My knee was screaming at me.

I've realized that as I get older I can't ignore what my body is telling me like when I was younger.  Those days of pushing through injuries or pain are well behind me. 

My right knee has been aching and it's been pretty painful for the past month.  I've been doing at lot of open x stances and practicing the opening and closing bow alot, trying to get a deeper stance.  What I didn't realize until I stopped to listen to my body was that I've been torquing my right knee especially on the bow sequence.  The area of issue is after the retreat, I was stepping forward (into an open x with my front right leg) with the twisting action then into the left leading cat stance.  I've realized that instead of rotating my back heel to align my knee properly I was performing my cat stance with my back right foot still in the open x stance.  This was putting a huge amount of stress on my knee causing the swelling and the resulting pain.  

Once I realized this and rotated my heel enough to have a solid cat stance the pain has gone away!

Just another reason for me to keep listening to my body.  If there's pain or something doesn't feel right, I'm steping back and thinking about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it that way.

Mr. Repay