I think some of you will find this amusing.

Probably many of you have had some kind of injury related to your hobby. A few years ago I did some soft tissue damage to my hip by stupidly attempting to see how deep and far I could lunge with a sword without warming up first. In my late 40s I should have known better. Still doing physio to deal with that one.

However, now I have a case where swordplay might help heal an unrelated condition.

Last fall I started having problems with my right shoulder that just kept getting worse despite my amateur attempts to warm up, excercise, and stretch. By mid-winter I was loosing range of motion and by early spring only had only about 25% range of motion left. This not only abstructed anything requiring right arm motion (especially above the head or behind the back), caused a lot of pain, and would not let me sleep. I had not been doing much in the way of sword drills for quite a while, but this was now completely out, along with many other daily activities that one takes for granted.

Turns out I have adhesive capsulitis, commonly known as frozen shoulder. Or, aptly named by some of my Chinese colleagues '50 year old shoulder'. There are several other things that cause similar symptoms but the true frozen shoulder involves swelling of the capsule around the shoulder joint to the point where it won't move. It normally gets worse and then resolves after 1-2 years on its own. No one really knows what causes it - for example its more common in people with thyroid problems (I have a history) and women going through menopause (not my case I hope).

Anyhow, I could not wait for this to resolve so I had a relatively new procedure done called capsular dissection, which involved an injection of cortisol followed by a lot of agressive arm twisting designed to break the adehsions. Its about as comfortable as it sounds. I've had kidney stones, and this came close. Put it this way - they heard me all through the clinic. But together with follow-up physio and excercises, it has worked quite well and I recovered most of my lost range of motion.

The funny part is that when I told my Dr. (actually Dr. of physiotherapy) about my former sword training, he asked me to show him what it looks like. I did some cutting drills with a cane and he really liked the ones with diagonal cuts that smoothly force the shoulder through its full range (I forget what this is called). He said it was perfect for completely recovering my range of motion and strengthening the muscles - better than any physio he could do. He said that he didn't care about the footwork, but I explained that you can't separate the arms from the feet in swordplay. He prescribed that I should do this every day, and if I do this, I can quit doing some of the stretching excercises that he gave me previously.

I thought - cool! But when my wife heard about this, she made a face and said something like 'oh my God' under her breath.

Anyhow, I thought it makes for a fun story that only you people would fully appreciate.

Anyone else out there want to share some stories where practicing swordplay (or the like) either caused or alleviated injuries?

Good story, I like the wife's reaction part the best. ;) I don't have a similar story but whenever I'm sick I measure my level of sickness by level of difficulty I have handling my swords. If swords feel unnaturally heavy and unresponsive, I'm really sick. If they feel normal, I'm not that sick. :)

I have very bad Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in both hands and wrists. I find that a little swordplay alleviates it quite a bit. And my wife LIKES to watch me swingin'..........especially my claymore. She says it's sexy. :cool: :lol: :lol: :lol: .....McM