Tuesday Tips: Pay Attention to Yourself
Posted on | February 17, 2009
Recently, for the past week or so, I haven’t been able to train as much because I injured my ankle while I was out training with my instructor at the public park we meet at. Currently, my ankle is much better and I’ve been going at it again, but I’ve just been thinking about how I hurt my ankle while I was training.
My friend, who was out there training with me, thinks it is from a kick I performed on him. Me and the instructor go at it kind of rough, and I had been working with him before he told me to switch up and work with my friend. Going from the change, the very first move I performed was a round house kick to his left leg’s inner thigh. Let’s just say that he immediately let me know that I was going a bit too rough. I wasn’t kicking full force or anything, I just didn’t simply pull much of the force behind my kick. I may not be the greatest at control, but I’m not so bad that I can’t pull a kick rather than go harsh. It just happened to be that my mind was already in the zone, because when I’m sparring with my instructor I take it a lot more seriously. I don’t get tense or anything, it’s just that I have to actually try otherwise he’ll pop me in the jaw, and I know it.
The point is, I wasn’t paying enough attention to myself. I should have realized who I was now going against and immediately adjusted, but I didn’t. Now, I’m not thoroughly convinced that I did hurt my ankle when I performed that kick because I didn’t feel it. However, I never felt my ankle get hurt at all till later on that day. It was quite wet and muddy outside, so it’s possible that I simply twisted it at some point when performing a kick or when pivoting. One attribute that I believe is a blessing but also a curse, that I have, is that I don’t usually ever feel pain when I get injured when sparring/fighting. Sure, I feel it completely later on, but at that moment I don’t notice it. It’s a blessing because I keep going without hesitation, yet it’s a curse because I could be seriously injured and possibly not notice till it’s too late.
The point is to pay attention to yourself as much as you pay attention to your opponent. A broken bone may stop a match(MMA, etc), but in a life or death situation it won’t mean anything other than that your opponent now has an advantage. Pay attention to how you execute your moves, where you land them, and what your condition is. Too many people often punch themselves out, so to speak(and literally), because they simply forget to breathe.
Tags: attention > execute > kick > move > punch > tt > yourself
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