Well it was all going well until I decided to get too smart for my own good. I’d noticed that this one fellow was aggressive, but easily spooked – that is, I could turn him from aggressive to defensive just buy going heavy on the offense.

Of course if I started in a barrage (I’m way too predictable for sparring, it’s always the same uraken-uchi, choku-zuki, gyaku-zuki or different combinations thereof), he’d move back, so I began setting him up. I planned on going in hard with two or three higher attacks to get his guard up, and as he moved back I could stop and plant a Yoko Geri Kekomi right on his protective gear in spectacular fashion. It was perfect! What could go wrong?

Except it didn’t work out that way – for the first time in the entire day, he stopped short, instead of taking the two movements back I’d planned for, he ended up way too close to me – the message “stop” didn’t reach my lower half in time and somehow I managed to jab my second toe in his hip (I’m still trying to go over in my head how I managed that to be honest).

We were wearing safety gear of course, but it’ll only do so much. My second toe was a tiny bit swollen, but it’s really starting to bug me now I’ve been sitting in front of the computer again. Ouch.