Knee Saga

19 June, 2017

KNEE SAGA

I have depressive tendencies.

I haven’t been diagnosed but I’ve read enough to see a lot of the characteristics of a depressive in myself; things like being alone, losing interest in stuff, not wanting to go anywhere or do anything, feelings of hopelessness, to name a few. I also tend to see things darkly. That, however, might just be a practical approach to things. I’d rather prepare for the worst so that I’m ready for it if or when happens – in my mind, it’s more likely when than if. If it doesn’t happen, that’s a bonus.

With the ongoing saga that is my knee, my depressive triggers have resurfaced. I had a follow-up appointment with my ortho last Tuesday and he examined my knee, which was feeling pretty good. During the examination, a sharp pain emanated from within the joint. As the days passed since seeing him, the pain has gotten stronger. (Over the weekend, though, it’s subsided but that’s because I’ve been off my leg for a lot of the time.) My doctor ordered an MRI that I got last Saturday. He also used the word ‘surgery.’ It’d be a 30-minute arthroscopic procedure but with a four to eight week recovery. He said at four weeks I’d be walking again, although not any long distances, and at eight weeks I’d be ‘normal.’ Whatever that means, I’m not entirely sure.

The last few days, my mind and my heart have been in a whirlwind of uncertainty. I coach volleyball. I don’t do a lot of the drills or jumps and runs I put the team through but I do need to be able to instruct and demonstrate. I need to be on my feet on court. I also have a summer job that pays hourly and I need the money. Knee surgery now would impact upon both of these things and not in a positive way. With a four to eight week recovery period, if I got the surgery now, I’d be better by mid-August. There’s plenty of volleyball left to coach and I can continue to prepare for the sixth degree black belt test in December I’m trying to get approved for. Getting the surgery now, however, would also mean no income because I wouldn’t be able to work.  On the flip side, and if the diagnosis isn’t so bad that I have to undergo the surgery now and I can put it off, I could possibly go about my summer as normal and get the surgery after the volleyball season has concluded in November or, maybe, even after the sixth dan test a month later.

Deep down, I know I’ll end up not taking or not being able to take test and that pisses me off and brings me down. I’ll either be laid up recovering, my knee will be in even worse shape, and/or I won’t be prepared. Since I was a kid, there are two things I’ve always wanted to be – a writer and a martial artist. I’ve been both to some level of success. In the 1990s, I managed to sell articles to various martial arts magazines and get paid for them. I’ve published a book and gotten a touch of respect and notoriety because of it. That’s not enough, however. I want to be a working writer. As for the martial arts, I’ve had several good years of training, teaching and competing. I had my own dojang (training hall) twice in my life but, more than that, I’ve tried to live my life and guide my actions according to the warrior ways prescribed by the codes of Bushido, The Samurai and The Hwarang. Even without a dojang now, I try to train at my wife’s dance studio whenever I can and, through my daily actions at work, on the volleyball court and more, I try to live according to what my black belt symbolises. Thankfully, so far, I am able to absorb and accept the situation I am in because of what I’ve learnt and taught as a martial artist.

For now, I’ll use my indomitable spirit and of perseverance to forge ahead and battle this renewed opponent, my knee, and its allies of age, injury and life. Throughout the battle, I hope I make the right decisions on when to get my surgery, if I do actually need it, and my training for the sixth dan test.

Thanks for stopping by.

Making Choice - Life 2 Juan 0

Making Choices - Life 2 Juan 0

2 June, 2017

Last autumn, I reinjured the knee I damaged in 1996. I was doing a lot of running, getting back in shape and training towards earning a guaranteed spot in the 2017 New York City Marathon (NYCM). I’d begun my training the previous April and was in a good groove. As a result of my injury, I had to forego my 2017 NYCM dreams. I followed my doctor’s instructions, did the PT (physical therapy) and slowly my knee was getting better. Before long, I was doing some cardio training (no running) and playing squash. Throughout all of it, I’d do some flexibility training and some light Taekwondo training when I could squeeze it in. I don’t have my own school anymore and I coach volleyball from August to November so finding a time and place wasn’t - and isn’t - always the easiest thing.

