Am I a fighter or a martial artist?

This morning, I woke up after 6 hours of sleep still sleepy, but excited to try and make it a better day than I’ve been having so far this week.

I taught Katsumura-san English for the first time. He has a lot of passive knowledge and his listening ability is good, so I think he’ll progress quickly. It’s an honor for me.

Then I had training. We started with striking. I expressed some difficulties I was having to him, and he told me this slight detail I was doing wrong, and we tried to fix it. It was so frustrating for me. Like, as if I say “their” and “there” have different pronunciations. You’re like, “No they don’t…they sound the same!” Like that.

So then we sparred, and I set my goals for the sparring. I was doing pretty well in reaching them. I sparred with this young up-and-comer, but he was going pretty hard with MMA open-finger gloves on. I thought, “Hmm he just hit me as hard as he could…I should tell him to lighten up. Well, the round is almost over, I’ll just be careful.”

Then I found myself on my back on the floor with him saying, “Are you okay? Sorry!”

GODFRACKINGDAMNITALLTOHELL@#U$O@#U$I#@$

I hate fracking striking so fracking much. *smashes head into the ground* I have to take full responsibility for that, because I SHOULD HAVE SAID “Dude, go lighter.” He’s just a college-aged kid, but how’s he supposed to know if I don’t tell him? When you have boxing gloves on, fine, hit me 100%, but with MMA gloves, you’re supposed to go 50% or less. DAMNIT, WORLD. Well, there goes the shaky web of confidence I’ve been trying to fracking rebuild for myself. _<;;; He said, "I'm so sorry, I want you to hit me as hard as you can." Nah, wait until I get you to my world... So I had to sit out while they did lots of fun looking grappling stuff. If I were hypothetically trying to be somewhat positive here, I would say that I learned what exactly is wrong with certain aspects of my game, and also I learned why I've been having trouble standing up lately. So I learned two key points to fix two key aspects of my game. Great, right? I paid for it hard today. What if I don't WANT to fix my issues? -_-;;; I want to quit striking. But I don't want to quit MMA. Katsumura-san wants to fix my issues. Now that I joined Ground Slam (read that 'married the gym' so to speak) I have to put my trust in them....maybe they can fix me? So training was over at noon, and I had to go to work straight from there. So I showered, got dressed, ate, and tried to ignore my pounding fracking headache. If I were to be positive again, just try, mind you, I'd say, "It's nice that my boss sent me to Yokohama so I was really close to work, rather than having to rush and travel 30 mintues." For some reason I got a stomachache. THANKS, world. So I had to teach from 1:45 to 5ish, and then had a long break. I ate sushi and walked back to the gym, hoping Katsumura-san would be there, but he wasn't, so I walked back and took a nap on the sofa. Then taught evening lessons from 7:45-9:15. I taught this guy who did kyodo (Japanese archery). I could tell- he seemed really "with it," and alert. I dunno, I could just tell he did something like that. Actually, I mentioned that because he said something that I found very interesting. We were doing the text book TAB about the business of sports (right up my ally, right?) I asked him if Kyodo was considered a sport, or just a martial art. He said, "Only a martial art. There's not really a competition, you know. The purpose is not hitting the target." ....wait, what? I looked at him. "What do you mean?" I asked. He smiled. "If your behavior, spirit and attitude are correct, you can naturally hit the target." What am I? A fighter or a martial artist? Can one be both? I am searching for this answer now.... …