Recently, during a sparring session with Sean, the kid started to get it, more specifically started to get at me, having worked diligently on his solo training, which is another discussion all together.
What is a crafty geezer to do?
Why, beat that young ass!
Punish him for being smart.
Punish him for being tall.
Punish him for being young and good looking.
Hell, let’s punish him for working hard too!
Devolve, bring this working session of skill down to a monotonous exercise in savagery, to a place where I have long toiled and he is just discovering and couch the rescuing of my ego under the patina of his education.
Guilt be gone!
I just kept chopping his forearm muscle on the outside, until finally, he could not handle the stick any more. This was just a sparring session with geared down power, and getting ugly still worked, even at 30% power.
This very safe sparring session brings out some combat truths, one of which, is that in a stick-fight, “ugly” is always an option.
More importantly, for our purposes, how was Sean’s forearm? He’s on a steep learning curve, sparring with other guys. I needed to make sure he knew the parameters to maintain his development. I emailed him and told him to use his forearm as a tuning fork.
The ulna bone, on the outside of the forearm is the bone that takes the most abuse in stick-fighting. He needs to get it bruised and let it heal so it can thicken.
Having bruised the forearm muscle, how do we tell if the bone is bruised, so we can avoid re-bruising it and possibly cracking it before it recovers?
Clap your hands together.
Does that hurt the muscle?
Does that hurt the bone?
Does that bone hurt in such a way that you get a tinge of nausea?
Now smash your palms together.
If you feel nausea, avoid sparring. Work the bag lightly for technique and concentrate on mobility work.
If you feel bone pain, spar only lightly and work on the bag primarily.
If you only have pain in your muscles get out there and work, but use that pain to remind you not to get that target hit. It is very important, the next to the last link between your brain and your weapon and the first and last line of your power source, where your power comes from when you are in the clinch, over extended, in bad situations.
The tuning fork use of the bone was introduced to me by David Lumsden, an orthopedic surgeon, who told me that the metal portion of the stethoscope could be used to send vibrations through bones to check for fractures under primitive conditions.
Well, I said, “My life is a primitive condition, so can I use that to check my bones?”
He said, “Sure, you maniac caveman!”
