My shoulder injury is bugging me because I don’t know what’s causing the pain. Also, I’m doing so little of whatever is causing the pain that it’s restricted to minor niggles here and there when I put my arm in awkward positions. It doesn’t affect everything I do.

My theory is that siu lim tau is causing the pain, specifically the first section where you extend your tan sau and fuk sau whilst forcing your elbow in towards the centre. I’ve been doing siu lim tau infrequently recently – maybe twice a week – so that might be the reason my injury hasn’t got worse. The pain is at such a low level, and it’s only there for such a small duration of time, that I wonder whether it’s “just one of those aches and pains we all get”.

Anyway, to test my theory that siu lim tau is the cause, I’m going to do the form twice a day. Fortunately, I’ve got the next week off work and should be able to fit those in easily. I’ve already done siu lim tau once today and practised alternating my bong saus whilst turning for 15 minutes. That’s a lot of bong saus!

I’m not doing any other exercise that involves my shoulder (like pressups, benchpress etc), and I’m not chi sauing with anyone at the moment, so I can’t think of anything else it could be. It’ll be disappointing, to say the least, if I discover that siu lim tau is damaging my shoulder, but at least I’ll know for sure what the cause is. The thing is, this form is part of the foundations of wing chun. It’ll be a simple adjustment to make, for me to ease off on the inward pressure as I extend my tan sau and fuk sau, just so I can continue doing siu lim tau, but that will have a knock on effect on my chi sau. My elbows won’t be able to come in as far as they used to, leaving me more open along the centre line, and vulnerable to attack. If that’s the case, I’m going to have to tighten up on my footwork and positioning to compensate.

If I establish that siu lim tau hurts my shoulder, then I can resume doing pressups, though, so it’s not all bad.

Unless they both damage my shoulder, and then we may as well slit our own throats!

Since I injured my shoulder last August (it’s still not right) I’ve not trained with the same vigour. In fact, the injury had quite an impact on my training. Pulling my elbows in on the fuk sau when chi sauing really puts pressure on your shoulders (if they’re damaged anyway) and this caused pain. Not being able to chi sau properly and not being able to do siu lim tau as well as I used to (extending the tan sau and fuk sau in the first section hurt), just put me off training altogether. Siu lim tau and chi sau are really integral parts of your wing chun training. “What’s left if I can’t do those?” I thought. Continue Reading

After around 3 weeks total abstinence from Wing Chun due to a mysterious injury, I’ve started my training again. I usually go to class once a week, twice in a good week, and do 15 minutes training on my own Monday – Friday so a complete stoppage was really hard to take.

This morning I did a quick Siu Lim Tau and Chum Kiu (which I learnt just before I got injured) and it felt good! Thankfully, I could remember Chum Kiu in its entirety, so in that repect I don’t think I’ve lost anything. Obviously, my technique is a bit rusty, and certainly my muscles aren’t as strong as 3 weeks ago, but at least I’m back. All being well, I’m going to try to make all 3 classes this week.

The injury is still there but its symptoms have reduced. There’s some swelling round my left knee (I hate joint injuries) and it hurts when I kneel down but both the swelling and the pain have reduced. I think it might be bursitis. My main concern was the pressure exerted on the knees when doing siu lim tau and also that exerted on them when turning in chum kiu, but my speedy routine this morning didn’t cause any pain. So it’s looking good!

I don’t know how I’ve done this but I’ve got an injured left knee. There was nothing specific I can remember that might have caused it, but there’s a definite tightness around the joint, especially when I squat. It doesn’t hurt and there’s no visible swelling, but I can feel it nonetheless.

Although it causes me no problems I decided not to go to my Wing Chun class tonight. Although this problem is related to my abstaining from Wing Chun, the decision whether or not to train with an injury is common to many disciplines. In this instance, my main fear was that there would be a mammoth leg training session that would cripple me or that when chi sauing I would make a sudden movement and twist it.

Of course there’s the inevitable argument raging in my head:

me: you should go to class, we don’t train legs often. You’ll be alright.

me: but if we do a lot of legwork, I’m either going to have to grin and bear it and risk injuring myself further, or I’m going to sit out. Aside from the mental impact of feeling defeated by that decision, there would be the feeling of loss having paid my $14 for the class, half of which I’m not part of

me: and so on

But…I think it’s important to ere on the side of caution. One of the me’s above is possibly right in saying we don’t train legs often so I could get away with going. But there’s too much to lose if I knacker my knee in completely. I won’t be laughing if I then have to miss a month or so of training. If I can just keep this drama queen hat on a bit longer the risks are just too high!

Anyway, the class started at 20:30 and it’s 20:34 so I’m definitely not going. And just to seal the decision, I’ve had a massive curry for my tea. Not going.

Update: OK, after a little internet research I think I know what the Mystery Injury might be. Water on the knee/bursitis. Stupidly, yesterday I was seeing how far I could push the joint by kneeling on the ground and seeing how far I could sit on my heels. It felt tight, and I shouldn’t have done that. And a couple of days ago in the gym I was doing the same, the idea being that I should try and loosen the joint up. Jeez, I’m a hazard! I think rest, cold compresses and anti-inflammatories are the way to go. Duh, I can’t believe that I’ve gone and aggravated the injury!