- The Sunday Times / Pulse; Page 8 (19th July 2009)
Doctors and martial arts veterans say deaths and serious injuries in the sport happen but are rare.
This month, a 17 year-old boy died after he was kicked in the neck in a taekwondo competition organised by the Singapore Taekwondo Gymnasium, putting the safety martial arts practice under the microscope.
The fact, however, is that there are fewer injuries which result from martial arts compared to sports and the last reported case of a death caused by practising martial arts was in 2007, when a 31-year-old police sergeant suffered a heart attack after sparring with his taekwondo partner.
Dr. Tan Jee Lim, orthopaedic surgeon at JL Sports Medicine & Surgery, sees an average of 10 to 20 martial arts-related injuries a year. In contrast, the number of football injuries he treats a year goes into the hundreds.
Six months ago, he operated on a 14 year-old boy who broke his forearm while representing his school in a judo competition. He said: “Now he is back to practising judo again.”
Only a handful of the martial arts injuries he treats are serious, such as fractures. “Common minor injuries range from sprained wrists from arm locks to bruises from being struck” he said.
Martial arts schools say they have been largely injury-free because of their strict safety rules.
“Taekwondo is safe because we emphasise the safety of the participants above everything else,” says Mr. Lim Teong Chin, general manager of the Singapore Taekwondo Federation.
In almost 40 years of coaching, he has not seen any serious injuries under his charge.
Taekwondo’s rules stipulate the close supervision of sparring by qualified coaches and prohibition of kicking above the shoulder for those under the age of 17.
In ju-jitsu, senior students “are trained not to strike but to guide the juniors”, says Mr. Felix fong, president of the Ju-Jitsu Association of Singapore. “It’s like a controlled environment.”
Since the association’s inception 10 years ago, he says, the sport has seen no death or serious injury,[/DROPCAP_5] only minor complications such as sprained ankles and bruising from frequent grappling.
Karate students are permitted to only engage in free sparring, or kumite after about 1 ½ years of training.
Mr Leong Fook Weng, honorary secretary of the Shitoryu Karate Association of Singapore, says all kumite sessions are guided by senior instructors and students must wear full protective gear.
Similarly, Dr Tan emphasised the importance of protecting several key areas of the body including the head, neck, chest and abdomen. Injuries to these parts could lead to serious consequences such as blood clots in the brain, the rupturing of the central airway and key blood vessels in the neck, fractured ribs which could puncture the lungs, and rupturing of organs such as kidney and liver.
Mr Lim of the Taekwondo Federation says that while parents have expressed concerns about the safety of their children after the recent death, no students have withdrawn from classes.
Nevertheless, he intends to give safety briefings at all classes as a precaution.
Dr Tan says most of his patients go straight back to practising martial arts once they have recovered from their injuries. The recovery period ranges from about three weeks from sprains to six months from fractures.
He says: "They don’t bear grudges against anybody, and it’s unrealistic to have sports without any injury.”
No comments:
Post a Comment