How much pain do you tolerate?
 

I'm just curious how much pain (in regard to injuries, etc...) do you tolerate while doing kendo? How much do you take before to decide to take a little time off?

As for me, my feet are the only thing that have some pain. Because it's so cold out here, and none of the dojos I practice at are heated, my feet get super cold and dry. Then they crack and I get tears under my toes. (Usually on the left foot where the pinky toe meets the sole) But because my feet are numb from the cold, I don't even feel it, till after practive and its bleeding. Then I can't do kendo for like a week. Other than that, my right heel hurts sometimes, depending where I practice (A gym floor, or a proper Kendo dojo)

other than that, I'm pretty straight. But it does effect my kendo, I can't give it my all when something hurts.

How about you guys?

I don't really see the point of this, other than to share sob stories.

I suggest you talk to Ignatz about this and then review your question in the light of his answer.

yeah, that's the point of a forum bro.

I get that sometimes too, though not as bad as I've never had it bleed much. One thing I've found that seems to help is to put skin lotion around that area a couple times a day, when I use lotion around the toe it keeps the skin softened and flexible enough not to crack, or to heal if it is already cracked, just don't put it on right before practice, leave enough time for the skin to absorb it before practice so you don't get the dojo floor all greasy.

Well, I've been hit by a 2 cars, a truck, and a van... so my knees give me some problems every now and then, but it's usually nothing to where I have to stop in the middle of anything.

You would think that after being hit by one car, you would learn to look both ways before crossing the street... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/laugh.gif

My take on the issue depends on if it is just pain, you know those irritating injuries like bruises or cuts, but has no real impact on your ability/performance. If the injury won't get worse or doesn't present the potential to turn into something dangerous, just keep practicing. The more focused you are in your training, the more you can tolerate pain, or not even realize you were hurt until you stop training.

Injuries that are actually serious, ones that can potentially turn into worse injuries, are the ones where you have to pace yourself. The previous injuries that are just pain can be overcome. These more serious ones require you to carefully judge your pacing so you don't overexert yourself and make it worse. Stupid things like blisters don't fit this description unless you are going to bleed all over the floor and put others' health at risk. But injuries that involve muscles, tendons, etc need to be carefully monitored.

My number one rule when coaching in the past, because all kids will want to play no matter how serious the injury is and unless you bench them because you know it is really serious, the medium range of injuries that you could sit out or play depend on your personality, I always give the advice of "don't make it worse." If the kid could still play at maximum performance, although with some discomfort, then that is ok. If the kid was a weak point to the team, they'd sit. But frequently I'd leave the decision to them as long as they "didn't make it worse".

depends on the pain / injury.. in general terms though i keep going as much as possible.. the only time i duck out during practice usually is if i'm so exhausted that i might injur my partner

If I think continuing will hurt me even more, then I will stop. No reason to continue practice with pain in perhaps an hour if it means that you will be out of practice for a month.
I just recently sprained my ankle, which hurt like hell, but I kept going after having rested for perhaps ten minutes. I regret this now, since if I had quit and put on a bandage I might have been able to practice today. Now I will probably be out of practice for atleast another week, and today was two weeks since the injury.

same here, i just found out yesterday at the school clinic that i have a plantar fascitis on my left foot. they said i should rehab it for a while.

you should consult your doctor or even go with your guts. just take a time off for a while and see what happens. there's no point in worsening it.

~taganahan

I know you said kendo but, when I'm doing iaido I seem to often catch a bit of skin during noto... hurts like hell ever time.

I have never done that yet in Iaido...
I could hardly walk for a while after the first time I spent a lesson focusing on Mae from seiza - actually my second lesson. Serves me right for being unfit and for not warming up properly...found muscles I never knew existed!!

Hmm...*ponders this* In kendo, owing to how most beginners do kote, my wrists tend to suffer most but I've been hit over the head in the wrong place quite considerably...even felt like concussion once! But I wouldn't class those as injuries since I just keep practicing; the most severe injury I've had from kendo is the skin between my big toe ripping to expose raw flesh (it's never bled...yet...http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/tongue.gif) and I tend to just wrap it up with plasters and keep going. Iaido? Never experienced pain...yet...and, in jodo, my sensei don't go half-way when they do tsuki.http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...nocked_out.gif

Either something is wrong with you or you are you are trying out for a dodgeball team with coach Patches O'hulihan.

oh yeah, forgot about seiza... definately little tolerance for pain there.

I can handle external pain, but I have like zero tolerance for internal stuff. I could probably handle a whack on the arm better than a muscle cramp. The problem is that the external crap hurts for a long time, whereas cramps are much more acute.

And cramps definetely prevent you from movin properly ... ;-)

Thinking of all the minor injuries like bruises and stuff, did you notice that they even help u getting fucosed or more concentrated during training? Thats what happens to me sometime ... while i try to ignore the little pain, i later notice that i forgot it and even was more concentrated in training than before.

Well, here's the thing...

When I got hit by the truck, I'll admit, I wasn't paying too much attention to the things around me. I got what I deserved.

As for the cars, I sort of asked for it. It's what I get for playing chicken with friends who are just as resolute about hitting me with a car as I am about not moving out of the way of a car coming at me.

The van, however, was completely not my fault. The driver wasn't paying attention and slammed into the side of me when I was riding my bike on the way to work one morning.

So yeah... luckily, I've smartened up alot since then. Now, I just have people trying to smack me with bokken and shinai. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/silly.gif

As funny as it may sound, i always thought of seiza as my "painometer", meaning that my resistance to pain depends on how many pain peaks i can withstand while in seiza, hope i'm making sense.

Not really.

Do you mean how long you can sit in seeiza for? Since sitting in Seiza for a long time starts to hurt.....
I can sit longer in seiza now, I found, interestingly, that tabi socks helped...