sparring tired: It's common to feel utterly exhausted some days in the middle of your sparring rounds. Sometimes you come in feeling fine and have a couple of very tough rounds and feel very fatigued. It's natural to feel like stopping, maybe taking off a round a two and then starting again. You think this way because you are thinking in terms of WINNING OR LOSING rounds. If you're exhausted it's going to be very difficult to win and quite likely you'll lose to your next partner. So you take some rounds off and start again when you've recovered a little. This not good if you want to play at a competitive level. Doing this means you will never get the experience of performing through exhaustion. Change your mindset. Tell yourself – I'm exhausted – but I will keep going with a lowered set of expectations. Let's imagine I'm ahead in a tough match and have to protect my lead and not get submitted. This will simulate the skill of operating under great fatigue and duress – a common thing in tough matches. You don't want the finals of a tough competition to be the first time you do this – your own mind will start to fight against you – learn to tame it in the gym first and it will be much better than trying to learn it in the middle of a big match. Obviously if you are more recreational, older, perhaps not in competition shape, this will not apply as much, but you can still experiment with it to some degree. Remember, you don't have to stop completely, just lower your goals and keep going – you will learn a lot about yourself in those rounds.
