It's not so much that it's a game, but when you're training the goal isn't to "beat" the other person. The goal is to work together mutually to make each other better and learn from the mistakes that you make. The extent to which you can do this will depend on your training partner. Some people train harder (as in the amount of force they use) than others, and everyone has a different level of experience. Beating a newbie to a pulp doesn't benefit anyone. I would just say don't worry about it. It will make sense to you as you get into it and it really won't be a factor.
I'm with you. I personally find it really hard to punch a person in the face, unless they hit me first. I have no problems punching someone in the body, or attacking the head or neck using elbows or open handed blows; I just have a mental block when it comes to making a fist and hitting someone in the face. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am a counter fighter by nature, and am somewhat passive in my personality. People's fighting style is often reflective of how they are as a human being. I won't initiate, but once my mind is made up, my aim is to end the confrontation as quickly and decicively as my abilites allow.
I agree with Samus. The point of training is to get better not to fight. Yes we simulate fighting, but we also work drills and learn from our mistakes.
Few can train 100% all the time and even then the recovery time makes it less efficient than mixing it up.
As for the mental part, you just have to learn that your not training to hurt your partner you're training to develop skills. Skills you only use if someone attacks you or someone else and you choose to assist them.
Like you, I'm not meek or a pacifist, but be a threat to me, and I'll do what I need to defend myself or others. So with training you'll develop the skills and mindset.
In your additional comments you mention one way that you can look at this and I would add to it by saying you are also helping someone get better as well if things are taken and done with the right approach in mind when training and sparring with others. Pushing them and challenging their skills, knowledge, and ability not only helps you to improve and get better but also them as well. This was always one of the approaches I would always stress with students and fighters for that reason as well as trying to maintain things on a positive level so that everyone was helping one another to improve and reach their fullest potential. When you don't have that and things start to break down then it ceases being a positive interaction and training experience for one or more parties is what I have found.
One of the other approaches I also stress with students and fighters that are sometimes reluctant to engage is to imagine that person just hit their family pet or younger brother or sister maybe. While I don't want them to get too emotionally charged about that I do want them to take a harder nosed approach to things as if their partner had done something wrong in some way that called for a reaction on their part of a physical nature. This will sometimes also help and when I do this I also usually put them in there with a student or fighter of experience who is bigger, heavier and stronger than themselves.
I do this because usually a person's skill is such where they are not going to hit, strike, or kick that more experienced, bigger person any harder than they have already been training with and experiencing. That bigger, more experienced person also understands and realizes that they are not there to overwhelm that more timid, lesser experienced person; there is no challenge there or nothing really proven. Instead their role is try and allow that other person to challenge themselves and they may at times even push them some but it is never to the point where they are overwhelmed and instead only up to the point that they need to in order to learn and improve.
I would not always look at sparring as a game though. Dropping that front hand repeatedly and being told about it might eventually get you a hard straight right from your sparring partner to help induce you to stop dropping your lead hand if you don't first listen when told and continue to make that mistake. That's called learning the hard way and there sometimes also has to be some of that in sparring also at times. That does not mean that your opponent should try to knock you out with that straight right but he will certainly let you know it a little by how hard he does hit you without hurting you a lot or knocking you out.
So there are also some hard lessons sometimes in sparring and improving ones skills. Sometimes it will be fun and like a game but it will not always be like that either. Again all of this should be done though with the goal being for you and your gym partners, and sparring partners getting better and helping each other to improve even though you will at times have to take a few bumps and bruises along the way to doing that. This approach along with keeping the safety of all in mind as well and using things like the proper equipment and not a lot of horseplay are ways and approaches that students and fighters use to get better while avoiding injuries in a lot of cases.
It's exactly that: Striking with the intent to harm
I think it has a lot to do with competitiveness.
Think of it this way: Your opponent has dedicated vast amounts of time to perfecting how to hurt you, then has the audacity to step into the ring and think that he actually can.
Is that a bit cocky? For sure. But any other mentality, and you'll end up getting yourself seriously injured.
Also, remember: Your opponent volunteered for this.
Don't even think about it. This is a door you don't wanna open and whatever you feel right now is your gut warning you. So back off!!
I'm not a meek person, or even a pacifist, but I have a very difficult time striking someone with the intent to do harm for reasons other than self-defense or perhaps for vengeance. I understand as much will be necessary part of the practice and study of MMA so how do I get in the mindset, if you will?
