What are some good ways to occupy myself post recovery?
My physical therapist told me a lot of athletes completely drop their sport after an injury, as the feeling of loss of strength and mobility and fear of re-injury scares them. Keep up your interest in your sport and training during the post-surgery and rehab period: go to tournaments, watch fight and instructional tapes; research rehab and training methods on the internet; sit in on classes at your school, watch and take notes. That girl from Texas who won the Olympic high dive gold medal broke her ankle a couple of months before the Olympics, was unable to dive, and still came back and hit every dive perfectly. She mentally rehearsed every element of the dive over and over while in a cast. You can do the same. While rehabbing I would watch fight tapes, pause the VCR at a tie-up, then try to figure what move I would do if I was the guy on top or the guy on the bottom, and look for new moves in tournament tapes. If you take notes after class, take this time to review them, find holes in
