By Matt Kuntz
While there are a couple of points that could be tabbed as the beginning of the Immersion Athletics project, the first one happened on a clear summer day in Dahlonega, Georgia in the Mountain Phase of Army Ranger School. My Ranger School Class had completed training on Mount Yonah and we were marching down the mountain to catch a ride back to camp. My platoon was pulling up the rear. In standard military road marching fashion, the long line of soldiers was constantly tightening and then stretching our spacing. Leaving those of us at the back to play a game of hurry-up-and-wait.
I was carrying the 240B Machine Gun and a full rucksack on a full-sprint down a broken trail. The outer edge of my left boot caught, all my weight and the weight that I was carrying smashed down on the overstretched ligaments and tendons of my ankle. The structure of the ankle snapped and I hit the ground.
My squadmates helped me up. I managed to hope down the mountain on one leg. I continued on for three more days - dragging my useless left ankle. Eventually, my right knee gave out under the added pressure. I could no longer stand. My time at Ranger School was over and so eventually was my military career.
The injury had destroyed my career, but it also altered my identity and my sense of self worth. I'd been multi-sport athlete in high school, a college rugby player, and an infantryman who prided himself in an ability to jump out of planes and scale peaks in the Alaskan Range. After the injury, I was fortunate to slowly rebuild my mobility to the point where I could get through my daily routine at the 2-35 Infantry Battalion at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii without crutches.
The water was the only place where I was free to do the things that I wanted to with my body. I progressed from swimming laps in my condominium complex's small pool to freediving over the reefs off the coast of Oahu.
Eventually, I returned to the mainland. Replacing freediving in Oahu with snorkeling and then eventually riverboarding the rivers of Montana. My ankle healed up to a degree as the years went on. Regular running is still a stretch, but I can make it up some of the mountain trails that ring the city of Helena.
I haven't forgotten how that immobility changed my life and restricted my view of who I was and what I could accomplish. What would my life had been like if I hadn't found the freedom that the water gave me? What would it have been like if I'd been injured bad enough that the water couldn't set my body free?
While there are a couple of points that could be tabbed as the beginning of the Immersion Athletics project, the first one happened on a clear summer day in Dahlonega, Georgia in the Mountain Phase of Army Ranger School. My Ranger School Class had completed training on Mount Yonah and we were marching down the mountain to catch a ride back to camp. My platoon was pulling up the rear. In standard military road marching fashion, the long line of soldiers was constantly tightening and then stretching our spacing. Leaving those of us at the back to play a game of hurry-up-and-wait.
I was carrying the 240B Machine Gun and a full rucksack on a full-sprint down a broken trail. The outer edge of my left boot caught, all my weight and the weight that I was carrying smashed down on the overstretched ligaments and tendons of my ankle. The structure of the ankle snapped and I hit the ground.
My squadmates helped me up. I managed to hope down the mountain on one leg. I continued on for three more days - dragging my useless left ankle. Eventually, my right knee gave out under the added pressure. I could no longer stand. My time at Ranger School was over and so eventually was my military career.
The injury had destroyed my career, but it also altered my identity and my sense of self worth. I'd been multi-sport athlete in high school, a college rugby player, and an infantryman who prided himself in an ability to jump out of planes and scale peaks in the Alaskan Range. After the injury, I was fortunate to slowly rebuild my mobility to the point where I could get through my daily routine at the 2-35 Infantry Battalion at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii without crutches.
The water was the only place where I was free to do the things that I wanted to with my body. I progressed from swimming laps in my condominium complex's small pool to freediving over the reefs off the coast of Oahu.
Eventually, I returned to the mainland. Replacing freediving in Oahu with snorkeling and then eventually riverboarding the rivers of Montana. My ankle healed up to a degree as the years went on. Regular running is still a stretch, but I can make it up some of the mountain trails that ring the city of Helena.
I haven't forgotten how that immobility changed my life and restricted my view of who I was and what I could accomplish. What would my life had been like if I hadn't found the freedom that the water gave me? What would it have been like if I'd been injured bad enough that the water couldn't set my body free?
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