Sparring: a lesson in systems
Jan. 19th, 2011 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupAccountability for accidents in sparring may be the greatest example of systems thinking I have ever seen. Barring something insanely malicious, if someone gets injured, both people are 100% at fault. The person who threw the attack should have controlled it better, and the person who got hit should have blocked or dodged it. If you can't control a particular attack well enough, given the skill and personality of your partner, you should not to throw it. This means that there will be attacks you can throw against higher belts that you cannot use against lower belts, because those attacks are harder to control, and your partner doesn't have the skill necessary to keep themselves safe. Overall, there may be people who are better or worse at control or dodging, but if you agree to spar with them, you are agreeing to compensate for their lack or cope with the consequences.
Which leads me to believe I should attempt to spar upper belts as much as possible, because if I develop any more bruising* my work team is going to call the cops.** I think I've developed a coping strategy, tentatively named "if you're not going to hit them anyway, you might as well fail to do so at a speed that won't injure you," but it might take some time to see results. In the mean time, I plan on consuming industrial quantities of Arnica, vitamin A, and Epsom Salts
*fun fact: blocking, or getting blocked while attacking, hurts way more than just taking the hit, both at the time and later, because it's bone against bone. Plus your attacker will vary where they are hitting, whereas I was blocked by three different people on the exact same spot on my knee and now the bruise is bad enough that I'm limping. As Tony said when I got my belt "You know you're just perpetually injured from here on out, right?"
**Badly bruising myself by falling down the stairs in a fashion that was as spectacular as it was unlikely? Not helping.
Which leads me to believe I should attempt to spar upper belts as much as possible, because if I develop any more bruising* my work team is going to call the cops.** I think I've developed a coping strategy, tentatively named "if you're not going to hit them anyway, you might as well fail to do so at a speed that won't injure you," but it might take some time to see results. In the mean time, I plan on consuming industrial quantities of Arnica, vitamin A, and Epsom Salts
*fun fact: blocking, or getting blocked while attacking, hurts way more than just taking the hit, both at the time and later, because it's bone against bone. Plus your attacker will vary where they are hitting, whereas I was blocked by three different people on the exact same spot on my knee and now the bruise is bad enough that I'm limping. As Tony said when I got my belt "You know you're just perpetually injured from here on out, right?"
**Badly bruising myself by falling down the stairs in a fashion that was as spectacular as it was unlikely? Not helping.
