I got an e-mail over the weekend from Eric Dexheimer, a reporter over at The Statesman, who was doing some research for an interesting article about an above-knee amputee MMA fighter, Jorge De Leon. The twist to the story is that despite covering his prosthesis with a protective foam and being physically fit for the event, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation fined the event organiser $5,500 and disqualified the event. To quote from Eric’s piece:

So, the question I rolled around in my head was – should amputees be allowed to compete with other martial artists?

The above is an interesting scenario – on the one hand, I think it’s awesome that he’s gone ahead and participated in an MMA match despite his disability, and feel quite strongly that he shouldn’t have been disqualified. On the other hand, knowing how much potential damage a prostheesis can inflict on a person, particularly some of the edges and parts relating to the knee, supporting titanium pole and so forth, I can see that there may be grounds in terms of safety of the prosthesis during a match.

In some ways, I’d argue that there simply being a prosthesis isn’t unsafe per se. The prosthesis is merely a tool that can used and manipulated as a weapon, no different to a knee, fist, elbow, etc. In fact, due to the greater degree of movement and kinetic energy that can be harnessed, it could be argued that these natural extensions of the body are no less safe than a prosthesis, it all comes down to the use thereof. For example, if I were to strike with a roundhouse kick, my prosthesis would likely cause a significant impact – however, due to the way kinetic energy can be manipulated via muscle and hard bone, I imagine that a roundhouse kick by a seasoned martial artist would arguably have greater impact. I have compared my kicking techniques to my instructors and other experienced martial artists I have trained with, and I would actually believe their strikes are actually more powerful than something I can generate. This is reflected in Eric’s article, noting that experienced athletic prosthetist Jan Stokosa found that while sparring with below-amputee Ron Mann, it was his real leg that caused greater impact compared to his prosthesis.

One of the disadvantages of a prosthesis compared to fully-functional limbs is that we don’t have the same degree of control compared to a physical leg owing to the lack of muscles, and this lack of control could well be grounds for arguing issues against its use (i.e. unintentional damage or injury due to the relative instability of the leg). Mind, contrary to that, I’ve seen some pretty scrappy MMA bouts, and I don’t think controlled striking is necessarily a universal component that all participants believe in; this does make sense in the spirit of MMA though, given its potential to simulate “real” combat, rather than point-based or light contact sparring quite common amongst “traditional” martial arts styles in the West. Mind, I certainly wouldn’t have the balls to compete in an MMA match, looks too full-on for my sensibilities!

As a point of comparison, if it’s relevant, whenever I spar with other martial artists I do two things – first up, I give them advanced warning to watch how they strike in case they unintentionally hurt themselves on the prosthesis. Secondly, I make it a habit not to actually strike using my prosthesis during sparring – this is more in line with my philosophy that I don’t believe I can control the leg to such a degree that I can guarantee there won’t be unnecessary impact to my sparring partner.

But MMA is arguably quite different to a lot of sparring I would do in class – if your body has a natural advantage (athletic, muscular, experience), does the presence of a prosthesis make much of a difference to the spirit of a match if it’s considered simply a function of the body, akin to the aforementioned attributes? When grappling arts like Brazilian Jujutsu were introduced into MMA competitions and proved an effective (and arguably essential) part of a combatants’ repertoire, the style wasn’t banned – rather, participants had to learn how the system worked and how to counter it. In that sense, is the presence of a prosthesis any different?

As an amputee, I can assure you that whilst there may be advantages to having a prosthesis during such a match, there are also a huge amount of disadvantages – balance, limited control, lactic acid buildup in the stump, incredible amount of energy expenditure to move/use the limb compared to an able-bodied competitor. The question is – do the disadvantages even out the advantages?

There’s also the fact that there aren’t many opportunities for amputee martial artists to be recognised and compete if they wish – I would be absolutely thrilled if karate or something similar would get introduced at a Paralympic level, as the only martial art currently available is judo, and participation is based on the basis of your eyesight-related disability. There is no avenue for amputees to compete.

I’m pretty on the fence with this one, hence why I’ve jumped back and forth on either side of the argument… I know it may be a little convoluted, but hopefully I’ve helped stimulate some discussion on the situation.

