Sacrilege

I confessed last week that I don't love sparring. 

Since then, I've had some discussions with others and have been trying to change my perspective a bit.

I applied some of these strategies on Monday night.

1. Pick one thing to work on.
I chose to focus on keeping my guard up on my center. Not right by my face...framing a nice big target for my opponent (as Sihing Lindstrom would describe it). But slightly out in front and always on my center. Surprisingly this was a success for the most part. I deflected more strike attempts to my face Monday night than I think I ever have. Don't get me wrong, I got hit, BUT I think I made it harder for my opponents and forced them to think about it a little more. If memory serves, it also seemed like the majority of hits that landed were forced to come from around the side. To me this means I might have even been controlling the match to a small degree. And now that I have an idea of where my opponent might go if they can't get by that main guard, I can start working on strategies to defend that as well. I'm not suddenly a force to be reckoned with, but I think at least I was making things a little harder for my opponents.

2. Focus on learning, not winning/losing.
This was a big shift....and easier said than done. Thoughts that typically precede a sparring match go something like "Oh boy, I'm going to be dominated here"...or..."I can tell that this opponent is eager to beat me"....or..."I just gotta get through this next 60 seconds". Thoughts like this set me up for failure right from the onset. My mind is focused on a "winner" and a "loser"...which I've already predetermined. And not only that...there isn't even a "winner" or "loser" in this scenario to begin with.  I've fabricated this in my head and have created this anxiety and fear around it.  Changing my mindset to that of learning made a huge difference on Monday. Maybe not visually to an observer, but there was definitely less negative clatter in my head. I wasn't so much in survival mode, but instead was simply trying to collect data.

Of course one class has not changed everything so much that I suddenly can't get enough sparring...but maybe I just might be able to progress to the point that at least I don't fear it so much.  And then maybe even some more progress after that.

IHC Numbers To Date
Pushups = 8805
Situps = 9102
Fan = 237
Long = 165
Sparring = 147
Km's = 200
AOKs = 178