I don’t wanna…

I am not sure at what point I stopped being a fan of sparring. I used to like it and then well, I just really didn’t anymore. And so, I stopped going to sparring classes claiming all sorts of excuses that were really just that.

I shifted my focus to forms, where I just naturally do much better than sparring. Forms depend on no one else but yourself and your interaction with yourself. If you do a form too hard and pull a muscle, that’s your own damn fault. If you spar with someone and they crack you in the mouth with no gear on (not mentioning any names) well, you should have blocked and they should have pulled it. I don’t like depending on other people to do what they are supposed to and well it’s fighting, isn’t it?

At any rate, this all became apparent to me over the weekend at the 2009 Shaolin-Do tournament. Even before the tournament, I started making excuses to myself about not wanting to spar. “I won’t have my gear replaced in time” or “I’m gonna get my ass kicked” or “I’m gonna get hurt” etc. When I think about why I was making these excuses to myself, it’s really about ego.

I don’t like to lose. Does anyone? I was concerned about losing in front of people especially with so many people around that I think so highly of and hopefully vice versa. But then I thought “would they really like me ANY less if I just lost every match?”. Would I like THEM any less if they lost every match? NO! Of course not! So what are you so afraid of.

That stripped away the bullshit and just lead me to the fact that my forms ability has grown leaps and bounds passed my sparring ability and that is due to the fact that I just stopped sparring about a year ago.

I talked about this on separate occasions with both Victoria and Ben. They both gave me such great encouragement to just go out there and have fun with it. I am so thankful for those conversations because they helped me to get over this sort of silly aversion to sparring. Watching Victoria go out there and take on a guy that was literally almost 2x her size and 2 ranks higher than her in our system while totally holding her own is inspiring. Watching Ben, a guy who also didn’t want to spar, go up against some of the most talented people in our school and hold his own was inspiring. I thank you both for that.

So, to return to the point at hand, does my sparring suck because I don’t like sparring or do I not like sparring because I suck at it? Does it matter which? I don’t think so.

At the tournament, I did really well in forms. I won first place in Chen and black belt forms. I won second place in tai chi weapons. I didn’t place at all in sparring. In fact, as predicted, I lost all of my matches.

At this point, I am trying to get back on the horse, so to speak. I went to Ryon’s sparring class last night which proved to be pretty difficult. I think I got run over by a Yeti, but I don’t quite remember. It’s all a blur.

All kidding aside, I had a pretty good time. I got to spar some people I haven’t in a long time and the five minute rounds were pretty challenging for me. Admittedly, not as challenging as they were 2 years ago, but I still got pretty gassed at times. Ryon’s comments during class were really helpful and encouraging too. Also, I got some good feedback from Victoria who was watching me get steam rolled.

Despite all that, I still was a bit discouraged at the end of class with my sparring performance. I clearly have a lot of room to grow in this arena. I am just happy that I have such an encouraging environment in which to do it.

Thanks, everyone. It’s really appreciated. I am confident that you all will help me as you all always do…

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