Depending on where you're at, the person who's somewhat better than you could be a middle of the road opponent. Hell, the person completely out of your league could still be a middle of the road opponent. But you'll never get to the point that you can fight in their metaphoric arena unless you fight them a lot.
There are a couple of things that go around in my head on this one. I'd probably learn more in a technical sense if I spent more than 1/3 of the time working with him (rather than him actually trying to beat me). But I think I'd become a better fighter by dealing with that 2/3. The 1/3 of working with should give me something to focus on to get some openings and make something happen. And learning to fight through those times when I can't seem to make anything happen would be powerful learning.
Thats exactly what cb was saying though. The middle of the road opponent is the one who might be slightly netter than you, but youll gain more by fighting the completely dominant opponent.
Actually, that wasn't part of my argument. I was just explaining how middle of the road can mean different things to different people. And your middle of the road is someone elses "significantly better than me"
True enough. But we're dealing with some of the same basic reactions in both. @drop bear has brought this up in reference to the way folks at his gym prep for MMA, too. Sometimes (more often for some folks than others) we react badly when overwhelmed, and learning to deal with that overwhelm and keep cool enough to regain some control from the eye of the storm is a powerful tool.
I think "middle of the road" is always (like "average") going to be relative to the population. A "middle of the road" kicker in a decent TKD school would be the star kicker at most NGA schools.
That's a rough thing to overcome, and the only thing that will help, believe it or not, is getting hit again and learning that you can take the hit. I teach a sparring stance where the hands are not always in the same area. They move randomly, so that the opponent doesn't have a constant target to find a hole in. However, at least one hand is ALWAYS up to protect the head. You might see if something like that works for you.
The best way to overcome the habit of dodging backward is to spar with your back against a wall. That way, you can't go backward, You can only evade to the side (or straight over your opponent), and that is preferable. We call it V-in, V-out, for the direction of travel. If you stay on your opponent's attack line, they will continue to attack. Once you evade off the line, they now have to break their attack to change direction and that's a great time to counter-attack.
I haven't heard that saying in years! Ha! Not much call for being inside the other guy's skin in the judo/aikido mat-space. I heard it the first time when the boxing coach at my muay thai gym said it to me when I was about to spar with a guy who'd been there quite a bit longer than I. I … had... figured to kickbox him, but the coach was way smarter than my dumba$$… the guy would have leg kicked me like he was cutting down a tree. Instead.. it was the super-tight treatment, which I found out, right then, that I liked. A lot. Body hooks, one-hand head clinch, shift knee (can't do those in all training, I get it), upper cut when they duck a choppy head hook. All from basically inside a standing guard. Brutal way to fight. Got to have good core/abs though, since the way out of it is to gut blast the guy who is tight on you.
I went to college in Mass, and I heard “wicked” everything. Haven’t heard it in a while.
Spoken like a true Masshole.
Yup. The armpit of America - North Adams. Most students were from the Boston area. I became a popular guy my first day - wearing my Yankees hat. I honestly wasn’t even thinking about it. I had so many people say so many things to me. I just had to rock that hat every day.
