I did one of those odd things last night at training. I decided that Liam wasn’t hitting me hard enough while sparring and egged him on by doing the old ‘drop the hands, jut out the chin and nod and grin’ when he gave me a quick one – two. Pep screamed at me:

“Stop being macho and fight properly!”

I later made some rubbish excuse that I felt Liam needed geeing up a bit. Then revised that excuse and said it was ‘cos “I needed something to rev me up a bit”. Pep rolled his eyes -people do that to me a lot. As it was, I didn’t think too much more of it till Liam texted me today asking if I wanted to do some sort of training or sparring tonight as he felt he was ‘crap’ last night . I had literally just finished a cardio session at school and replied that I couldn’t and what did he mean ‘crap’ (I thought maybe he was bitching about Pep). Liam and I exchanged several texts after this and basically he felt like he’d let himself down and sparred poorly and wanted to work on some things. I of course told him he was over analysing a simple sparring session, but he seemed adamant that he ‘let himself down’. Of course me being me most of my replies were along the lines of the following “You’re just pouting ‘cos I slapped you a few times… like the bitch you are!” But as I’ve sat here I’ve been thinking how easily a throwaway comment can be taken out of context.

In my job I’m constantly thinking 3 steps ahead of what’s coming out of my mouth because if I word something wrong or say something inflammatory to the kids stuff can get broken and there’s lots of shouting. I am clearly nowhere near as sensitive as this in my social life (or text conversation). But then again you credit well adjusted adults with the ability to read between the lines and to take a joke in the spirit it’s meant. But this would almost contradict something I said in a previous blog – ‘we all have behavioural problems, we just deal with them in different ways’. Now clearly Liam is able to control his behaviour better than the kids at my school, but that doesn’t mean that he’s any less sensitive to criticism.

Now before you put 2 and 2 together and get 5 I’m not about to flog myself publicly for crushing poor little Liam’s confidence and self esteem in one five minute round. That hasn’t happened. The point I’m trying to make is that in a competitive and testosterone fuelled environment it would be very easy to misconstrue a comment with harmless intent. Which begs the question, why rip anyone about their punching power? Or have a dig at them for being unsettlingly obsessed with a Ken Shamrock style leg lock/knee bar? Pep, bless him, gets it by the barrel load about his clothes and physique. Matt is constantly making snide remarks about my heritage i.e. jokes about the Welsh/valleys/leeks/sheep, etc. Jon has the ‘bad aids’ and David is dangerous, perverted serial killer (Bateman?).

Maybe it is for the exact reason I egged Liam on last night. Maybe deep down it’s to provide that bit of needle, that competitive edge, that reason to want to beat someone’s ass. Let’s be honest without that wind up or constant banter it’d be more than a little odd to spend the night smashing lumps out of each other. For example have you ever heard these sorts of comments at a sparring session?

“Splendid overhand right Dave, I jolly well hope you don’t catch me with that again!”

“Crumbs Matt that armbar caught me napping; no doubt you’ll get me with that again shortly!”

Ok I’m being cynical but you’re much likely to hear “Oh you ****er, nice shot.” Or maybe “Ah **** I can’t believe I let you tap me with that again.” In fact the previous 4 paragraphs may just be a load of rubbish and over analysed psychobabble. I might just have sat here for 45 minutes typing this in the vain hope it’ll make sense and I’ll come to some logical, insightful conclusion.

But maybe the truth is that last night Pep probably got it right… I was just being macho.