On a final note, for those interested in reading more about Ron Mann, check out the following sites:

• Disabled Sports USA – Athlete Profile: Martial Arts Pro Kicks Way to Top
• Xable.com – Ron Mann: Amputee Ulimate Fighter

He has also run some workshops and competitions at the Extremity Games – according to the website, the next one is happening next month in Texas. It’s definitely an event I’d love to go to, but putting aside the money factor (gotta love those Australian mortgages!), I’d want to get into more shape before thinking about heading over there to compete 😉

Huge props to Eric on his excellent report on this issue and for getting in touch – I just wish I checked my mail a little earlier so my response could have been more useful! I highly recommend you check it out to get the full story, it makes for a great read:

Not going down without a fight on his prosthetic leg: Agency says war vet’s bout broke law as technology and martial arts converge.

Bloginated Wednesday, 5th May 2010 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: amputee | competition | Eric Dexheimer | Karate | Legal | martial arts | mma | prosthesis | Ron Mann | The Statesman

For some bizarre reason, over the last couple of weeks as part of my insatiable habit of walking around the house doing karate, I’ve started rolling in some elbow striking combinations. Like I said, no idea why, but hey, if it feels right, why not?

The previous style of karate I used to train in incorporates two basic empi (elbow strike, also written as enpi depending on your preferred romanisation) techniques – age-empi (rising elbow strike) and mawashi-empi (hook elbow strike). Both of these used to be performed at a standing position like in most of our technique drills, rather than in movement, so until I started using a thrusting empi strike within my current combination techniques in prep for my next grading, I hadn’t spent a lot of time playing with them this way.

It’s interesting, as it’s been a few years since I stopped learning my previous style, and due to the approach my current instructors take with how they teach us in class, I’m finding myself more interested in experimenting with technique, and finding those essential common grounds/princples in form and movement and extending these to other strikes/blocks/kicks/etc. In the case of practicing empi, it means I’m trying to utilise my hips in order to generate greater power and stability in my technique, and I’ve also been looking at how to create an explosive impact to each technique. With the former, I’m finding that by lowering my stance and utlising my hips to a greater extent, it feels as though the technique now has greater “weight” to it, but more importantly, that it has more stability as well!! I think before I wasn’t utilising my torso and legs enough and felt like I was over-extending my body (balance), or that I would be knocked back if the technique was blocked by someone more solid than myself (“weight”). It makes my strikes feel much more effective. These are principles common to a lot of techniques in karate, but having been exposed to a wider variety of techniques over the last couple of years, some of the extra training sessions I’ve had in Koryu Uchinadi, kobudo and other weapon training, it feels as though this latest experimentation is a culmination of principles learned as a result of this wider exposure and additional time practicing.

The other area I’ve started playing with is generating fast, explosive power. In much the same way that a good backfist strike can benefit from a controlled, spontaneous release of energy, I’m currently seeing if I can apply those same principles to empi strikes… well, at least with age- and mawashi-empi strikes. My age-empi strikes are a little rubbish, but not without merrit I think. Where I’m finding greater success with my experimentation is with mawashi strikes, as the combination of solid stance, hips and attention to explosive energy creates an extremely effective technique, at least at close range.

On top of this, I’ve also started applying the technique with greater directional movement – moving either side, lunging forward, things like that. I think my movement is actually in need of a lot of work, as I’m a bit rusty and unsure about moving in and out confidently in a sparring situation, most of which is due to utilising the limited movement I have in my legs. Still, you have to start somewhere!

Working on all of this also helps put into perspective the raw effectiveness of an elbow strike, particularly at such close range where traditional punches or kicks may rendered ineffective, particularly in combination with other joint-manipulation techniques, like parrying a strike and countering with a mawashi-empi, or grabbing the arm and applying an age-empi technique against the soft side of the elbow joint. Like anything, it remains a tool to be used where appropriate and its necessary to consider this when thinking about elbow strikes.

Now my only concern is that, with all this theorising out on the table, my technique isn’t actually a bit on the rubbish side! I’ll make a mental note to have a chat to sensei about it in the future and see his thoughts on my technique and where I can improve.

