Sports injury

I never thought I'd have a "sports injury."  At primary school, they made me take my glasses off for Physical Education lessons, so I could never see what I was doing.  Didn't much like team sports in high school, except field hockey.  I sprained both ankles badly as a small child so I always had to watch out for them, and I find repetitions in the gym tedious.  I don't have the build to be tall, willowy, and stick-thin, but curvy, fit, and kick-ass strong are reachable goals.

I met Jim at the St Louis NaNoWriMo write-ins.  It took a few years listening to him talk about karate before I asked if an unfit, overweight thirty-something could start karate without being laughed at.  "Go to the Kirkwood Tracy's, and ask for Karen," he said.  She was there when I walked through the door, we chatted and I came back for my free lesson, then for the four lesson introduction course, then a five month contract, and I was hooked, working out was fun!  Got my orange belt, then my purple, started sparring class, and I'm most of the way through my blue belt material.

Several weeks ago, I did a spinning wheel kick, something I've done hundreds of times before.  This time I did it wrong, resulting in a sprained iliotibial band, and a torn meniscus.  I've never had a knee injury before and it freaked me out enough to see a sports medicine doctor.  While I can still do a slow, low impact version of my private karate lessons, I can't go to group class or sparring class until I get cleared by the physical therapy torturer lady.  I miss karate terribly, the workout, the sparring, and the people.  I'm actually more tired when I don't have that extra three hours of intense activity in my schedule.

The knee seems to be doing better, I'm hoping it will heal without surgery for the meniscus.  My reward for feeling better is more repeats of the PT exercises, and new inventive tortures at my PT sessions.  I want to get back to karate.