Injuries happen in the martial arts. We're not juggling scarves. I still feel bad every time it happens. Intellectually, I know I wasn't sparring in a dangerous way. Neither of us are at fault. His hand was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and my knee is a stronger bone structure than his thumb.
It's still troubling to me when it happens. He's supposed to compete soon and this could significantly impact his ability to do that. He may even choose to withdraw.
In my mind I keep replaying what happened. We were having a good roll, I'm quite a bit larger than him and despite actively hunting for submissions, he was putting up a really good defense and I was not succeeding. At one point I was standing over him, he was flat on his back and he looked like he was going to attempt to stand up as well. I grabbed the pants material by his knees, pushed them straight to the ground and "jumped guard" landing in mount. I didn't even feel his thumb as he brought his hand up to try and prevent me from achieving the mount. Regardless my knee caught his thumb and the next day when I checked in with him, it had swelled up quite a bit and he was unable to make a proper grip.
I could have tried a more traditional, technical guard pass. I could have let him stand up and attempted a takedown. There were other choices I could have made that would not have resulted in injury and promoted good training.
This is that interstitial zone where we slice up "reality" based training and work within smaller pieces that can never fully simulate a real life combative situation. Neither of us wanted to seriously injure or kill each other. We were being competitive of course and both wanted to "win" while neither of us wanted to "lose."
On one level, what I did worked really well. Had it been a so-called "street" situation it would've ended really well for me.
But it wasn't...
It was "just" training and "they" say you fight like you train. Earlier this week, I lived up to that saying. At the expense of my training partner's continued ability to train. It likely impacted his home life and work situation.
This is why I think it's really important to work realistic "slices" of combative scenarios as opposed to trying to fully simulate "real life" which is impossible to do without causing a significantly higher rate of serious injuries and possibly life-threatening situations for ourselves and our training partners.
Now the question I face as I walk out on the mats is: "Has my training methods changed subconsciously out of fear of injuring my partner."
On the one hand it is good to be aware and sensitive of my training partner and their abilities. On the other hand I HAVE to alter my training method to take this into account.
This is why, while I understand and on one level value the saying "You fight like you train," I also don't consider it particularly helpful for the day to day training we all participate in.
Listen to the podcast "Walking With The Tengu" at: https://anchor.fm/walkingtengu for analysis and thoughts on how classic works are meaningful to the modern martial artist.
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