique that isn't working. By allowing tori to change up, in my opinion, the training is more realistic and focuses tori on finding what will work rather than you must practice this technique. Finally, this does cause me to watch carefully to make sure the change up is necessary and not just caused by bad technique or tori always going for his/her favorite technique. However, people usually play fair and it's not a problem.

Edited November 30, 2008 by JohnC

[joesteph]

One of the things I teach is to go for the prep position hard and fast and then apply the hold slowly to give uke time to react to the pain level.

When we do defense against the wrist grab techniques, it's often responding with a wrist joint lock. I've been concentrating on being quick with the "opening," but slower and therefore more controlled with carrying out the lock. It feels more realistic to be in the set-up position as fast as possible, and it's safer to take care with my "uke" to avoid unnecessary pain--or injury.