Control

"Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power."

-Lao Tzu

 

"Karate begins and ends with respect."

-Anko Itosu

When we spar, or fight this is something to always keep in mind.

Are you training with someone with less ability than you? With more skill?

Is this a serious fight, is your life on the line?

When I spar with anyone I take a number of factors into account; age, experience, skill level, size, and setting.

When sparring someone say new to practicing the arts I attempt to go at their rate, or a level I believe they will feel comfortable.

Often when practicing combat the sparring will start slow and build. Perhaps they, or you threw a technique with more power and speed than was being practiced before, and this is what is at the core of what causes escalation.

When you or the other begins to increase the intensity, necessitating a return on your or their end to ensure you keep up and avoid getting injured, I call the move that ups the fighting 'anteing up' kind of like in poker.

One needs to pick with care when to do this. One experience I had underlines the importance of this; I was practicing and decided to suddenly throw a technique. As I launched the technique I realized that if I made contact, not only would my partner who was not only much larger, more in shape, and potentially better skilled than hit me back just as hard, he would probably dominate me. I aborted the technique as I threw it, dislocating (by accident) my own arm in the process.

It took almost two years to completely recover full movement with my shoulder, and it took nearly three years before I could raise it above the shoulder without pain.

Control for a black belt was put to me as being able to throw a technique full force at a target and abort it at any time. When I dislocated my arm clearly I did not do that, even though I was able to countless times before. But that doesn't really matter in the end; it only takes one failure on our part in ability to result in injury to ourselves and others.

Check your emotions at the door, especially when stepping into the ring. They almost always inhibit our ability to control what we do.

And take care in always using control. If you injure those you practice and train with you will soon find yourself without training partners.

If you are better than who you are fighting; decidedly so do not take advantage of that. If you have decades of experience and are fighting someone who doesn't, unless they are particularly skilled and able, restrict the techniques you use to what they know. Only introduce new ones when they are ready and being taught them. Otherwise you are taking advantage of your own knowledge.

It is one thing when a master or teacher is fighting a student and seeks to instill a lesson by utilizing things the student isn't familiar with or may have never seen before; it is quite another where as a sibling student or training partner you do so and it has no benefit to the other.

Control goes beyond just fighting- it is represented in every technique we do; but it is most important when it comes to practicing how to fight with others.

And unless you are content resigning yourself with just having a tree as a training partner, practice control always.

 

 

 

"My humanity is a constant self-overcoming."

-Friedich Nietzshe