Long story short, I had two students leave the school tonight. They are a married couple in their fifties who had been with us about a year, and the husband hurt his knee in class a few weeks ago. They thought it was no big deal, turned out it was an ACL tear, and now he's on rehab and his doctors don't want him doing karate anymore. I feel even worse because he hurt his knee while working with me.
We weren't doing anything very high energy. We were doing a ground work demonstration for the rest of class where I was slowly changing positions and demonstrating techniques while lecturing the class and showing them where their kenpo techniques appeared on the ground. He isn't even sure exactly when it happened, but at some point he felt like there was some slight pressure on the outside of his knee. It didn't hurt, he didn't even mention it, and we went on with class no big deal. It wasn't until later that he realized he was injured, and he thought it was just going to be a few weeks off until they finally did an MRI and diagnosed the problem.
I know these things happen. I know when we step on the training floor we all except two risks. 1. We might get hurt. 2. We might hurt someone else. That's karate. But I always feel awful whenever a student gets hurt, and I feel even worse that I hurt him. It's my job as the instructor to provide a safe training environment, not to cripple my students.
I know logically this is only so much my fault. These were older students who were extremely athletic. They danced, hiked, biked twenty miles at a time, and did karate. This probably had more to do with age catching up to him than what we did in class. He doesn't even think he was hurt from a lock or a sweep. He think it was just while we were rolling over our side from mount to guard. Same thing we've done a thousand times, simple low energy position change for demonstration purposes. And bam, he's done.
His wife is fine, but she quit too. I don't think she wanted to do karate without her husband. I get that. And I think she was also struggling with some of the invisible enemies of perfectionism and unhealthy comparisons. We made sure they understood they were always welcome, even if just to watch and take notes, and that they're still part of our family. But I'm really heart broken tonight.
I hate to lose students. I hate to hurt students. I hate it when students get hurt. I know that's karate, and I never hold it against my training partners when it happens to me. But I'm really struggling tonight.
It makes me want to hang it all up. To quit doing karate before I hurt someone again. I'll get over it. I'll use this to make myself a better instructor. Since the injury I've already made even more of a point to emphasize safe training, especially around the knees, which is a lesson I've always focused on anyway. Especially since my own knee injuries. I've also been emphasizing to my students the importance of listening to their own bodies before they listen to my instruction. I can't know how they're feeling day to day or where they're at.
This will make me better. Because the alternative is to get worse or give up. But it's not worth the price, because someone else had to pay it. Tonight, I feel like a failure. And that's a lousy feeling. And the fact that it's not as lousy a feeling as a torn ACL only makes it worse.
I wish it had been me.
-Rob
We weren't doing anything very high energy. We were doing a ground work demonstration for the rest of class where I was slowly changing positions and demonstrating techniques while lecturing the class and showing them where their kenpo techniques appeared on the ground. He isn't even sure exactly when it happened, but at some point he felt like there was some slight pressure on the outside of his knee. It didn't hurt, he didn't even mention it, and we went on with class no big deal. It wasn't until later that he realized he was injured, and he thought it was just going to be a few weeks off until they finally did an MRI and diagnosed the problem.
I know these things happen. I know when we step on the training floor we all except two risks. 1. We might get hurt. 2. We might hurt someone else. That's karate. But I always feel awful whenever a student gets hurt, and I feel even worse that I hurt him. It's my job as the instructor to provide a safe training environment, not to cripple my students.
I know logically this is only so much my fault. These were older students who were extremely athletic. They danced, hiked, biked twenty miles at a time, and did karate. This probably had more to do with age catching up to him than what we did in class. He doesn't even think he was hurt from a lock or a sweep. He think it was just while we were rolling over our side from mount to guard. Same thing we've done a thousand times, simple low energy position change for demonstration purposes. And bam, he's done.
His wife is fine, but she quit too. I don't think she wanted to do karate without her husband. I get that. And I think she was also struggling with some of the invisible enemies of perfectionism and unhealthy comparisons. We made sure they understood they were always welcome, even if just to watch and take notes, and that they're still part of our family. But I'm really heart broken tonight.
I hate to lose students. I hate to hurt students. I hate it when students get hurt. I know that's karate, and I never hold it against my training partners when it happens to me. But I'm really struggling tonight.
It makes me want to hang it all up. To quit doing karate before I hurt someone again. I'll get over it. I'll use this to make myself a better instructor. Since the injury I've already made even more of a point to emphasize safe training, especially around the knees, which is a lesson I've always focused on anyway. Especially since my own knee injuries. I've also been emphasizing to my students the importance of listening to their own bodies before they listen to my instruction. I can't know how they're feeling day to day or where they're at.
This will make me better. Because the alternative is to get worse or give up. But it's not worth the price, because someone else had to pay it. Tonight, I feel like a failure. And that's a lousy feeling. And the fact that it's not as lousy a feeling as a torn ACL only makes it worse.
I wish it had been me.
-Rob