Baby Got Back (Problems)

So, it's been awhile since I've posted, in large part because it's been awhile since I fenced. :(

After a couple weeks of practice being rained out or me incorrectly assuming it would be rained out, and therefore not going, my back went out in a major way the Sunday of Collegium, which resulted in me taking two weeks off practice.

I don't have a chronically bad back, per se, but I do have chronic low-grade chiropractic problems and hypermobile joints. I inherited them from my mother (although hers seem to have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years, and I'm hoping I'll experience similar recovery later in life). These have caused various problems over the years--I dislocated something in my thigh when I was 10 or 12 and tripped on the stairs (it can't have been the whole thing, because I put it back in myself, but wow, it was painful), tore cartilage in my ribcage on a backpacking trip in high school because a rib went out of alignment while I was wearing a big heavy pack, and I'm fairly sure they're why I tore the ligaments in the arch of my right foot last winter.

One of the nice things about having hypermobile joints is that once they go out, they're fairly easy to put back in by myself, and provided I get enough exercise and keep up a certain baseline of muscle mass, I don't suffer from major chiropractic injuries or displacements very often. One of the bad things about having hypermobile joints is that when they go out badly, they tend to go out again after they've been fixed, especially once they've been out for awhile already and all the wrong muscles are swollen. In those cases, swelling essentially makes the path of least resistance the "out" position the joint was in earlier.

All of this foolishness can be almost completely overcome by a few simple luxuries--Advil and/or Tiger Balm to relax muscles when necessary, lots of stretching and some light weight-bearing exercise (like, say, fencing), one of those orthopedic neck pillows (not memory foam--those eventually compress under the weight of my -enormous- head and give no more support than any regular pillow), fish oil supplements, and so on. I don't deserve any particular sympathy or comfort here, because I know how to take care of myself and 95 percent of my joint issues can be handled non-medically and with regular self-care. There are people out there with real medical issues that they can't heal themselves--they deserve sympathy and support. The point of this post is to illustrate, not to host a pity party. :)

Anyway, my back went out on Sunday morning, I got it fixed Monday afternoon, and skipped practice Wednesday. I was experiencing warm pain, weakness, tingling, and extremely limited range of motion until the Sunday after, so I decided to skip practice again the Wednesday following, just to be safe.

This also meant skipping a couple weeks of my wrist and arm strengthening exercises. The offending vertebra was in the center of my upper back (somewhere in the T-1 to T-3 region), so doing any exercises that involved extending my arms straight forward was extremely painful and resulted in spasms (I was driving with my left hand exclusively for awhile, because my right side hurt more than my left).

This was a really frustrating couple of weeks. I'd honestly thought joint flare-ups this bad were a thing of the past. The fact that I could still be incapacitated by back pain even though I was getting enough exercise and taking good enough care of myself (I thought!) really tanked my enthusiasm and self-esteem for a couple days there. I consider myself both lazy and self-indulgent, so the fact that I could throw my back out just sitting in the car dealt a huge blow to what was never a great body image or opinion of my own athleticism to begin with.

So, when I complain about my back or neck hurting, that's why--I have chronic chiropractic problems, and they're why I've been off the horse for the last few weeks. Onward and upward!

King's Hunt, 2010

Have refrained from ZARMing (that's what these posts have become in my head, ZARM posts) in the last few weeks because there hasn't been a lot of action at Isles practice (read also, I skipped Isles practice because it was finals week and spring break and figured there wouldn't be much going on there). I was having some trouble with the Angry Druids drill, but Laertes and I worked it out on Saturday at King's Hunt and I've got some more tools to improve.

King's Hunt left me with some additional drills which I will list here for no one's benefit but my own. :)

Angry Druids 2, now with more pointwork!
ZZ Top Lightening Bolt (parry drill)
Trapped in a Cone Box (narrow side)
Trapped in a Cone Box (long side)

This adds to the original drills:

Angry Druids
Figure-8 Cones (footwork drill)
Figure-8 Cones (footwork drill, backwards)
Arm and Wrist Strengthening (weights)

Fencing at King's Hunt was okay, pretty good, meh, and not great by turns. :)

On Friday night I sucked allllll over the field. I was stressed out about running the event, a little annoyed for reasons unrelated to this post, not concentrating or in the headspace at all, and had too much on my mind. I had fun, don't get me wrong, but I got killed like 3 times in the exact same way and eventually stopped before I was to disgusted with myself. :)

I asked Raphael how he killed me twice in the same place and he (to my eternal gratitude) was not at all condescending when he reminded me to move my offhand into a defensive position when I lunge. Doh. This was a good indicator that I was just plain not in the fencing headspace, and I'm glad I stopped while I was still serene enough to learn something from getting beaten so badly, rather than giving it another couple shots and getting really frustrated with myself.

Saturday was a bit better. I faced Cassandre and Edward (AKA Lord Pinky) in the Unscarved list and was out in two. That wasn't disappointing--they're both better and more experienced fencers than I am and I was neither one-shotted, nor tunnel-visioned, nor deer-in-the-headlighted at any point during the fights.

Cassandre said she'd waited for me to get a rhythm in my baton swings and sniped me in counter-time. What does this say to me? Well, better defense, so snipes don't connect, but also to fight more with single. The less I rely on my offhand, the more likely I am to be able to parry an unexpected attack, even if I have an established rhythm the opponent is trying to exploit. I think I just said the same thing twice. :)
As I've said before, one of the reasons I like to fight baton is that it makes me more confident and aggressive--and, unfortunately, one of the reasons it makes me more confident and aggressive is because it covers a lot of important flaws in my defense that simply can't be saved by dagger or buckler. Ergo, less baton, more single, and eventually more dagger. Fortunately, I have plenty of shiny new parry drills and a "Do not move ha ha" defense drill which should help with that.

Pinky even came up afterward and said I'd done much better than the last time we'd fought, which was a lovely unsolicited compliment that had me smiling and happy every time I thought about it. That, combined with the willingness of my opponents to tell me exactly how they had kicked my ass and how to make it more challenging for them next time, combined with some new tricks from the big L (and Don Alex B. as he watched us), made me feel very good about how the whole weekend turned out, fencing-wise. It was, as they say, a "learning experience," and not one of those nasty painful ones that culminates in a huge hangover.

On Saturday Laertes mentioned that this part (colloquially known as "the beginning") of the studentship can be extremely frustrating because people tend to learn a bunch of new stuff but not feel like they're improving. I have yet to reach that part of the experience--I'm still stoked to have the opportunity to learn more and do more, still stoked to be getting some tools which are geared to help me improve some of my specific weaknesses, and absolutely bomb-tastic thrilled to have been given this opportunity and the chance to exploit it in such a friendly, supportive community.