He's giving me that usual cocky smile. Stupid sunny. About 1.3 times my height and size. Two heads taller, longer legs for longer reach, damn heavy, difficult to throw his cg off. But somehow I like to spar with him. He's the biggest, tallest guy in the squad, alot heavier, and loves to pick on me. I love a challenge.

The rest of the guys have their eyes on us, they know that every time "sagat and ryu" fight, its for something deeper. The nicknames got around because Sunny's huge as sagat and I'm well... just smaller.

Rooster as usual referees for us. He calls for us to face him, then bow, face each other then bow, then ready stance.

I shift back my right leg and do my usual battle cry. Sunny does the same but starts hopping about and makes stupid sounds like bruce lee.

I don't know how to attack. If I do a frontal attack, he will probably slammy kick me before I get within suitable range because he has longer legs.

Only can wait for him to make the first move, then hope that I'm fast enough to counter attack.

Sure enough, he does his usual turning kick openings. I keep shifting to the back and sides to stay out of reach. But while I'm just slightly out of his range, hes well out of my range, keeping me at a disadvantage.

I stand ground to block his kick and snap a short forward kick to stop his offensive. He bites the bait and blocks my kick.

I'm panting, he's panting. Need to gather my thoughts quickly. Calm down... read him, I can do this.

So far he's been pushing me around with the offensive, so he's going to assume to continue to do so. Instead of dodging I'll stand ground to land a counter attack.

I shift my weight forward on to my left leg, and lean forward slightly. This will make him think I'm going offensive or fall short of range when he wants to attack me.

I lock onto his eyes. I see him hesitate at first... he knows I'm up to something.

Come on... come on... attack... come on...

He gives me a smirk, then his eyes shift to my torso, He's coming!

He doesn't fall for my stance, instead of aiming for my torso, in which case I could shift my weight back to the rear leg and land a counter attack. Instead he's calculated for me to shift back and comes even nearer so that he will not miss.

But that's what I was hoping for. With his attack focus slightly off behind me, I quickly shift forward and lightly block his knee as I hear his kick whiff.

I feel my right fist tightening, and it makes contact with his left chest. I push again after for second impact and hope to throw him off-balance.

But it doesn't work, and by the time I throw out my kick he's blocked it.

He raises an eyebrow and lets out a sarcastic "whoah".

Stupid cocky asshole.

I get an idea.

He advances with a slammy kick, I quickly shift back to dodge his vertical blow, then he moves for a turning kick - too high for what I have in mind, shift back and dodge. Another turning kick - still too high, shift back and dodge. Front kick - This one is what I wanted, a mid torso height attack.

I stand ground, enter block stance with my left arm while slowly bringing my right arm forward to my left. Right before impact I make a fist with my right hand and feel his shin against my knuckles.

He recovers from his attack and I watch his stance for the effect. Weight resting on rear foot, which means my cheap block did the trick on his front leg.

Nows my chance. I launch forward with a turning kick, though still out of range, but to set him on the defensive. He has to shift back to dodge my second turning kick, then its time for me to score the point.

I combo the second turning kick into a 360 kick.

He's still shifting back and within range while I rotate my torso to gain enough momentum and speed for the kick.

360 kick packs a huge punch, but the startup time is long, so its risky.

I feel both legs lift-off from the ground, then have to turn my head away from him as the kick requires me to rotate one full circle. I feel my right leg rising, full compression, then the snap.

He's within visible range again and I finish the kick, but miss. He moved back and out of range again. But when? How? So fast? Shit!

I see him turn to face backwards as he bends down and his leg comes towards me.

I'm moving backwards for some reason, need air all of a sudden, then realize that its because the airs been knocked out of me. Clumsily stumble a few steps back before I steady my stance.

White spots everywhere, bright flashing dots. Some flying around, some stationary, I try to focus on some before realizing what the heck is going on. He hit me with a backthrust kick. He held back as usual so I only stumbled a few steps instead of flying back and rolling into the wall.

I hear his voice, then realize that I'm still looking at him.

"You ok or not? Don't look so good."

Cocky ass.

"Yeah... no problem."

"Let's end it here for today, ok?"




Somehow the memory of this particular sparring session has been reoccuring to me for some reason. Sparring is about playing by ear, you can plan all you want, but the best points are made by reaction.

I think for all my post-fight analysis and ability to recall matches clearly, I still couldn't beat Sunny because I could only plan to keep up with him, whereas he reacted better and threw my plans out of the window.

This memory makes it more clear to me why my reactions got so violent in the past.

Regret for being too complacent in every match, regretting losing because I always thought too much.

That's why when I'm in that zone, I filter out all conscious thought.

I think I finally stumbled upon to key to help myself out of this mess thats been following me around for years, usually dormant, but scary when out.

Awareness is the first step to fixing anything.