a MMB! Kendo Blog: Karate Kendo

MMB! Kendo Blog

Thursday, June 01, 2006


忍耐 + 掌握人生
Karate Kendo

Thank you for all the kind messages, emails and supports. My hand is improving at a pleasing rate, and I have gone back to kendo training without bogu in a hand cast.

Sports Medicine and Physio Consultations
The week I returned from Kyoto (which is about 3 weeks ago), I went to consult with Dr. Tom Cross, a Sports Medicine Doctor at the North Sydney Sports Medicine Centre about my hand condition. He examined my x-ray & ultrasound scans and did some testings on my hand.

Dr. Cross was quite interested in my case because he said it was quite unusual to rupture the 5th carpometarcarpal ligament. While examining the x-ray, he was very surprised to see my metacarpal bone density was so high and asked me if I need to make frequent hand contacts during kendo training. I said we do make some contacts, such as in tsubazerai and taitari, but no punching or specific hand hitting contacts like in Karate. Anyway, he found the high bone density in the fingers so unusual he took some photos of it. I think I have to thank mom on this part, because she also surprised doctors with her high bone density for female of her age in her annual medical check ups. I must have inherited the high bone desity genes from my mom. So thanks mom for saving me from having to worry about osteoporosis in my life.

Out of curiosity, I asked Dr. Cross the amount of studies he had to undertake to gain the Sports Medicine doctor qualification. Answer: 12 whooping years! That is, 6 years of Medicine degree studies + 6 years of post-graduate studies specialising in Sports Medicine. I gotta admire his perseverence in pursuing his dream career.

At the end of the consultation, Dr. Cross suggested that I should get a hand cast made and so he referred me to the Sydney Hand Therapy & Rehabilitation Centre. It was really kind of him to contact the hand clinic directly and set up an urgent appointment for me.

So 2 hours later, I found myself in the hand clinic. And 1 more hour later, I was wearing a hand cast.

I returned to the kendo-jo for training much earlier than I've expected. It was Sano sensei who encouraged me to join the UNSW Monday class and do ashi-sabaki practices, and I thank everyone who trained with me while I am still in the recovering stage.

Karate Kendo
The 1st and 2nd Monday night UNSW training were pretty cool. I did suburi, karikaeshi, and kihon waza sessions all with bare hands. That's karate kendo for me! It's so cool to walk up to the motodachi, go into sonkyo, they drew their shinai, I put my hands forward - and up I came from sonkyo to attack with my bare hands against guys with shinai and full bogu. While still maintaining the correct distance and the intention to cut the targets, we moved back and forth practicing kendo cut with a shinai that existed in our imagination.

At the end of the first training, it was nice to get this funny feedback from Dino. 'Bibian, you cuts were good, but they are too light I couldn't feel them.' Thanks Dino, I will try to work on it. You just wait. ;-)

Cast Back in Armour
On Wednesday, I had my second hand physio consultation. Terese, my hand physio, made me a second cast, which is thin enough to allow both hand and cast to fit into the kote. I am planning to go to tonight's UNSW training and try it out.

I took some video during the second physio consultation, and below are some of the interesting clips during the consultation.

Strapping the hand cast


Wrist flexbility measurement


Fist-clenching exercise

2 Comments:

  • High bone density? maybe you have a special ability you don't know about yet hahaha (too much Naruto influence)

    I also haven't been to Bogu training much this week, only Kata. My muscle are still sore from last weekends training. I think the muscles strains still hasn't fully recovered yet.

    Maybe I need to get extra protein in my diet to speed the muscle regrowth, if only I could regenerate as fast as Wolverine.

    But good to see your still training hope you get better soon.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Friday, June 02, 2006 10:25:00 AM  

  • Hey Eddie,

    Please take it easy on while you are recovering from the muscle strain. Exercising is good, but don't overwork it while the muscle fibres are regenerating.

    Hopefully you will get better soon, so I will see you again in UNSW.

    By Blogger Vivian Yung, at Friday, June 02, 2006 11:06:00 AM  

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