Foot Injury and my thought processes.
Back in Dec 2019, I had a severe foot injury from doing a roll off a high wall and over-rotating it, which I ended up having to take most of the impact on my right foot, which caused it to bend in a very awkward position. I knew it was going to be a super bad injury as it instantaneously felt like something super serious, and I was right.
3 months past the injury now, the foot is a lot better now, but I am still regaining back my foot strength. I’ve read that foot injuries take much longer to heal than the rest of the body, due to the fact that it’s so far away from your heart and it doesn’t get a lot of blood flow (coupled with the fact that I’m older now…). I also realise that most practitioners know how important it is to have strong ankles, but neglect the strengthening their foot.
In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t the worst injury to get as there were no actual fracture or broken bones, but it still is the longest injury in my 13 years of training.
That aside, what truly shook me was the circumstance of the injury.
This happened on the third day of an entire trip planned out with my girlfriend, starting at Kuala Lumpur, flying to Bangkok, and then to Seoul. At Parkour Malaysia’s Annual Jam, adrenaline was high, and right before having to teach a workshop and compete in a style comp, I pushed myself to do this jump that clearly is pretty ‘big’. One of the times where athleticism crossed professionalism. Was it really worth that challenge? To cause so many problems to so many people and although they can just push it aside as a ‘shit happens’ kind of thing, I know it’s still on me. But hindsight is 20/20.
Personally though, I knew that this was a challenge I could physically do. I’ve done the prep, the individual moves, and was pretty ready despite the time-pressure and onlookers. I trusted in my body’s ability to zone out and focus on the challenge. However, I messed it up. The misjudgment, the severity, & especially the timing… Can’t be any worse. To believe in myself so hard yet screwing it up is something I find so unbearable.
Fast forward to the present now, I have come to terms that it’s a (yet another) mistake that happened that I have to learn from, and hopefully be careful and smart enough to pick the right battles in the future.
I learnt how to adapt to deal with my foot injury, carrying on with training as much as I can – training handstands, going back to weight training, adapting my coaching despite my injury (less demonstrating, more vocalising), and working much harder on my rehab to prevent similar injuries in the future.
The lack of actual training is replaced with working on my other goals, like video editing, stretching, and hanging out with loved ones. There is always things to do despite an unfortunate event, and instead of sulking over it, find ways around it, like how Parkour has taught you.
I hope this article has shed some light on why making this Foot Rehab video is pretty important and special to me, and that you’ve learnt a couple of new things on how to better bulletproof your foot and ankles!
