I've been told to calm down.
A few months ago, my roommate and I got into a fight over the delegation of chores. I usually don't get angry over disputes unless its with someone close to me.
Luckily, these kind of disputes happen rather infrequently.
It really bugged me, because I had been acting a little immature, instead of dealing with it head on. The reason I skirted the issue for so long was my embarrassment over my immaturity and the fact that I was genuinely in the wrong (although so was he).
I bottled up the feelings and went to school. That afternoon I headed to MMA. Grabbing my usual sparring partner, I pulled him aside and told him I was in a piss poor mood, and asked if it was ok if I went hard during practice.
Here are the two of us (I don't photograph well
):
He didn't mind. To be honest, I actually think he was excited (competitor that he is).
Anyway, we walked out to the mats and started stretching. I was antsy to get going b/c I had a lot of anger to work out.
We start drilling, and are kind of on autopilot b/c of how many times we've done these drills. We run 15 count alternating punch kick combos. I start putting some oomph into my kicks. You can tell I'm kicking harder b/c my breathing has changed a little and he grunts a little every time my leg slams into the thai pads he's holding.
A well executed kick is exactly like a well hit golf shot, you hear the difference.
When you hit pads with a weak kick, it makes a pop. When you go foot to hip, hip to hip, hip to foot, rotate your hips through the kick, driving through as if to strike slightly behind the target (which is 2" above the knee on either the inside or outside), all the while making sure to strike at a downward angle with the shin (which has been calcified into stone from kicking so much), it sounds like an metal bat swung by a juiced up Conseco hitting a wet buffalo.
My kicks... sounded like the latter.
The punches were no different.
There were little bits of the foam padding they use to stuff the pads all over my shirt.
We switched to an alternating elbows drill.
This would be a perfect opportunity to see if he could keep up with me, I thought to myself.
We start off slow enough, getting into rhythm with each other. We begin to speed up. Faster and faster and faster we go.
I focus in and zone out, the rest of the gym disappears and the sounds of everything fall away.
The only things that exist in my world now are my elbows and the parts of him I was hitting.
I hear someone saying slow down, but it sounded like there was a fish bowl over my head full of water.
He stops and tells me I'm going to have to slow down.
We start again, and the same thing happens.
This time, we switch a girl (who's really fast) with my partner, and I go back to doing what I was doing.
They knew I wasn't going to slow down, and there was no point in asking...
That's one of the times I've been told to calm down.
