Hydration

The same week that I have begun focusing on increasing my water intake happens to be the same week that one of my mentors had to have kidney surgery to remove a massive stone. Looks like I picked the right week to start hydrating properly.

The inflammation I have been suffering from for the past year or so is showing no signs of abating. Blood tests are normal and there is not sign of injury or trauma. I’m hoping that some of it may be addressed through improving my water intake. I take in about three litres a day which is about right for a guy my size. After hearing of Master McNeil’s ordeal that he just endured, I am going to increase my water intake to five litres per day. When I consider all my cartilage issues in my knees, increasing my hydration only makes sense.

“Experience is a master teacher, even when it’s not our own.” - Gina Greenlee

My Constant Companion

I must have been around ten or eleven years old when I first hurt my knee. My approach to hockey was kamikaze style so it is ironic that ground zero for my bad knee was a gopher hole. Running through a field, I stepped in a gopher hole and hyper extended my knee by jamming it backwards while traveling full speed. The injury did not seem that ominous at the time but then again, nothing did at that age.

Fast forward three years and I am grossing out my sister by popping my knee by flexing it and straightening it while laying on the couch. I think every boy considers a skill like that as a superpower. My friend at school turned his eyelids inside out. Me, I popped my knee. What I did not know at the time was that popping noise was torn cartilage jamming in my knee joint and popping out. Cartilage has no blood flow so there is no pain associated with the tear.

Fast forward three more years and I am stepping up unto a platform and my knee completely locks, preventing me from straightening it out. My mom takes me to the doctor and he prescribes some pain killers and sends me home. I am not sure what he was thinking but his lack of proper investigation and action has had a major impact on the rest of my life. Two weeks later, my knee unlocked on its own and I was back to grossing out my sister.

Fast forward two more years. I have been playing hockey for six years on a damaged knee and I am now training in Kung Fu. Standing up from a high back stance with throw, my knee locks again. This time I head to the ER myself. One traumatic arthogram later and I am being booked for emergency surgery. The arthogram showed I had a big torn piece of cartilage jamming my knee joint. The tear was so large that orthoscopic surgery was not going to cut it. At least I have a scar big enough to name (Clancy) and the subject of a lot of conversations.

Waking up after the surgery I was in a lot of pain. Eye watering, lights flashing, blinding pain. Cartilage is not supposed to hurt so what the heck? My surgeon visited me a couple of hours later and informed me that I was living with my tear for so long, the piece of cartilage flopping back and forth into my knee joint had wore a divot in the joint about the size of a nickel. He had to do some joint reconstruction to smooth it out the best he could.

It was a year, almost to the day, before I could fully flex my knee again. The swelling took forever to dissipate but that is normal recovery timeframe for the reconstruction that took place. My ability to flex the knee returned but my ability to use the knee the way I did before the surgery is gone forever. The psychology of such an injury is fascinating.

Decades later with five knee surgeries under my belt, I can definitively say that pain and inflammation have been my constant companions. With companions such as them a person learns a lot. Inflammation is self-propagating. Load-bearing, inflamed knees get damaged. Damage causes more inflammation. And so the cycle continues.

Tuesday’s brown belt class was an eye opener for me. I discovered that I no longer have the range in my knees to demonstrate certain techniques. When the heck did I cross that threshold? It would seem that I am entering a phase of my kung fu life that may require me to adjust my approach and my expectations.

I am thankful for the lifestyle I have been able to enjoy. My activity level now is not much different than what it was when I was a teenager. I realize that nothing is for free. A lifetime of rough and tumble contact comes with a price. It was, and continues to be, absolutely worth it.

“The first wealth is health.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

And Then This

So, Donald Trump won the US presidential election. A system that gives you the choice between only two candidates barely constitutes a democratic choice. When that limited choice forces you to choose between two negatives, can anyone be too surprised if people vote for change rather than the status quo?

After the massive damage Stephen Harper did to our democracy and environmental legacy, I am very concerned what damage an arrogant, narrow-minded, hate exploiting, misogynistic climate change denier sitting in the White House can do in four years. Dividing a country through fear and hate is something that will affect a society long after the leader has left office.

I was in California during the election. While there, I had the privilege of sharing a meal and evening with Jordan Fisher Smith who gifted me a copy of his new, highly recommended book - Engineering Eden.  The irony is that in the same week the US elects a president who does not believe in man's role in climate change and who has promised to wipe out the EPA and back out of the Paris Agreement, I am reading Jordan's book about the catastrophic environmental consequences of man's interference with nature.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's, like, incredible." –Donald Trump (b. 1946)

Only One Book

One of my students asked me to recommend a book for her to read. She did not put any caveats on the request. Fiction, non-fiction, philosophical, inspirational, spiritual, whatever - the choice was wide open for me to make. It seemed like a pretty simple request at the time and I told her I would come up with a recommendation in a day or two. I wanted to put some thought into my choice. Fast forward two days. I found myself completely locked in this task, unable to settle on a recommendation. What started out as a simple request turned into a mammoth responsibility for me. Only one book? But there are so many great books out there. What the heck was she asking of me? Was she looking for something to entertain her or was she looking for something that was going to feed her soul? I need more information. Who can make such a choice without more information? After struggling with this decision for almost a week, I was finally able to ground myself and remember the spirit of her request. She had no agenda, she had no specific need. She only wanted MY request.

So I retooled my perspective and centered myself. If I could only recommend a single book for a person to read, and that book was going to be representative as the one book of all the books I have read, the book would have to be a book that meant something to me beyond just entertaining me. The book would have to have reached me at a visceral level and it would have changed me or my perspective forever.

My new perspective narrowed my focus considerably. Everything that Thich Nhat Hanh has ever written instantly fell into that category. Scratch that. Everyone knows what I think of the man, of course she has already considered his work. I've recommended his work thousands of times in the past, why would I diminish this opportunity by just going to my go to guy yet again? I needed to go further. At this point I was really getting into this task. I was learning a lot about myself, my values, and my influences.

I finally arrived at a single book. A book that opened my eyes to the plight of the world and forced me to actively participate in society's reformation or completely accept the injustice that is now so obvious. It is s book I wrote a blog about in 2008. If you think capitalism is related to democracy, this book will change your perspective forever. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the world. The senseless begins to make sense when you understand the motive behind some of the biggest social/moral decisions ever made. Money.

The world needs more activists. Reading a book like The Shock Doctrine will force your hand. Become part of the solution or participate in perpetuating the problem.

“Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.” - Naomi Klein (b. 1970)