The Fear of Sparring
I was teaching class one evening when I noticed that one of the kids kept falling down repeatedly when he was sparring. I stopped the round and asked, “Why are you falling down so much?” I was shocked when he answered with his head down “Because I’m afraid and scared” In that moment, I was both extremely angry and sad. It was too obvious to me that he had never been put in a stress induced situation and what angered me was he believed he was going to get hurt or injured. Now, I will be the first to say that the kids today are as soft as tissue compared to the kids 20 years ago. But it isn’t their fault. Let me say that again. IT ISN’T THEIR FAULT! They haven’t had the opportunity to learn just how tough they can be. How did this happen? Because their parents have over supervised and over organized them to the point it has stunted the emotional growth necessary for toughness to develop. People sometimes forget that being tough isn’t just physical it is emotional as well. A truly tough person feels the pain but they do not react emotionally to it. They just deal with it. If you rescue children too soon from the difficulties they face, they never develop the emotional strength they need in order to separate the physical from the emotional.
Where I see this lack of emotional toughness the most is on the mats with free sparring. Sparring is hard, no matter what the age or experience level. It is so fluid and dynamic that it truly overwhelming at first. Now, imagine being a kid that has been overprotected all of his/her life and is not used to physical forms of play. Think about it, there are kids that can’t even play tag or dodge ball at their grade school anymore for fear of being hit or falling down! In defense of the school system, I see why. Too many parents are such a pain that the easiest solution is just not to deal with it. Just the thought of the contact, no matter how light, freaks their child out because they have never experienced anything like it before. This is why many times the kids overreact to even the slightest contact when sparring and say things like “I am getting hit too hard!” Are the kids actually getting hit too hard? No, not at all. There is no bruise, scratch or any other physical mark whatsoever. In fact, the kids today are so contact adverse, they don’t want to hit anyone either! But physical contact in a martial arts class is an absolute necessity. The real world is a cruel place and bullies don’t pull their punches! Physical contact is part of growing tough while learning to overcoming fear. Sparring is the safest way to to learn how to overcome this fear while developing skill.
I honestly believe that that level of contact while Taekwondo sparring is much lower than it ever has been in many years, and the students are all suited up in safety gear that we didn’t use 40 years ago. Does that make the child a wimp or a liar? No. What it means is that they don’t have the ability to properly express what they are really feeling at that moment. And that is nothing more than pure frustration. In time if they stay focused and come to class, they will learn to overcome that frustration, and in time overcome the fear of being hit. With practice, repetition and an I can attitude this fear of being hit will pass.
