Permanent kendo disabilities?

[Haowen]

In response to reading what Hyaku said about "a lot of the older senseis have hearing problems" due to being hit on the head too much:

MY goodness! Are there any long term permanent injuries that can develop due to practicing kendo? Hearing loss? Impacted cervical vertebrae from being hit on the head? Knee cartilage loss due to fumikomi ashi? Cruciate ligament failure? Arthritis in the fingers? Permanent injuries in the wrist bones due to being hit kote too much? Ankle injuries?

Let's find out what the common kendo injuries are and how to prevent them! Has anyone been injured before and how have you changed your practice since? Any advice on protective equipment or healthy training styles? Are certain kinds of injuries actually unavoidable?

[hamish]

Keep following Dr. Arima's Kendo Clinic in the magazine, as he gives some common kendo ailments a thorough going over, in the kind of detail that they need.

See issue 1 for achilles injuries, issue 2 and 3 for the 2 part back pain article and the upcoming issue 4 for blisters.

Hamish

[stinkyKote]

I've heard that sometimes (more common if you start kendo late in life) the repeated striking can cause your retinas to detach, leading to vision loss, or even blindness, I've also heard of tennis elbow, which seems to be pretty common, and is supposed to be exasperated by using carbon shinai, as they don't absorb the shock of the hits as well as bamboo.

[Hyaku]

My list amounts to bad knees from fumikomi (But I would put the blame more on Iai/Batto). The occasional trapped nerve in the neck. A muscle inbalance caused by standing and moving for years in that one foot forward stance with the same old back left hand grip.

I did get acute pneumonia from practicing when I had a bad cold (but that was my fault)

But this is an accumulation of thirty years or so. Many of them 10 practices over seven days. And most of all I am on the receiving end! As I don't put on the bogu so much now a lot of these problems have gone.

From a more professional point of view you have to delegate younger people to do the industrial injury stuff.

On average I don't think there are any major things to worry about for someone who practices a few times a week. But saying that, if I was in Westerners dojo things might be a bit different as things are a lot more physical and not so flowing.

Hyaku

[JSchmidt]

Considering the length you can do kendo, the long term injuries appear to be minor.

Jakob

[Charlie]

"But saying that, if I was in Westerners dojo things might be a bit different as things are a lot more physical and not so flowing."

Can you expand on this, Hyaku? I'm not sure what you mean. (Do you mean that in a western dojo there is more stopping to explain something and re-starting and working on basics that Japanese students have already mastered...?)

[Hyaku]

Hello there Charlie

No I meant it was far more physical in the west with not so much Kahanshin.

A lot of the fast going-through action makes it a bit easier on Motodachi in the long run.

Not wishing to offend anyone but the people in Japan are perhaps a bit more nippy (forgive the pun) and lighter on the strikes.

Hyaku

[Charlie]

Interesting! The kahanshin thing I knew (you've brought it up before and I've made it a priority in my practice) but the lighter, nippy strikes, I hadn't thought of.