If you’re keen on some more information on empi, Wikipedia lists them amongst other Shotokan techniques, and there’s also a page dedicated to empi (though the latter is only a stub, rather than a full entry).

Bloginated Monday, 19th April 2010 / Karate
Tag-isms: elbow strikes | empi | enpi | experimentation | Form | hips | Stances

Back in February, one of the guys I train with mentioned that he saw a topic in one of the forums he frequents that was started by someone who had one of his legs amputated recently, and was seeing if anyone else out there was suffering from the same condition. I jumped in and made a few posts, but one of the guys on there jumped into the conversation as his daughter had her leg amputated below the knee a while ago and was curious how she’d fare when she got to school age and how other kids might react to her condition.

As someone who has had their leg amputated as a child (see the bio, as well as my posts on growing up as an amputee and my medical history), I figured I might be able to offer some advice on what to expect and I sent him a lengthy response over e-mail. I was thinking about this the other day, and thought it probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea to post an amended version up here.

In prep for writing my original response, I actually had a chat to Wifey since she’s my voice of reason, because I wanted to give an honest response on growing up as an amputee, but didn’t want to be melodramatic or anything. Hopefully, this will be a measured response 🙂

I think it’s worth prefacing that other amputees’ circumstances may be different to mine – even when looking at gender, there are differences in how girls and boys react to things by nature of the social norms obliged by gender/society, so keep in mind I’m a guy and grew up in that environment. There’s also the extent of the amputation – amputation at the ankle, below the knee or above the knee – my above-knee prosthesis slipped on my stump and then the prosthesis attached to my body with a big metal and leather waist band. Gotta love technology in the 80s, hopefully suction technology’s become the norm for kids these days, and things are better. There’s no comparison to the options available as a kid and the leg I have now, so keep that in mind too!

Anywho, about me growing up – got paid out and rubbished heaps because of my leg, both from kids in my class/year level, and from all the big kids as well at school. It’s hard and makes you angry as a kid (and frustrating as a parent watching on) – I had all sorts of aggression issues when I was a kid, and thinking back I’d say it was a combination of my cheeky personality (I blame it on being a middle child and a ranga!) and my issues with my leg and the baggage that comes with that. I wasn’t able to verbalise my issues and work through all those emotions because of how young I was, and it’s only been as I’ve gotten older that I can trace back to when I started to accept and work through my feelings and that this coincided with when I started getting in less trouble at school… so from the age of about 6 – 11 I was a bit of a handful (understatement), but I mellowed out from then onwards, and continue to be pretty chilled out these days.

It wasn’t all negative though – I always had a good group of friends who would stick up for me and didn’t care about the leg. In fact, over the years it came in handy and we’d take the piss about it, so it’s all good 🙂 Like when McAdam and I were a bit inebriated at a party and at one point in the evening my leg ended up on the clothesline and didn’t come down for the rest of the night 😀 Kids can be cruel, and if you stand out, it means you’re likely to get on the receiving end of stuff. A good group of friends will always make a world of difference though.

On the other side, having to plough through life on one leg and coming out of it well makes you stronger for the experience – I used to physically fall over all the time when I was a kid because of the leg, and what Mum and Dad had to do (and it broke their heart) was to learn to not fuss over it and let me get myself up and going again, and resist the urge to pick me up each time. One time they even got a mouthful from a mother who came and helped me up when I’d fallen over at a park and thought they were ignoring me! I became a very independent kid and remain a very independent adult, almost to a fault at times. But hey, life experience – that’s what it’s all about. I wouldn’t be as strong-willed today if it weren’t for their emphasis growing up that I had to learn to look after myself.

