When I first started parkour I had been lucky to have never broken anything worse than a hand and to never have had anything as serious as a sprain. All this was despite being active, doing surfing, martial arts, snowboarding, and even armored sword-fighting. I kept this up the first two years of parkour but then I met people better than me. Now, when I talk about injuries, I'm not talking about the cuts, scrapes and bruises that probably just signify a good training session. Instead, I refer to the temporary game changers. The ones that stop you from doing what you love, sometimes for a week, or sometimes forever.
Having learned parkour basically on my own, with all the people I started with having long dropped out, I paced myself and didn't progress too fast or felt like I was progressing too slowly. The very first day I met and then ran with my friend Zack was the first day I ran with someone who had really trained. He could do things better than me. I could probably do some things better than him. Some stuff that he was great at, I had never even thought of Trying to follow him on a jump I wasn't prepared for, I fell. It was only 6 feet or so, but I had never really fallen like that and I neither knew nor could think of how to save myself. I sprained a wrist badly, but have never fallen that way again.
I learned so much from that first day, about gauging strengths, accepting differences in skill, and perhaps just as vitally, about getting hurt. Mind you, I didn't understand it all at once, and a couple less striking injuries followed for similar reasons. But I eventually got the message. I also learned that sometimes getting hurt shows us how to find a balance. We have to learn our limits and at the same time how to navigate, push, and redefine them.
A year after my first sprain, right when it was beginning to feel normal, I made a big mistake, misplaced a step, and fell face forward off a ten foot drop onto rocks. I learned the importance of peripheral vision (don't parkour with sun goggles), and I learned a lot about frustration. Gaining a new prominent scar between my eyes, bloodied, and now with a sprain of the other wrist, I felt fairly defeated. I felt like an idiot and I was afraid. I wasn't afraid of getting hurt again, or at least not principally. Instead, I was afraid I would never be able to do what I could before, or what I would eventually have been capable of before. With two wrists that felt like they'd never be the same as before, I felt like a lame horse.
I've seen a lot of friends quit with less injuries. I don't think it's because I'm tougher, but I think we all have our own paths. What us freerunners do is not for everyone, even if we think it should be. I did learn for sure though that as long as I was capable of moving, I'd keep doing what I love. Eventually this blossomed into something else. A desire to not just come back from the injuries but to spite them. To get stronger than I was before and not baby them. This was hard to do, because it can be difficult to balance "letting them heal" with "making them strong again." They still hurt sometimes, but they're way stronger now.
I had to practice every morning for months to get my handstands back, something I had been able to do since I was little. However, the struggle to regain them made them better and gave me confidence to work towards skills I hadn't had before. Pressing into handstands came soon, and now I'm well on my way to getting my planche. I know how to fall now, and more importantly I think about falling. I accept that it will happen, and if the question is when, I should train for it almost as much as I train to avoid it. This has made me better. Overcoming the defeat has made me stronger.
When I first found out about my legs being fractured and my knee being messed up, my first reaction was to crack jokes about it. This lasted a good half hour as I heard about all the damage, and then twenty minutes later, when it has sunk in, I started crying uncontrollably. I'd like to say that I assessed my injuries, faced them with a strong face, and went onward to conquer them, but it isn't true. I fell into a slum for a couple weeks during which I was very depressed. Even once I started looking at my options for healing and got my crutches, I still felt like everything I loved had been taken away from me. I couldn't dance, I couldn't do volleyball, I couldn't even walk along the side of the sidewalk and balance. I was crushed, spiritually and emotionally.
ReplyDeleteThis only lasted so long though. I can't stand the thought of letting my pain and injuries win. So even though I'm not very fond of swimming, I'm doing it three times a week. I swallow my pride and go to physical therapy. I use a cane when I have to. I take pain medications when it's necessary (I hate taking pain medications). But most of all, I admit to myself that I am hurt and that I have to take it easy while at the same time push to make myself stronger. It's a hard line to walk, and I'm not sure there's a happy medium, but I'm going to keep fighting for my ability to walk, run, and do anything I want.
I know I'm hurt, and hurt bad. But that's not going to stop me. It's made me learn about accepting my own limits, my willpower, my strengths, and what it really means to work for what you want. Sometimes that means swallowing your pride and taking things slow when all you really want to do is exert yourself beyond all limits.
This is what I've had to learn and accept: It isn't about how badly you're hurt; it's about what you do with that knowledge, and how you carry on afterward. Everyone has their different ways of dealing with issues, and their different walks of life. I would advise people to not be afraid of the different paths out there, and confine yourself to the path you think you have to follow. Go for whatever you want, and if it's meant to be, it will work out.
If I'm never to dance again, so be it. But until that is decided without a doubt, I refuse to give in. Whatever path is ahead of me, I go to meet it. But I will not accept that I can't change something simply because it's a hard road. While I don't think anyone should, I've always believed in "to each their own." So to anyone and everyone, do what it is that feels right to you and your circumstances. For me, that's fighting it out. With any luck, I'll succeed and be stronger at the end of my battle.
:) Peace.