Recently, I’d gotten into another good groove. I was training regularly, eating better, and dropping weight. Then I discovered that the Kukkiwon (the world governing body of Taekwondo) will be holding special promotion tests in the United States throughout the year in various locations. One of them is taking place in New Jersey this December. This coming August, I will have met the time requirement to test for my sixth degree black belt and I’m using the test as impetus to up my training; all while monitoring the strength of my knee. I don’t know if my application will be accepted and, depending on my knee, if I’ll even be able to perform. If I am, I hope I am able to perform that deems me worthy in the eyes of the examiners, and my own eyes, to be awarded my sixth dan.

As life would have it, I reaggravated my knee two Sundays ago while mowing the lawn - our uneven, undulating lawn. I maneuvered the lawn mower to turn left but it got caught on one of the bumps and didn’t turn. My knee did, however. All this after completing the Euflexxa treatments my doctor recommended. So, I went back to the doctor, got another cortisone shot and was given a pair of loaner crutches. I’ve stopped using the crutches but I still have a minor limp and there’s still a little stiffness and an occasional shooting pain. I’m hoping in a week or so that the pain and limp will vanish enough that I can get back to some cardio and, eventually, light then regular Taekwondo training.

For now and for the next six months, that’s where my focus has to be. I have to give up squash, which is going to be a killer because I enjoy it, it’s a great workout and it’s my son’s and my ‘thing’ together. Without a school and master to train under, I need these opportunities like the Kukkiwon special promotion test and preparing for it is going to take up much of my extra energy and time. Like the old Chinese adage says, “One has to eat bitter to taste sweet.” It’s a choice I hate having to make but it’s one that has to be made. As much as I love squash and athletic pursuits, Taekwondo is a martial art and martial arts are about life. They’re not just the physical attributes one develops through practicing them. If you’re reading this and you’re someone who knows me well, you know that since 1985 I am and have always been a martial artist before most everything else. You’ll also know that I didn’t get into martial arts training for the physical benefits but for the psychological, spiritual and emotional ones. If I could have a regular place to train, I would be willing to give up almost everything else to train daily even if my knee wasn’t injured. The other option, albeit a forced one, is to choose to hang up my squash racquet and my black belt but that would be completely contrary to what martial arts are all about. Quitting martial arts just because my physical abilities have waned decision would be akin to giving up on who I am and what I’ve believed in the last thirty-two years.

So, while life leads two-nil in our current match, I’m hoping to pull a goal back in December. And after that, who knows? Maybe I’ll find an equalizer and even a winner. In the meantime, trying to see a positive out of all of this, I’m hoping that my predicament can be a lesson my son can learn as well; that one has to make sacrifices and choices that he might won’t like or want to make in order to get what he wants or needs.

Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris

This coming March 10, Chuck Norris will turn seventy-seven. Two Tuesdays ago, I turned forty-eight. Both of us are martial artists, masters even, specializing, or at least, getting our foundation in Korean martial arts. I’m not comparing us. Not by any means. He’s a champion, successful, a legend and pioneer. Me, I’m small fry. But, in a roundabout sort of way, Master Norris has been a part of my martial arts life from the beginning.

I began my formal martial arts training in 1985 when I was training in Shotokan Karate. A friend from school and I went to take a class, a semi-private class, given by a journalist friend of his father. At the dojo was another Hong Kong-based journalist who was a mutual friend of my friend’s father and my father. My friend’s father worked in government publications and my father was (and still is) a journalist. To be completely honest, it wasn’t a class per se. The two men were there to work out. It was a Sunday morning and my friend’s dad’s friend said to just come around and he’ll show us the basics and give us an intro-type workout. With the other man there, a higher-ranking student and, based on his black belt rank, a sensei (master), we got a proper intro to Karate. Although there for his own training, in true black belt fashion, he gave us his time and passed down a little of what he’d been taught. This man won’t likely remember me but when I was younger, even before this impromptu karate class, I’d called this man ‘Uncle Alan.’ Some of you reading will know who this is. Anyway, Uncle Alan showed us attention stance (musubi-dachi), front stance (seisan-dachi) and low block (gedan-uke). He showed us how to travel in seisan-dachi and how to turn. Both me taught us how to bow. From then on, I was hooked. I wanted to be a martial artist.

