We hear the phrase all the time, but what does it actually mean? Conflicting remarks are said when it comes to sparring and rolling, and what one should do and why they should do it. Some people are in favor of going hard and fast, believing that iron sharpens iron, being fed to the lions, etc. Others have a calmer demeanor when it comes to sparring and rolling and say that one should never push their training partner past their physical limit in fear that it might lead to injury.
There are also people who think there is a happy medium where you can train hard while not training so hard that you hurt your training partner. But what do you do when you are much better, or much stronger? Or maybe your partner is better than you but YOU are stronger? Do you go all out? Or the other side of the same coin, do you “go light?” What do you do!? My answer? “You train WITH your Partner not ON Your Partner.”
Let me put it this way: I want to be the person who everyone wants to roll with, who everyone wants to spar with; and so should you! Not the person people cower away from when asked if they want to spar or roll. Or the person everyone is saying “I went with so-and-so yesterday and they completely killed me.” Translation: “I am not looking forward to training with them again but I will to show my true grit.”
Personally, I want to be able to roll with a Heavy Weight 10x Black Belt World Champ and have them say to themselves “that was fun, can’t wait to roll with him again!” while at the same time be able to roll with the smaller, older-than-me non-competitive blue belt or spar with a brand new student and have them say “wow, that was a lot of fun! Let’s go again!” This would mean being able to dial up or dial down my intensity to match my training partner’s physical and technical attributes. If everyone does this, we ALL win! “Train WITH your Partner not ON Your Partner.”