Playing the Game

In our school, we start sparring relatively late compared to other schools. Basic sparring techniques are introduced at orange belt level, limited to movement in relation to the opponent, defence against slow and predictable arm swings and breathing techniques.

About a week ago, maybe two, I had my first sparring session with our master, which to me is always a daunting (he is freakishly fast and his technique is awesome!), after my promotion to green belt, so unlike the “usual” arm swings I was expecting, he started laying it on me good and proper with kicks (some/most of which I’ve not even been taught yet) and punches. I was a bit overwhelmed to say the least. At least I managed to avoid a major catastrophe, but I recon that was more a result of my physique (I am after all about 20cm taller and 15 kg heavier that our master) than my technique.

Last Sunday’s training session saw me sparring against our master again. This time however he said that I can use (or better: try to use) a centreline punch as a weapon against him. (I must have done something right the last time we sparred to deserve this). Anyway, about 2 minutes into our session I hadn’t fired off a single punch and my master stopped to ask me why I wasn’t attacking, so I told him why. I simply couldn’t get myself to do it. Not because I was hesitant or afraid of hurting him (although that was part of the reason; there was no way I could properly control my punch in the midst of a sparring session), but because I was more focused on not getting the sh*t kicked out of me. I put all my focus on defending and wasn’t even looking for a way to land a punch.

At this stage my master made a really good analogy. Sparring is like playing numerous games at once. The main game is how you move in relation to your opponent and the environment. Then you have the game of defending against strikes, which is going on at the same time. By allowing me to attack he just added another “mini-game” to the mix. Attacking basically involves finding an opening (while still playing the other two games) and then going for it at the right time and then going back to playing the other two games; or, if the opening closes before you can profit from it just resuming with the other two games. My guess is that this “mini-game” will expand a bit, once I can (and I mean when I’m able to, rather than allowed to here) use a few more techniques, and probably include opening/creating a gap in addition to finding one sooner or later. But these are things I’ll not worry about for now. At the moment I’ll need to learn how to play the games’ basics.