To spar or not to spar

Sunday Competition Class- of which I can only stay an hour because Kung Fu starts at 6:30. Lindsey was teaching. It was a small crowd- I assume a lot of people were watching the game.

As soon as I walked in, Jeff yelled across the mat, "I have a bone to pick with you, woman!" I was wearing my fox ears hat, and Jeff and Lindsey were laughing at me. Jeff yelled, "And that hat's just making me madder!" I mimed trembling, and they laughed some more.

Turns out that that rib injury Jeff exacerbated the last time we worked together (which was a long time ago!) was one of those gifts that keeps on giving... he's still hurting from it.

I was drilling with Sonia. I haven't seen her in a really long time, so it was nice to see her.

I must say, though, that for a kickboxer/Muay Thai student, she complains and gets blatently annoyed with me about every little bump and knock. She's actually gotten pretty huffy with me twice now for apparently kicking or kneeing her in the groin too hard (the girl has a more tender groin than any of the men!). I'm pretty sure this is not about me... I normally have very good control, and I am always very conscious about being a careful and considerate partner. I occasionally bean someone by accident, just like we all do... but I'm no rougher with her than I am with anyone else, and I work with dozens and dozens and dozens of people, and she is the only one who complains. I seem to spend half my rolling time with her apologizing.

She scratched my chin with her long fingernail. I didn't say anything.

We drilled a lot of standup- dragging down on the gi lapels. Ankle picks. Pick the ankle, slide your foot behind partner's remaining leg, takedown. Pass guard. Four different defenses for the taken-down person to try to defend the guard pass.

Jeff was lifting his foot for me when I went to pick his ankle. After a couple reps, I went down on the knee and didn't touch it- and there that foot was up by my shoulder. "I thought so! Don't pick your foot up for me- make me pick it up!" I tend to want to grab it behind the knee instead of at the actual ankle, and having him help me cheat in that way is not going to let me break that habit.

When we started doing slightly more vigorous attempts to pass the guard, versus defend, I was glad to see that I was able to handle Sonia. I had less success with Jeff (although Lindsey called him a "bully" for goonsweeping me).

The gi lapel dragging-down was a bit too much on my injured finger- which is sore now- and the ankle picks were a bit much on the knee on which I was kneeling... apparently I am going down too hard... that is *very* sore.


On to kung fu. We started with Five Points Of the Star. DD wants me to stop extending the left arm to claw just before the back kick at the beginning. He wants me to do a Black-Craney guard to my right while I'm pulling my left foot in for a cat stance, THEN turn and kick. This will allow the initial Tiger guard stance to have the left foot a little to the fore, instead of linear. That's not how I learned it- but okay, whatever you say, dude. I always have to wonder a little about how much Black Crane is creeping into various forms (DD is a Black Crane stylist).

He worked on apps of that with me, then had me drill a lot of Dragon Rides the Wind against a pad. Then he showed SK and me an app of Dragon Rides the Wind against three opponents. It was pretty cool- although it would have been even cooler if we were able to play with it while wearing BJJ gi's. It involved hauling one person over your hip and using hir to hit the other two on the way over.

The pike kick with back roll- need to try to get that right leg to circle around adequately to trap the bad guy's leg. At first I was trying to swing it way too wide because mine did not look like SK's... then we realized that it's probably because his legs are about ten times longer than mine. The leg is not supposed to swing from the hip- only from the knee.

SK had carpooled with DD, and I think they must have been talking about class issues. SK asked us to share in a group what each of us wanted out of this class. I was going to keep my mouth shut... Lord knows I've nattered on MORE than enough to SK that he knows my feelings on this, and I didn't really want to discuss my sparring anxieties in front of the whole class (especially DD and JM). But he prompted me... three times... the first two times I avoided his gaze and let someone else jump in... but he wasn't gonna let me off the hook. I said that I had wanted more sparring, because I want to feel like I'm learning PRACTICAL things. However, I am now so traumatized around the whole concept of sparring that it freaks me out, so now I don't know WHAT I want.

SK and DD want to schedule more sparring- slow motion to begin with. Sigh. Mixed feelings. We'll have see if it actually HAPPENS, to begin with... I know that SK doesn't feel very comfortable presiding over sparring- and although we have seen more of DD lately, who knows how long that'll last. CC keeps telling me that DD hates sparring, which is certainly believable in light of how little of it we do. I'm not really looking forward to stirring up my feelings of inadequacy, fustration and despair by trying to spar. Nor am I looking forward to being folded, spindled and mutilated every Thursday by Nemesis. He wounds me more than enough just in drills. I don't know how I feel about this.....

(pic- Renzo and Jamie)