A few weeks ago, I helped organize a small get together for a close friend of mine’s birthday at a park in Cypress. Nothing too crazy, but by all intents and purposes it went a lot better than I was expecting! We had a lot of good food, excellent company, music playing at all times, a shady grass spot on a beautiful day, a fun dog to keep us company, and a hammock to relax the day away. I was on cloud 9 from all the good vibes in the air, and we were there for several hours as friends came and went sporadically throughout. I had never planned anything like that before, but I was very happy by how well it went.

Even though it took a lot of thought to make that day happen, I want to focus this post on another aspect of intelligence that many people might not even consider a form of intelligence. After the event, I carpooled back to LA and we went to eat dinner in Culver City. As we were walking to the restaurant, I stomped the ground with both of my feet to get some dirt off my sandals, but for some reason I had an urge afterward to kick my legs out in a weird flailing manner. Suddenly, I felt a familiar sharp pain in my left knee; one that I knew all too well from the numerous times I’ve tweaked and injured it in the past. WHY!!!! Why here, why now??

Instead of getting angry or readjusting it back to its original position immediately, I walked on it for a while. Each step hurt, but for some reason that new knee position felt oddly… correct… It looked better than it had in years, and as I experimented with moving it around it seemed like I had a greater range of motion than before. I didn’t really know what to think, so I just left it like that to see what would happen.

Lo and behold, my leg started to heal! The pain continued for a few more days, but after that it felt stronger than ever! I could position it in ways I haven’t been able to in years, and my lower body actually feels somewhat symmetrical. Of course my right leg is still much more muscular, but I am continuing to experiment with body movements to feel the parts of my left leg that are weak in order to make them stronger.

Call me reckless or call me a genius, but regardless of what I did I am gambling with the health of it on a daily basis since I don’t have an ACL in my left leg and the cartilage is slightly messed up. I’ve debated whether to get surgery on it, but if this new knee position keeps working I would much rather stay away from surgery for as long as possible. I might hate myself when I’m 50 and need some crazy knee replacement, but for now I feel much more confident doing any sort of exercises, and that will probably continue to improve as my leg gets stronger.

Bringing that all back to the subject of this post, I believe the body has its own sort of intelligence that can easily be neglected in service of the brain and conventional wisdom. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about ACL surgeries not going well, or repeat injuries occurring in the aftermath. If you think about it, surgery hasn’t been around for very long, but the human body is older than history! If I am going to place my bets on anything, I would much prefer to place them on my own body if possible. With that being the case, I want to dive headfirst into “studying” this ancient form of intelligence. Climbing, gymnastics, swimming, biking, lifting, here I come!