Around the same time, the summer of 1985, my friend, his cousin and I went to the cinema to watch a Bruce Lee movie. It was The Way Of The Dragon (released in 1972 and in the United States as Return Of The Dragon). This is the one in which he goes to Rome and the one Bruce Lee wrote, starred in, and directed. (You know, I think he might have even produced it too.) It was also Master Norris’s introduction to the world. He played Colt, the American champion for hire. At the end, he and Bruce have an excellent showdown full of skill, respect and honour.

Move on a couple of years and I’m living in The United States and Master Norris has movie after movie coming to a theatre near you. Some of them were Delta Force, Code Of Silence, Missing In Action, Firewalker, Invasion U.S.A., Hero And The Terror, Sidekicks. Then, Walker, Texas Ranger came on TV. I’ve also read his two autobiographies – The Secret Of Inner Strength and Against All Odds. All this time, I was training in Taekwondo, getting my own black belts and opening my first (sadly it failed) dojang. Nonetheless, Master Norris was there. Some years after that, I saw him in an infomercial for the Total Gym^TM. I almost bought it (If it was good enough for him, it’d be good enough for me) but didn’t because there wasn’t space in my flat and I already belonged to a gym. At that time, the late 1990s, I remember being amazed at how fit he still was at almost sixty years old. I remember saying then, “If I could be half as fit as he is now when I am fifty, I’ll be happy.” Sadly, due to a mix of circumstances – not least of which were cumulative moments of weakness and my surrender to depressive thoughts of constant failure – I am less than half as fit as Master Norris was then. And I’m turning fifty in less than two years!

Master Norris has, in more recent years, undergone hip surgery and gotten older, yet he’s still in good shape and he’s still kicking. You might have seen the commercial in which he crescent kicks a saltshaker to the face of a man after that man’s friend tosses the saltshaker to him. He’s also inspired a series of websites listing ‘facts’ about how tough he is based on the characters from his movies. They’re all in good fun and I believe Master Norris was quoted as saying that he was okay with them. Some of my favourites are: “Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice.” and “Chuck Norris can hear sign language.” Then there’s, “When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.” I got these from the website http://chucknorrisjokes.linkpress.info/top-100 but there are others.

So, I do still have time to get back my mojo and become the martial artist I should be. But I don’t have a lot of time to get back there by fifty. Time goes by very fast as one gets older. It does for me, anyway.  To be in half as good, or better, shape as Master Norris was in 1998 and get back into being a fulltime martial artist. Those are the goals.

In some ways, I feel like this is my last chance; that if I don’t do this, everything else I shoot for will be missed yet again and I’ll never truly be the best version of me I can be. But if there’s one thing going for me, I’ve never quit anything and I am a martial artist. It’s the source of my power. I can’t fly or read minds and I don’t have x-ray vision. What I do have is a black belt with hours of training. I may not have trained like I used to in a long time but the lessons learnt from all the kicks and punches and falls are longer lasting than the ability to kick, punch and fall.  I’ve learnt fighting spirit, a warrior’s spirit. I’ve developed an indomitable spirit – maybe to the point of stubbornness and delusion – but I have it nonetheless. It may not always win but it’s there. It’s dormant and I have to wake it up. Master Chuck Norris and the examples he has left for me and younger generations of longevity and consistency and being a black belt versus wearing a black belt will be its alarm clock. Thank you, Master Norris. Thank you, Sir.

A Final Bow

A Final Bow
  

Sometime in May 2012, Bamboo Martial Arts (BMA), the Taekwondo club I ran, stopped holding formal classes. Since then, I’ve continued to do my own workouts, officiated tests at my original master’s school, attended seminars, and helped promote the New Jersey Taekwondo Association(NJ-USAT). I also ran a short-lived after school Taekwondo program at the middle school where I am a Health and Physical Education teacher. BMA has, however, maintained an online presence with a Twitter account, Facebook page and its own website, offering private and semi-private Taekwondo lessons. It’s also registered as an active club with USA Taekwondo (USAT), the governing body of Taekwondo in the United States, in the hope that it would grow into something bigger. Alas, it has not.

