Getting my hackles up on command

There’s the stamina training, the strength training, learning how to throw punches and kicks, learning how to avoid being punched and kicked, learning how to combine it all and use it simultaneously, now I need to add to that list psychological training. I have to condition myself to be more aggressive.

A certain level of aggression - I call it
professional aggression - is necessary for
the sparring to be effective. I lack that
aggression, so I need to become more like
the dog in the picture and learn how
to get my hackles up.

Due to my very nature, I am not a natural fighter. I’m passive, non-confrontational. I am not an in-your-face kind of guy. Traits that for 39 years have made me easy to get along with and able to work well with others, now just make me an easy mark and reduce the effectiveness of the training for me and whoever is my partner at the time. I lack the necessary aggression in the gym. I'm sure that in a real-life situation I would have no problem becoming aggressive in a fight. Fear and adrenaline would take care of that. But in the gym, when one minute I can be talking to a guy about what he did last weekend and the next minute I'm supposed to be sparring with him and trying to kick him in the stomach, that transition is kind of tough for me.

Even though the sparring is being done slow and not at full force,  I'm being way too laid back about it and that's not honoring the training.  It's not a yoga class. I don't have to be at peace with my inner child. It's a fighting class and I need to learn how to be able to ratchet up my aggression and get my hackles up on command.