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I always envy beautiful penmanship. Mine is basically chicken scratch. When I retired and started helping my wife in her kindergarten class, I was embarrassed that I couldn't print letters that the kids could distinguish. I had to work hard to make it legible.
After Vietnam, I felt lucky to be alive and in one piece. Lot of people I fought with weren't so lucky. Lot of lost lives. Lost hands. Lost legs. Lost minds. I know the end is coming, but for me, the end was over fifty years ago, and I got a reprieve. Each year is extra.
So many things I can't do that I once could. Sometimes I feel like the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail:" completely oblivious to the damage done and obsessively fighting on.
When I started getting arthritis pain in my knees 20 years ago, walking was painful. My doctor gave me the best advice. He said that I should try to walk normally, as if there wasn't pain. Muscle and neural memories would reinforce the pain or not, depending on my approach. So instead of allowing my body to function in pain mode, where it was constantly bracing for pain, I kept reinforcing normalcy. When I got up from a chair and it hurt, I'd sit back down and keep getting up until it was smooth and not painful.
We used to practice some of that in martial arts. You learn to direct the energy through and away. When a person gets hit, the body tenses up and fights against the pain and damage. But, you can train your body to allow the energy to to flow through with minimal resistance. There are probably videos on Youtube of a particular martial arts school where the guys get punched in the throat or kicked in the kawhompsas without damage.
Physical therapy seems to be basically a method of teaching your body preferred muscle/neural memories. But sometimes the damage won't lend itself to improvement.
Hopefully, science will find answers to those more serious things we fear as we age.
After Vietnam, I felt lucky to be alive and in one piece. Lot of people I fought with weren't so lucky. Lot of lost lives. Lost hands. Lost legs. Lost minds. I know the end is coming, but for me, the end was over fifty years ago, and I got a reprieve. Each year is extra.
So many things I can't do that I once could. Sometimes I feel like the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail:" completely oblivious to the damage done and obsessively fighting on.
When I started getting arthritis pain in my knees 20 years ago, walking was painful. My doctor gave me the best advice. He said that I should try to walk normally, as if there wasn't pain. Muscle and neural memories would reinforce the pain or not, depending on my approach. So instead of allowing my body to function in pain mode, where it was constantly bracing for pain, I kept reinforcing normalcy. When I got up from a chair and it hurt, I'd sit back down and keep getting up until it was smooth and not painful.
We used to practice some of that in martial arts. You learn to direct the energy through and away. When a person gets hit, the body tenses up and fights against the pain and damage. But, you can train your body to allow the energy to to flow through with minimal resistance. There are probably videos on Youtube of a particular martial arts school where the guys get punched in the throat or kicked in the kawhompsas without damage.
Physical therapy seems to be basically a method of teaching your body preferred muscle/neural memories. But sometimes the damage won't lend itself to improvement.
Hopefully, science will find answers to those more serious things we fear as we age.
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