How do you fighters reconcile the reality of concussions with the goal of longevity?
cautiousness. if you’re KO’ed/choked out, etc., you don’t roll for a few classes. Don’t spar full contact any more than once of twice a month.
I’ve come to the conclusion that striking arts are out for me. I need a break from MA entirely. If I come back, it will be for BJJ or a weapons art like escrima. I may just find a new hobby entirely, like building model airplanes. Brain damage is just too high a price to pay for the fun of sparring and competition.
Somebody suggested working on forms, drills, etc. But I never did forms for the sake of doing forms, while a sport like WuShu forms might be fun for a lot of people, since I’ve already seen the pugilistic side of things this would never be fulfilling to me.
Oh, in case y’all are curious, I am suffering from a nasty concussion right now. I got TKO’d a couple weeks ago in a tournament, but felt fine after a couple days. Then this last Sunday my Sifu’s friend stopped by class and we did some light sparring. I took some real light hits and felt hurt. It didn’t really hit me until the next day, though. Now I’m slowly getting better but I could barely even do my job this week. I can’t even smoke a joint. :****ed
I hope you either have or plan on seeing a doctor. I’d be kind of concerned about possible brain swelling at this point. But I’m no doctor either.
Yeah, I plan on seeing one next week. But since my car has died, that is going to be a pain. I’m sure my brain was swelling or bleeding cause I felt pressure, however, it’s getting steadily better. Also the treatment of swelling is to drill a hole in your f.ucking skull so as long as my symptoms aren’t outrageous I’m not going to trip out about it.
was it at SG lee’s tournament? I’m sorry to hear that man. moving on to grappling would be good, as you still train, learn an exceptional amount of stuff and stay in shape, but the same hazards will be there…People may get rough and you catch forearms and elbows, accidental headbutts, getting choked out, not tucking your head when you fall, etc. Just be careful no matter what it is that you train in.
It was at SG Lee’s tourney that I got TKO’d in my second fight. However like I said I felt fine after a couple days. Then sparring, real light sparring, in class this past Sunday, which was two weeks after the tournament. All of a sudden I woke up feeling like crap. Then my car died.
Thus, building model airplanes. Worked for me as a kid. Seriously, I need to get away entirely from the MA for a least a few months. Then, I’ll re-evaluate.
Don’t quit man, just tone it down a few notches.
or maybe go internal. Aren’t you close to choi?
Thanks for keeping up the conversation with me, Sev. 
Yes, I’m near Choi. Yes, I think traditional internal/soft-style training will make you an effective fighter, if you are intelligent and patient enough to grasp the concepts.
But, what’s the point? If I can’t put on the gloves and go a few rounds, where’s the fun at? I don’t do this for self-defense. I don’t do it to wear Chinese silk PJ’s. I like all the exposure to Chinese culture, etc, but it’s no more fulfilling than Yoga unless - you actually get to apply it!
If I were to go study the internals, I think I would have to throw my 3 years of Wing Chun and JKD away. What for? It might be better for me to join one of those “no-sparring” wing chun schools. Either way, I’m going to be missing the most important element to me - the action! I foresee frustration here.
After I take a few months off, I may feel differently. Now I don’t even want to think about doing MA. I’ll still hang around this board, though.
After the tournament, I was excited about coming back the following year and being equal to all of the top guys. The toughest thing about this is walking away from the challenge. The second toughest thing is leaving this particular path of self-development, which was bearing fruit. I was really starting to get a hang of what I was doing.
this is so depressing.
I am only a few years younger than you…guess i will have to start thinking about this sort of thing soon to.
UH, you’re older than me, bro. I’m 28.
Chalk it up to bad luck, and maybe predisposition to this kind of injury. Protect yourself, especially your head and your groin, it’s more important than winning.
And if you stay in the ring too long, you will pay the price.
Ah yes concussions. Well, first of all how many concussions have you had?
You can take internal and still spar. Just don’t go at it so often. Knowing how much you loved it, I hate to see you just stop.
This is my second concussion - I had one about two years ago, took about a week to clear up. However this one is what is known as a “second impact” concussion, which I guess is more serious. It’s been a week and I’m still not quite feeling myself. Much better though than initially. I called my doctor, he said it wasn’t necessary to come in, in his experience young people usually bounce back from a concussion pretty well. He did say that post-concussion syndrome can take weeks or even months to clear up.
Or never…
I had a concussion close to a year ago, and I still don’t have the same feeling in my right foot that I had beforehand. The doctor said it would be up to 6 months to recover completely. I’d say my sensitivity is almost 100 percent. I just feel things differently in my right foot than in my left. It’s hard to explain, but it’s kind of a strange electric feeling sometimes.
I was thrown head-first onto a mat during a judo class btw.
I would say you definitely need to see a doctor. If your symptoms didn’t even start until several days after the inciting incident, that sounds bad to me. You don’t want to mess around with your brain.
As bad as my aftereffects have been, I had an MRI at the hospital the day my concussion happened and my brain showed no physical damage.
On a brighter note, I just saw “The One” and I’m thinking of taking up Bagua and Xing-Yi with Choi. I also would like to complete the Wing Chun curriculum - Bil Gee and Weapons forms, the wooden dummy, chi sao. However, there’s no way I’ll be able to maintain the same level of enthusiasm as before. It also is a good opportunity for me to pick up another hobby - like building model airplanes. I mean that in a good way.
DWID - just saw your post.
I am experiencing some loss of feeling on one side of my scalp. I’ve already put another call in to my doctor about it. The thing is, there isn’t much they can do about it. My symptoms showed up the next day, after I received the second impact. This is a documented phenomena when you receive a second head injury, while still recovering from the first. The thing is, I didn’t realized I was still recovering at the time.
I spoke to my Sifu about it, and I asked him if he had ever been through the same thing. He said that basically no, he had even been knocked down before, which I was not, and he just took it easy for a couple days and was back training within a week. The thing is, people are built differently. And I think I managed to get hit in the exact same spot as before.