In its second incarnation - its first go around was in 1993 as The Bamboo Institute of Martial Arts (BIOMA) - BMA failed to generate enough interest and student enrollment to sustain itself and to promote Taekwondo fully. To my masters and the larger Taekwondo community, for that I apologise. Without its own location and with limited resources, resulting in nominal promotion, minimal class times, and inadequate facilities, BMA was never going to be able to surpass being a very small club. 

The first Bamboo logo/patch, ca 1993.

The largest regret I have, equal to that of failing the art of Taekwondo, is not being able to directly pass Taekwondo on to my son as his teacher and fulfill my hope and dream of producing a kind of Bas family Taekwondo dynasty. I can, and do, as his father, still demonstrate the tenets of Taekwondo for him in my daily life. I just don’t do it as his sabumnim. My father-son Taekwondo dream is over. My son, however, is taking Taekwondo lessons but at Apex Martial Arts, a nearby character-based and champion-producing school. It’s an exceptional program and he’s loving it and I’m glad he’s there but, speaking as a father and merely as a human being, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small dagger in my heart every time we go there. I’d be more than dishonest, too, if I said I didn’t wish he was training under me at our own school. I’d hoped that we would follow in the footsteps of Al and Mark Dacascos, Ernie Reyes, Sr and Jr., Master Tiger Kim and his twin sons, who are masters now themselves, and Masters Simon and Phillip Rhee and their father. Taekwondo isn’t just something I do and have done for almost thirty years. It’s not just something I want my son to do. It’s what I am and what I hope he becomes. As parents, we always hope our children do more and better than what we did. I may not be his teacher but I did introduce Taekwondo to him, exposing him to New Jersey State Championships, taking him to 2011 US Team Trials and the 2011 National Championships. I even gave him his first two uniformed lessons. Perhaps, when he’s a dad, though, he’ll get to succeed where I failed and realise the father-son Bas Taekwondo dynasty.

As for me, I’ll continue to train. I might even join the same dojang my son is attending but I won’t be there as a teacher. It’s been a long time since I walked onto a dojang floor completely as a student. That could be a challenge but also something to cherish. I might go back to one of my masters’ dojangs. I might continue to compete but I haven’t yet decided. I will, though, continue to promote Taekwondo and other martial arts through my writing endeavours and other means I am able to utilise.

I am grateful for all the masters I’ve studied under, regardless of what style it was in, who have taken their time to nurture my potential. I’m grateful, too, for all the students I’ve had. I thank them for allowing me to share my vision of the martial arts with them. I also acknowledge everyone who supported BMA as a school and as a concept; martial arts interpreted through the symbolism of a bamboo stalk, hard and flexible on the outside and hollow on the inside. In my martial arts career there are an abundance of people, for different reasons, who will always hold a special place in my mind and heart. There’s Grandmaster Lee, Ron, Steve, Rachel, Mike, Grandmaster Kim, Master Levy Diogene, Vinny and Vinnie, Ani, Wayne, Steve Saunders, Tony Palmieri, Leon, Master Herb Perez, to name a few. Naturally, there are my wife and my son. To all of them, I offer my heartfelt gratitude and, in many ways - as a friend, like a brother, like a son - I can truly say I love you.

I’m not done with Taekwondo or the martial arts. I don’t believe they’re done with me. I’ve been doing Taekwondo too long to even consider giving it up but as with other things in life, whether willingly or not, my ongoing love affair with Taekwondo is taking another turn. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes and what directions we take. I still want to visit The Kukkiwon and train there for a time. Who knows? Maybe I'll get there one day.

In the meantime, however, like its physical existence, BMA’s online life will be coming to a close. At the end of July 2013, BMA will shut down its Twitter, Facebook and website accounts. When it’s membership expires, BMA will also cease to be a registered Taekwondo club with USAT.

For now, as I make my final public bow - my last kungyet - let me simply say thank you. Or, more appropriately, kamsamnida.