40%

          Tuesday’s class had us sparring (which I always love), but at an agreed percentage of our full power.  For the most part we agreed on 40% power. I was surprised at how difficult that was for me to do.  

         I’ve trained with these people for a long time, I consider them my second family, and it’s hard to switch from something I find as “play” activity to more aggressive.  I definitely ramped up my intensity and definitely got in people’s faces more. I struck slightly harder than I normally would; but 40%? Not even close.  Part of this is the fact that I recognize that my 40% could do a lot of damage, because I’m a bigger guy.  I’m not the biggest guy, but big enough to know that even 40% of my full power can be harmful. I also recognize that there could be a perception associated with my size, and that I need to be more cautious when I’m sparring.  All it would take is one incident for people to be extra cautious around me, and for me to lose confidence in my own abilities.  Also, I don’t want to hurt anyone, imagine that.

      There is no doubt that if push comes to shove that I can unleash my full power on someone, but unprovoked, and in a friendly sparring match it is difficult to summon such strength.  On the other hand, I struggled with putting in too much power in my technique against a haymaker.  My mindset/intention is to survive the strike as if someone was really coming at me, but they weren’t, so it was overkill and really disrupted my technique.  Funny the juxtaposition between these two struggles.  I was finding a I had to soften my blocks to match the intensity of my partner, then I could feel the technique better.  Still, I also want to be mindful to train in a way that will serve me if ever I’m in a position that I need to use full force.