Rapid Knee Recovery

My left knee had been sporadically painful for a few weeks, and I realized I’d once again irritated it by doing something wrong while practising Tai Chi, but I wasn’t sure quite what.

Fortunately for me, Tai Chi yielded the answer not only to the source of the pain, but also to an unexpectedly rapid recovery. 

I’d generated the same pain in my knee before, and this time I realized it followed intensive practice of a particular part of the Tai Chi form. So I knew I was somehow moving in the wrong way, and on asking for help, I realised I was rotating my hips before I’d transferred my weight, creating a rotation my knee joint, which protested as it is only meant to flex.

Happy that I’d isolated my mis-movement, I began to focus on the Tai chi principle of shifting my weight before rotating my hips, and envisaged that in a few weeks my knee would have had time to heal the damage I’d caused.

I then read an article about ‘Tai Chi Knee’, which said that knee niggles are common in the Tai Chi World, explaining the main causes, including my ‘mis-movement’.

Then, to my surprise, came the following sentence:

Transferring sufficient weight off the leg before turning it will correct the problem immediately. 

An immediate recovery – really???

Hmmm, this was at odds with my belief that, as in the past, it would take a few weeks for my knee to recover.

I quickly decided that I would prefer immediate recovery, and opened my mind up to that possibility. Detaching from my old belief so it no longer played in my mind, I was curious to see what would unfold.

And guess what? No more pain! This past week I’ve continued to focus on transferring my weight before rotating my hips, and my knee  is just fine.

My perception is that changing my thinking influenced my experience, allowing for my rapid recovery. And, OK, an understanding of my mis-movement this time likely helped too.

Is there somewhere your thinking could be holding back your healing? If so, could you detach from that thinking, and allow new possibilities in?