If you have a child who has had an amputation, the best thing you can do (if my memory holds up :P) is to just reinforce how much you love them, and prepare them by not whitewashing about stuff when they get a hard time from kids at school. Teach them to be strong-willed and independent, and keep up with all the extra-curricular stuff they might be interested in doing, like swimming (great life skill anyways, but for an amputee it helps bridge the gap and keep up with the rest of the kids if you’re a good swimmer!), dancing/martial arts (great for gait, fitness, weight [weight is extremely important as an amputee, as fluctuations affect how the socket fits the stump] and tempering the stump), basketball, etc. As a kid I was always doing something – swimming was awesome as loved being able to beat everyone in class once we got in the pool because nobody expected it (!), and I used to play hockey, basketball, footy (though I was a bit crap at footy, but still ran around anyways!), Taekwondo (to be honest this actually helped control some of my aggression and taught me to channel it in much more productive ways), tennis, even all the track stuff like hurdles and other athletics. Again, I was a bit rubbish at them, but I enjoyed giving them a go and was always active as a kid. Despite being a chubby ranga!

Things changed a lot in high school as the divide between the sporty kids and the not-so sporty kids inadvertently put you into cliques (there was no way I could keep up with everyone in high school so I stopped being active and focused more on studying instead, though looking back I wished I started doing karate when I was a teenager!)… though again, this might also be just what happens with guys, and given the quality of the prosthetics now, your child’s mileage may vary. With girls, since there can be some pretty full-on psychological bullying and bitchiness in high school, I’m not sure how that would come into it (and my solution for tormenting and bullying from another boy was hardly eloquent – I’d start a fight and try and kick them with my fake leg :P). As long as your child is strong-willed and has a solid emotional foundation, that’s probably all your can do.

The good news is that once school’s done, society’s a different beast and I’ve never been discriminated against in the workplace, and I’ve been consistently employed since I started with part-time work after school when I was 15. There may be a few things that might be out of her league (i.e. stuff that’s particularly physically demanding on their legs, but again, mileage will vary because of the child’s stump), but over time they will learn her limits and roll with it, just as I have.

There’s definitely plenty of other anecdotes I can talk about on the blog with regards to growing up as an amputee and some of the things you have to deal with, but I figure this is getting pretty lengthy already, so it’s probably best to leave it be. I’ll add more experiences ad-hoc, and remember that they’ll all be categorised under the “History” category for easy access in the future.

Bloginated Wednesday, 14th April 2010 / History
Tag-isms: amputation | bullying | confidence | Growing up | parenting | raising children | school | sport

More recollections of what I’ve been up to!

About 12 months back I noticed a small lump near the crown of my scalp – being the delightfully slack person I am, I decided it was fine and nothing to worry about. Shoot forward to November last year, and I finally had a skin cancer check up. To be honest I should have gone in to have this done a while back, because even though I’m still in my 20s, being a ranga, I should be more conscious of this. Especially since my hair’s not as thick as it used to be either!

Anywho, so the skin cancer guy has a look, and nothing out of the ordinary. I point out the spot on my head hiding in my overdue-for-a-haircut mess of reddish hair, and I’m sent away with a “see your doctor” slip of paper. After seeing my GP, I was then referred to a specialist, who suggested that taking a knife to it would be the happiest method of dealing with it. I went into surgery about a fortnight later, which brings us to the end of January (yes, I was slack following up on the referral slip and seeing my GP). Now, considering the size of the bump, I’m quite surprised at how painful it was! I guess because after it gets cut out of your scalp and they stitch the wound back together it pulls tightly on your skin and causes extra pressure, but I didn’t sleep well at all until the stitches came out… and crazily enough once that was sorted, my head felt a lot nicer and I was back to my usual sleeping habits!

It’s been neraly two months since I had the spot removed and funnily enough it’s still not 100% healed – almost, but not quite done as yet. The test on the bit they removed came back without any nasties, so this one ended up being a preventative measue and it’s re-enforced how proactive I’ve become with at least looking after myself when I’m outside – when working in the garden enjoying the subrubian life, I’m out there with sunscreen (30+, and now with smelly clear zinc as well!) and the world’s most awesome sombrero. Because they’re cool.

It also goes without saying that I kept from training for a couple of weeks due to the recovery – rolling round, falling over, being thrown or getting into locks and holds wouldn’t be doing the recovery any favours, and it’d be nasty if the stitches caught on something mid-way through class! If life were a Tarantino film though, that would have happened and people would have been bathing in the red stuff!

So unless you want a knife taken to your scalp, wear a hat you douchebag. Or at least make sure you have a nice full head of hair to absorb the impact from the sun 😀

This announcement has been brought to you by me, Sean, the colour orange, and the letter ‘R’.

