last night was sparring night, usually this results in a bit of pain, a lot of learning and some heavy breathing. i went in late and had to rush my warm up, i hate this as i feel tigth when i start throwing leather.tonight only 4 men showed up, and so we paired up and switched up for 7 rounds of fun starting with boxing and progressing into thai -style kick boxing.my first opponent was a big asian dude, he is cool and we joke a lot but i haven't seen him in awhile so i correctly assumed his stamina was a bit low and reflexes off.oddly we all compared reach and i was found to have the longest,i'm not that tall only 6'1" but i got a decent reach.this was funny in a foreshadowing kind of way because each person found out that to land a jab, they had to eat a faster one and eat it hard... it was fun all in fun. we all laughed but i did get tagged nicely three times. snapped my head back hard now my neck hurts and i expect it will for a couple of days at least .all in fun. yeah right.my shoulder continues to ache but not too bad just a reminder that it is there and sore.my right elbow also is hyper-extended and i am wearing a tennis elbow brace on it for good measure. also my ankle is still swollen and hurts but i can stand and still kick if i pay attention to fine detail on how i land it.what have i learned from this experiment? that even when hurt, you can adopt and go on if you are careful. also it has to be fun or you will quit.i have seen so many young white kids go into predominantly black gyms and get beat on gain and agian because they chose the wrong trainer for themselves...soon they think it is a racial thing and drop out after all who wants a bloody nose every freaking day? i think this is really just menat to weed out the weaker minded less dedicated kids, but i think after 3 days you belong in a ring as much as a lung cancer patient needs a cigar. just my oppinion , but then again why hurt yourself needlessly? i often wonder why some people come to a ring, and feel they must totally dominate the other person, when i see them hitting hard needlessly i think it must only be for fear because,why else do you need to do that? i mean occasionally going hard is good but all the time just produces injuries that are slow to heal and offers little lesson except perhaps in pain management and first aid.