A gym friend who is a doctor saw it and invited me to swing by his office later in the day to have it stitched up. When I got home I washed up and my wife took a picture (“Ewww!”) and off I went to the doctor where he properly cleaned it out (this is important-there are nasty cooties out there these days!) and gave it the five stitches it required. Amongst the many things that my teacher Guro Dan Inosanto has said to me that have stayed with me over the years is this one: "It's good to know where you are at." One of the dangers of my line of work is that people are going to be respectful when I am teaching. I get
this-- I do the same when I am on the other side of the equation!-indeed, one would be an anus to test a teacher while he is teaching! Of course the danger of this is that one can easily start becoming a legend in one's own mind and miscalculate one's capabilities upon the intrusion of reality. This would be a serious Darwinian error! It may have been John Wayne who said “Life is tough. It's tougher when you are stupid.” I do my best to avoid this in the course of my teaching/training in various ways e.g.:
a) I insist upon honest feeds. For example, as many of you may know in contrast to most FMA systems that lock out the strike responses to which are being taught, in DBMA, unless otherwise specified, the striker should carry through with his motion-- just like he is most likely to do in a real fight. Of course the speed, power, intensity will be dialed back to greater or lesser degree depending at what point we are in the development of the response(s) being trained but in all cases the strike(s) should be towards the actual target(s) in a natural manner. b) I use what in DBMA we call “the metronome method”: constant speed,
and equal speed and equal power between the two practitioners. Nonetheless there is no substitute for action for knowing where one is at-- hence Guro I's wo rds o f wisdom-- given to us after he left us with jaws hanging after having gone forty five non-stop minutes HARD of Muay Thai on the long bag while in his sixties. Thus for me sparring such as my session wherein I scored this boo boo is invaluable in "knowing where I am at" as I seek to walk as a warrior for all my days. I do my best to not be stupid about it. I feel no shame in speaking up about places where it is not wise for me to go.