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Andrew Luck‘s decision to play with a partially torn labrum is the reason it’s taking him so long to return now, Stephen Holder of the Indianapolis Star reports.

Luck has emphasized his mechanics because his throwing motion changed when he played hurt, stressing his shoulder, per Holder. Luck’s attempts to compensate for shoulder pain led to more pain last fall when he started throwing again.

“I’d like to think I’m learning from my life,” Luck said, via Holder. “I’d like to think everybody does that in a sense. If you look back — I don’t want to get into shoulda, coulda, woulda — but I’ve learned from the point of injury on. ‘If it ever happened again, maybe this is how I would handle it.'”

Luck is taking his time, trying to get his throwing motion corrected.

“I wouldn’t say [I am] changing my throwing motion,” Luck said. “There are things in my throwing motion that I can do better from the ground up, and that’s a big part of what I’ve been working on, making sure I am using my body as efficiently as possible to throw the football and not over- or under-compensate in any way.”