Dealing with Fragile (Male) Ego: A Response to Sylvie’s Post, “KO’d My Clinch Partner in Training – And it Was a Good Thing”
Before you read this post, please keep in mind that this is not referring to all men. When I saw the title of Sylvie’s post, I was a bit hesitant. I didn’t know what perspective this was being written from, and part of me was unsure of reading something that might be about how it would teach your inexperienced training partner to be tougher or other hyper-masculine bullshit. But as I was reading it, I found myself relating to many points made by Sylvie. I like working with training partners technically, and if everything is done technically, I don’t care how much bigger they are. I never complain about having to train with bigger people because 1) I don’t have a choice and 2) we would both be learning from each other, and it’ll be for my benefit in the end as well. Plus, being smaller than most people I train with, the only thing I can rely on myself for is technique. I am by no means stronger nor better than most people, but I’ve had so many instances with men and teenaged boys that felt like they had to “save face” or “put on a dominating show” against me, because there’s […]
