Nathan Jo's Story

I've always loved martial arts and started training in taekwondo when I was 11. The original school I started training with had a heavy focus on a very martial form of taekwondo, rather than the commonly accepted modern sports version. Due to this, I took a lot of leg kicks as a teenager which caused quite a bit of damage to both knees.

I had to stop taekwondo for a while but when I started university, I decided to pick it up again. Being a little overconfident, I went straight back into a 360-degree tornado kick, landing on my left knee, and sustained a partial ACL tear and lateral meniscus tear. The right knee is also quite clicky after years of leg kicks but thankfully there was no major structural damage. 

I get instability and pain with high-intensity exercise, even after a session of physiotherapy, and have to prevent hyperextension and twisting of my left knee due to its injuries and have tried a few different knee braces for this. I've used the Össur CTi Custom since 2019 and it has outperformed all the other knee braces that I've tried previously. I like the CTi Custom because it gives great support and ensures there's no twisting or lateral movement of the knee and there are hyperextension straps to prevent worsening injury of the ACL.

I've also got a notable valgus deformity of the knees so other hard braces I tried were not particularly comfortable, however, in customising my CTi Knee Brace, a 3D scan was taken of my leg and moulded based on that and it's the most comfortable brace I've worn, even more so than many of the level two support soft braces I've previously used. Last year, I received a brace for my right knee to help balance the weight and give some extra support, it's been quite comfortable and it feels great to train and exercise for hours at a time. 

After my knee injury, it was a real worry that I would have to permanently stop training martial arts, and having done it since I was 11, it would have been quite devastating. However, I pushed forward and continued to train and met a taekwondo master who was a below-knee amputee and he was better at taekwondo than many practitioners that I've worked with.

He had an Össur prosthetic leg and referred me to Össur to get a brace for my knee and he loved to say that if he could train with one leg, I can train with dodgy knees. It took quite some time to get the Össur brace due to financial restraints, but after taking the leap, I have to say it's one of the best things I've invested in as it allowed me to continue doing what I love and keep training in martial arts.

Currently, I specialize in Historic East Asian Martial Arts, focusing on swordsmanship, especially a lesser-known style called Jedok Geom which is recorded in the 1700s manuscript Muyedobotongji from the Joseon Dynasty. Martial arts in general tend to take a toll on the knees, especially with deep stances and explosive footwork. Before I had the CTi Custom there was a lot of instability and I had many nights after training with an ice pack over my knee, even when wearing soft braces during training. Now that I have the CTi Custom Knee Brace there's virtually no instability during training, and I am comfortable to tolerate 2-3 hours of hard training and sword sparring.

Being able to train in swordsmanship has been meaningful to me and I'm grateful to Össur for giving me the tools to do this. Historic swordsmanship is quickly being lost to flashier styles like Xtreme Martial Arts, parading as Korean swordsmanship. They use fast sword movements with flips and spins, but these aren't very effective for cutting down an opponent and there's no historical base to these forms. It's great for Hollywood and shows, but there's a very real worry that true historic swordsmanship styles will be lost.

We train to try and replicate the teachings and techniques from authentic period manuscripts and then test the forms in sparring to continue to refine the techniques to try and get close to the standard of the historical masters. Jedok Geom has been my project that I've been working on for over 5 years, honing interpretations of the stances, techniques, and forms and I struggle to imagine a life where I wouldn't be able to do this because of my knees. 

We train in full protective gear with heavy jackets, helmets and hard joint protection to protect us from the solid training swords we use, and to maintain realism in our training. A benefit of the CTi Custom Knee Brace is that it's rigid form takes on the impacts from swords and protects my knees. I have also recently purchased the motorsport patella cup add-on with good effect. I haven't noticed any damage to the brace except cosmetic damage and my knee has been well-guarded.