Dealing with injuries

My newfound flexibility and agility were not earned freely; I paid a few costs along the way. I have broken a toe or two over the past 4 ½ years, but I suppose the assorted foot injury comes with the territory for a sport comprised primarily of kicks. Surprisingly, I have had a few finger injuries during my Taekwondo career, which is not what I expected initially from an activity dominated by said kicking. However, when you think about, what are you blocking all of those kicks with? Your hands and arms, play a major role in defense, so the odd defensive wound can happen.

My most spectacular finger injury was a Mallet Finger, which sounds like a Thor comic sidekick, but is actually occurs when one ruptures of the tendon that lets you extend the tip of your finger. As a result, one’s finger ends up bent at the final knuckle and won’t straighten on its own. It’s an odd injury in that it does not hurt very much at all. I sat down after sparring a short round with a younger black belt, and then I looked down and noticed my finger was crooked in a weird way. I held it up to the young student next to me and proudly pronounced, “Well, that doesn’t look right, does it?” The student quietly shook her head. I fully expected my finger to hurt like heck based on its weird angle, but meh, nothing. The cure for a Mallet Finger, in my case, was to wear a finger cast non-stop for two months. My job involves a lot of typing and keyboards, so the finger cast was an unwelcome addition to my daily routines. Just as I learned to type without a middle finger on my left hand, I took off the cast and had to get used to typing with a middle finger again. The finger healed, and it works fine now, but I am more careful to keep my hands in tighter fists while sparring to avoid a repeat injury.