The Carter IV

Well, once again it’s been a while since I gave everyone an update.  Lots of people have asked since my last update how it’s been, and if the lack of updates was a good or bad thing.  Truth is, it’s neither.  I’ve been really busy at work and filling a lot of my free evenings with jiu jitsu again, so I haven’t set aside much time to sit at the computer and write!

 So that’s the good news.  I initially set a goal of getting back into jiu jitsu by March of this year.  I set the goal thinking I would beat it by a few weeks.  I had some unexpected turbulence in the recovery process, which I spoke about last time, so I didn’t make it back until the first week of April.  Even then, I took it very slow, doing about half of the warmups and sitting out for lots of moves that are harder on the knee.  I’m pretty happy to say that I have been doing all the warmups and pretty much all the moves, as well as sparring for several weeks, if not months by now.  I’m still staying away from takedowns and throws, but I think that is more a psychological block than anything else.

So here’s the bad news.  I’ve gotten comfortable short of the finish line.  I would say that, with regard to activities I can do now compared to before my injury, I’m at about 80%.  And for that 80% of activities, I’m certainly nowhere near 100% intensity for most of them.  Basically, I got myself back to a place where I can jog, jump, squat, and do jiu jitsu (which, in large part, isn’t very hard on the knees).

 This is, of course, a problem!  I’ve been so excited to do jiu jitsu again that I take just about every chance I get.  This leaves less time to do squats, leg presses, lunges, etc.  So I’ve plateaued a bit.  Plateaus are very frustrating, because you usually feel like you are putting in the same, if not more, amount of effort that you were when you were improving, but for some strange reason the improvements stop.  You usually have to change what you’re doing or add another dimension to it in order to start seeing results again.  

This time, however, the plateau came because I simply haven’t been putting in the effort.  I got comfortable being able to “do” jiu jitsu, rather than being able to train or compete like I really want.

 Realizing this puts me in a tough spot.  Unfortunately, I will have to make the gym and leg strengthening a higher priority, which will kick jiu jitsu further down the list.  I know my ultimate goal of competing again requires it, but that doesn’t make it easy to accept.  The best part is that I’ve identified the problem.  Now it’s just a matter of discipline to make sure I fix the problem accordingly, and I’m hopeful that wanting this phase to be over as soon as possible will serve as motivation!