Sparring

Last night was a sparring class. The whole hour. Now, I'm far from the greatest fan of sparring in the known universe. Since I started karate, sparring was just something I "had" to do, something to be endured. And I'm not exactly ready to jump up and down and cheer "Hurray! We're sparring!" But maybe I don't quite loathe sparring anymore.

I got to spar with one of the other brown belts - she and I have been paired up every sparring class for quite some time now, so we kind of saw it coming this time. We've sparred each other so much that we tend to mirror each other during matches. We'll throw the same technique at the same time and then try to adjust the exact same way every time. It's kind of funny. But this time, we didn't do so much of that. Hubby says that's because we've gotten to know each other's sparring well enough to trust each other, making it easier for us to try to mix things up and try new things.

I also sparred one of the teenage green belts. I think I did a pretty good job of taking lessons learned from my first match and applying them in my second. I did have a pretty stupid moment or 2 in my second match where I just kind of stood there like a dope and let her pound me. I honestly don't have a clue what I was doing. I heard Hanshi say "hajime" and just stood there watching her come at me and I didn't move. She also got a pretty kick in to the back of my head because I ducked a punch instead of blocking or sidestepping.

We've got some yellow belts that absolutely terrify me. It's like clash of the titans! These guys are big guys, and much faster than you expect them to be. I'm thinking they'll turn out to be great sparring partners once they get some control (please, Lord, let them work on control!!!)