Getting Cut during a fight / training

[Sifu81]

Hi Sylvie , I couldnt find the topic in the roundtable , so going to ask again can you tell me how you felt / reacted the first time you got cut in a fight from a elbow? I was cut from an elbow training last week it was kind of unsettling because of the amount of blood , I wondered to myself when I fight would I have the stomach to keep fighting ! Is this something that just comes with time and training ?  I follow you on patreon , learning alot from your videos and commentary ,love training getting ready for my first burner at my school ! Keep up the great work and fights thnaks  

 

Edited July 7, 2019 by Sifu81

[Tyler Byers]

8 hours ago, Sifu81 said:

Hi Sylvie , I couldnt find the topic in the roundtable , so going to ask again can you tell me how you felt / reacted the first time you got cut in a fight from a elbow? I was cut from an elbow training last week it was kind of unsettling because of the amount of blood , I wondered to myself when I fight would I have the stomach to keep fighting ! Is this something that just comes with time and training ?  I follow you on patreon , learning alot from your videos and commentary ,love training getting ready for my first burner at my school ! Keep up the great work and fights thnaks  

 

Hi Sifu, I am curious to hear how others reacted to their first cut as well. I've only gotten two cuts and to be honest I didn't even notice them during the fight. They weren't very large though so I can imagine a cut that is bleeding profusely would possibly be more shocking.

I can only give you some thoughts based on my limited experience, but typically you aren't losing nearly as much blood as you think you are. If it's not in your eyes I wouldn't worry about it too much (easier said than done I know ). Blood leaving your body usually has a large percentage of water so it is relatively thin in terms of viscosity. You've got around 5L in your body, and can safely lose up to 0.5L. Imagine dumping an entire 16oz/450ml bottle of water onto a tile floor and how far that will spread. There is a natural reaction of fear for most people when they start bleeding but in reality during a fight you aren't going to lose that much. I would be much more worried about the size, depth, and location of the cut. 
 

Hopefully this won't ninja your thread, but I'm also wondering what others think about rubbing open cuts in your opponents face during a clinch. Obviously this is going to be situationally dependent but I would think you could rub anything on the crown of your head into your opponents eyes to try and hinder their vision a bit.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Tyler Byers

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

18 hours ago, Sifu81 said:

Hi Sylvie , I couldnt find the topic in the roundtable , so going to ask again can you tell me how you felt / reacted the first time you got cut in a fight from a elbow? I was cut from an elbow training last week it was kind of unsettling because of the amount of blood , I wondered to myself when I fight would I have the stomach to keep fighting ! Is this something that just comes with time and training ?  

The very first time I definitely didn't even notice. It was a small one up in my hairline that got, like, two stitches after the fight. I was bothered that they cut my hair. But it didn't run into my eyes or anything. I do recall it felt like hot water on my brow.

But the first significant cuts, those are somewhat well-known in that I got 28 stitches and they were pretty nasty on my forehead. I knew straight away on each of them that they were cuts, even though I'd not really experienced that before. There were droplets of blood all over the canvass, on my opponent, on my arms, on the gloves, etc. I don't remember being freaked out by it, I had a kind of uncanny "I know what that is," and I think it's similar to how shin clashes don't hurt during fights. The adrenaline is just soaring, which takes care of a lot. There's less stress in training, just because it's more familiar, so the adrenaline rarely gets to what it will be in a fight. So being freaked out in training doesn't necessarily mean you'd be freaked out in a fight, where shit just doesn't seem to matter (to me). 

That said, I know a very experienced fighter (Thai) who nearly fainted at the sight of her own blood on her glove in a fight the first time she was cut (near the end of her career, so deep into her experience) and she kind of freaked out about it for a full week afterward. People just have different reactions. My brother wanted to be a doctor until he discovered he can't handle the sight of blood. Nothing wrong with him in any way, he just handles it very differently than I do. I faint at the sight of clowns, so, you know... who knows?

I suspect you'd handle it fine in a fight. I've rarely ever seen someone be very bothered by their own cuts in a fight.