Bloginated Monday, 29th March 2010 / Injuries
Tag-isms: Ranga | skin cancer | stupid injuries | surgery | training

I thought I’d make my first proper post a bit of a catchup on what’s been happening with me over the last couple of months 🙂

I’ve been training on and off since mid-late November due to a handful of injuries that have been rolling my way, probably the most persistent of which has been my stump’s ongoing issues since November. It actually started after I took our dog out for a walk after Wifey and I caught up with my brother and sister-in-law for a weekender, and ended up mangling the back of my stump. This wasn’t a biggie at first because I thought I’d just done some minor surface damage to the stump, but it ended up turning out to be more serious and on-going than I first imagined.

What ended up happening only started to get resolved maybe a month ago – what had happened was to do with some foam padding added to what’s called the “seat” of the prosthesis. This is the part of the socket that comes up to the base of your arse cheek and forms a foundation to hold your weight when you walk – by doing this, it means the weight and pressure of your body is spready out on your bum (which is handy, because it’s cushiony and generally has a large surface area!) and along the bottom of your stump, which can only physically take so much repeated pressure/impacts before struggling to hold your weight.

Anywho, because I’m pretty active, a while back my specialist put some tough foam-like padding (only a few mm thick) along the back of the seat of the prosthesis to soften the cutting-like impact walking was having on my socket liner. This is a good thing btw, more cushion = less direct impact. The issue was that a while ago, part of the foam padding broke off and I ignored it, because at first it wasn’t making a difference. However, after that long walk with our dog it happened to grind away so much skin that it caused an open wound (at the time though, I didn’t realise the extent of the damage). Roll on to December and I had two weeks off work over the x-mas break, which was great for my leg because I kept the prosthesis off for the most part. However, jumping back into work and all the goodies that comes with my work ethic, and again I had problems with my leg. It was getting very, very frustrating!

My lightbulb moment came in February – after getting into my socket and feeling the familiar soreness on the back of my stump, I put my finger between the liner and the socket where the pain was comgin from and took a look, and the exact spot where the sore happened to be was on the torn edge of the foam backing! Following this revelation, I made an appointment and had my specialist remove the offending material and replace it. The effect was immediate, and for the first time in months, my stump is slowly healing itself.

So, because of this in particular, training has been really erratic – I’ve only done a handful of classes this year so far, and am nowhere ready to grade next month (I also missed out the December grading due to the issues knocking me out solidly from November 2009 until the new year, so that’s two in a row as we generally hold gradings quaretly throughout the year), so I’ve been working on training at about 80% so as not to damage the stump. I’ve managed to do classes for the last two weeks without too much trouble, and for the last three weeks I’ve been able to finally get back into the yard as well and work on revamping the garden. Things are definitely looking up!

So, I’m at a good place at the moment. Over the course of my break form training, I also took the opportunity to do some reading on martial arts – I read Patrick and Yuriko McCarthy’s translated works on Gichin Funakoshi and Motobu Choki (regulars will know I’ve mentioned him when referring to Koryu Uchinadi Kenpo-jutsu and the International Ryukyu Karate-jutsu Research Society in the past – you can check out their website here, and read more on the books themselves here), finally read Tom Cleary’s translation of Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings (more info on the translation is at Musashi Miyamoto.com) and a translation of the Hagakure (can’t recall the translator for this one) – Wifey actually bought me those last two as a gift, isn’t she awesome? Down the road I’m planning on writing up something on my impressions of these books so that others interested in them can see some of my thoughts on them, being inspired by the martial arts book reviews section on Black Belt Mama’s website.

There’s been some other stuff happening as well on the injury front, but I’ll save that for another post in order to keep this one a little more focused!

Anywho, expect more regular updates form now on, I promise!

Bloginated Thursday, 25th March 2010 / Injuries
Tag-isms: books | Gichin Funakoshi | International Ryukyu Karate-jutsu Research Society | Koryu Uchinadi Kenpo-jutsu | Miyamoto Musashi | Motobu Choki | prosthesis | stump | stupid injuries | Thomas Cleary