Sparring: from fear to frustration to yearning

Last night’s kickboxing class featured some light sparring. We call it no contact, meaning you’re not supposed to punch to the face since we’re not wearing headgear, however, you can punch to the face if your opponent is covered up and able to block. My first sparring partner seemed to disregard that rule and tagged me a few times when I dropped my guard. They weren’t hard punches and he said sorry, but then added “I couldn’t resist,” which I take to mean he knew what he was doing and did it on purpose. That guy is way better at sparring than I am so it’ll take me several months until I can accidentally punch him in the face. I can try and be mad at him for not following the rules of no punches to the face, but the truth is that I’m mad at myself for allowing him to punch me in the face in the first place.
Sparring, at first, was frightening. Now that I’ve been taking boxing and kickboxing for two months, sparring has become fun. I should add that it has also become frustrating. When I first started sparring I had no idea what I was doing and I was afraid to get hit and I would freeze up when the punches and kicks came my way. Now I know just enough to be dangerous to myself: I’m willing to go on the offensive to apply the skills we’ve learned. With the type of sparring we’re doing now, I don’t really see the point in holding back, staying on the defensive and waiting for my opponent to make a mistake and then attack. We’re only sparring for 30 seconds at a time and then switching to another partner.  So last night I started going on the offensive, leading with kicks and trying to follow up with punches. But what mainly happened is that I would lead with a kick, close the distance and then get punched by my opponent.

The sparring doesn’t end when class is over, I’ll lay in bed going over each of my encounters trying to catalog what I did right, what I did wrong, wondering why I dropped my guard and got punched in the face, wondering why I didn’t trap the guy’s kick when he threw an obvious roundhouse … This is where the frustration comes in. I know what I should be doing but I’m not doing it and as I drift off to sleep I know that the only way to rectify my mistakes is to do more sparring. More sparring. More sparring. More sparring.

I am not a big guy. I’m of incredibly average size. I stand 5’ 9” and weigh 166 pounds and this makes me one of the smallest guys in the class. When sparring, I usually have to go against guys who are taller and heavier than me. Sometimes I have to go against guys who are way, way taller and heavier than I am. Since we’re only doing no contact, the size difference doesn’t matter that much. If we were throwing for real, then it would matter. It can be intimidating to square off with a dude who is 5 inches taller and at least 40 pounds heavier, but if he doesn’t know how to fight, his size advantage doesn’t matter. However, problems arise when my opponent towers over me and also knows what he’s doing. But those situations offer the best opportunity to learn. You can only get better by sparring people better than yourself. And if they happen to be bigger and better, well that’s just twice the learning.