I remembered the first time I sparred at karate. It's been quite a while ago, at this point, but I still remember being very intimidated by the thought of hitting someone else on purpose. I was raised to "not hit," as probably most of you were. Yet I found that I enjoyed the challenge of sparring. (I must insert here that when we are sparring at karate, it is also an exercise in control: hit the uniform, but not the body underneath. It's not an all out fisticuffs.)
Most students are hesitant to spar at first, for any number of reasons, I would guess, but recently, some of our newer students started sparring. I had yet to spar with some of the bigger kids. Turns out one student in particular, was much faster than I expected. It's not that I thought an 18-year-old would be slow, but he definitely scored on me more than I expected. I wasn't being cocky...I did underestimate him, though. The funny thing is that my son did the same thing. As we were evaluating out sparring performance on the way home, he had come to the same conclusion. This kid is fast!
Should an attack situation happen in real life, I don't have the ability to walk away and evaluate what went wrong and then go back and try it again. I need to always think higher of my opponent until he proves to me otherwise. The same is true with my unseen enemy, Satan. He is sneaky. He seeks to creep in and destroy our children...and us. Don't underestimate him. Be aware.
When have you underestimated someone to your own detriment? Did you learn from it? Tell me about it below.
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