2012-366 Day 345 – Anger

It doesn’t happen very often for me, but I’m still familiar enough with the feeling to recognize it coming. When I’m in the middle of a sparring match, however, it can be a difficult thing to control. Fortunately I said difficult, and not impossible. I am not particularly enjoying these sparring classes when we practice not getting hit in the head, because I keep getting hit in the head. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I HATE getting hit in the head.

Being paired with a young, early belt when practicing at the beginning of class can be a dangerous proposition. When I started, I was very conscious not to hit too hard. Unfortunately the young ones don’t usually have that filter, they tend to come in a little hard. Today we were practicing counter attacks, so when you’re the one attacking for the other person to practice countering, your guard is naturally down. I was able to hold my guard for the first half of the practice, but as my opponent got better at countering, he was able to find the hole a couple times. As he connected, he hit a bit harder. As he hit a bit harder, I could feel the anger growing. Finally a solid punch in my left eye set me off, although since I was able to maintain my self-control it consisted of my stepping back and growling for him (and me) to “Calm down.”

He got the message, and was much better with the intensity for the rest of the practice time. I still had to find an outlet for the adrenaline spike and frustration, but I thankfully had the rest of sparring class to work it out. I did get punched in the right eye when I exchanged head shots with someone else, poked in the cheek (thankfully not the eye), and knocked in the back of the head again (although not as hard this time). In all, I don’t really like the practice other maneuvers, since that tends to leave me in more open positions than I would normally leave myself in (having reach and height on most people in nice) so the other person has a chance to practice their attacks. But for everyone to get better we all have to take some shots. Since this is the first time my anger has really flared up and it occurred in a situation that is not likely to repeat itself (at least not with the specific person, I think I was scary enough), I’ll keep an eye on it, and will continue trying to improve so maybe I won’t have to worry about errant fists.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 360.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1