Back in my martial arts days, I used to hear it all the time:  Injuries are gifts.  Never made sense to me.

A couple of weeks ago I tweaked my left knee--nothing too serious--I was doing one of my diabolical obstacle courses in the back yard, turned hard on that foot while Farmer's-Walking with two 5-gallon water jugs and felt some strain on the joint.  Next day I couldn't fully flex or extend the knee without pain, and felt some popping in certain positions.  

Off I went into self-pity mode:  so much for trying to best my paltry squat or deadlift PR anytime soon; so much for hard running or this backyard insanity that's been keeping me hopping for a few months now. 

(Mine wasn't this bad.  Thank God.)

When the fog of self-pity thinned to the point I could think more clearly, I started to reconsider how I'd train as I healed.

As it turned out, the injury coincided with a trip to see a physical therapist/Feldenkrais practitioner I was interviewing for an article.  She had offered me a session so I could experience firsthand how the method worked.  I told her about the knee; she listened, worked on my feet, my shoulders, and my hips.

While I was there, she pointed out something I've always been dimly aware of:  that my ankles are very tight, and that my feet don't really "talk" to the floor very well.  They don't roll off the floor, they rather pop off when my knee flexes forward.  I've never really paid much attention to my tight ankles, priding myself on relatively flexible hips, hamstrings and shoulders.  Who cares about the dumb old ankles?  Do they even matter that much? 

Apparently they do.  My tight ankles and feet could very well have been what caused my knee pain, what causes my occasional back pain, what screws up my squat form, what will eventually cause all those wonderful aging-related aches and pains that, apparently, happen to the best of us.

So I've started to work on them.  Not by aggressively stretching them or trying to bend them--literally--to my will, like I normally would.  I'm just paying attention to them, and doing some of the simple, painless toe--yes TOE--exercises that I was prescribed. 

Meantime, I've maintained my upper-body strength-workouts, I'm swimming a lot, and have eased into cycling (since it's low-impact).  I'll probably get back to deadlifting relatively soon, since it's a hip-dominant move.  For the indefinite future, though, I'm off squats, heavy lunges, and running of any sort.  Just not worth it.

It's now been about two weeks, and I'm almost pain-free.  The challenge for me will be to stick with my disciplined regimen for another few weeks so I don't damage it again, and when I get back into the higher impact stuff, to start slow.  

When I do get back to running and squatting, my hope is that the gifts that this injury have given me--primarily, a new awareness of a weakness I'd never really fully acknowledged--will manifest in better technique, speed, and athleticism.