Kungfu (Tennis) elbow

For the last two-ish months, I have been struggling with pain in my left arm (just outside my elbow).

The good news is that I can still do a lot of things without losing built muscle or even my rep counts. In fact, it's easier to do most of my kung fu than it is to lift my cup in the morning for a sip of coffee. I can do push-ups no problem, and I can even do my bokken form without pain. When I do my handforms, though, I have to be careful when striking with my left arm because the intensity of a punch, or the snap at the tail end, causes pain. When striking an actual target, it often feels fine. In our fight choreography, I have to change only one sequence and adjust it so I strike with my right arm rather than the left, as leveraging the bokken downward is too much force for my arm. I think I have found a way to adjust this part and it feels good. For my board breaks, I'm still contemplating if I should change the technique. In my previous attempt, I broke three out of the four boards, but the fourth, which was a knifehand with my left, did not go through. I was determined to stick to the same sequence and tackle this knife hand again, but with the elbow issue now, I'm considering changing to a "safer" technique. I have tried the palm heel strike on the heavy bag, and it seems less aggravating, although when I tried the knife hand, it didn't hurt a decent number of times either. The problem is that even though I can mostly do the knife hand without any pain, the odd times my alignment isn't right, or the timing or the distance, it is very discouraging, and my brain definitely goes into protection mode. So attempting the knife hand for my board break, knowing it's the one I haven't been successful with, plus my brain potentially sabotaging me to protect from potential pain or worsening the condition, seems like a poor choice at this point. Another issue I discovered the other day is that, during dragon dancing, using my left arm as the dominant one on the poles is an issue. We have been practicing mostly running clockwise which requires my left arm to be in charge I may need to get Leon or the Dragon head to run the opposite direction and for the side-to-side wave I realized I can do it as long as I cross my arms and lead with my right. In any case, I'm not sure what caused the issue in the first place, but since everybody is asking me lately what I did to my arm, I guess my answer is Kungfu!

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