Spar

I don’t like to spar. Something about punches and kicks coming my way when I do not have a specific plan to deal with them makes me uneasy.

I enjoy combinations and drills. You hold pads while I kick and punch. We both wear gloves and you punch me in this choreographed fashion and I will block and evade like a pro.

Yesterday we were doing a sparring drill, where my partner was to come at me real quick and then back away. For some reason, I thought she was supposed to aim at my torso, but wouldn’t you know it, she went for my head.

I should mention here that we have two girls in our class and I am way tougher than they are. And I’m not so tough.

Anywho, her glove pushed my glove toward my head (because if I’ve got one thing down, it’s always to keep my gloves near my face. It’s why my face breaks out a lot. From touching my face with my stinky gloves.) My own glove pushed my contact lens out of place. Not out of my eye, but up in it so far that it took me about 5 minutes to locate it and I had the whole class looking on the floor for the blasted thing.

When I found it, I had to put it back in my eye without saline solution, putting myself at risk for the amoeba infection.

So that’s why I don’t like sparring.

Rob enjoys sparring so much, he does it with the dog. I said to him sweetly yesterday, “Let’s try this, next time she gets snappy at you like this… Wait, are you enjoying this?”

She had her front paws on his lap and was yelping. He had a huge smile on his face.

“She just gets me so excited,” he said sheepishly.

“OK, but if you let her think it’s all right to snap at you, she’s going to keep biting little girls in the face.”

I suggested we try holding her down when she gets hyped like that, until she calms down. Every time. So she learns it’s not OK to snap.

I demonstrated this by grabbing the 62.5-pound dog and flipping her off of Rob and onto the floor. She lay there submissively.

“You’re grappling with the dog!” Rob said. “You’re the Dog Grappler!”

Normally, I don’t like grappling either, but I wish Rob had seen the move I did this morning, when Isis made a move for his sleeping head. I — accidentally — judo-tossed her off the bed.