Often we have the tireless argument on KFM of MMA vs. CMA or modern vs. traditional training methods. The following is somewhat of a poll as to how the sparring in your style or class in CMA or whatever style of martial arts you study is.
The following is a basic break down of how you might describe it:
San Shou/San Da Based- Sparring with head gear, boxing gloves, shin guards, gererally medium to heavy contact, throws and takedowns. Kickboxing style of sparring could fit in here also if there are no takedowns.
Point Style Based- Basically light to medium contact, stopping after a strike is delivered, gear used is foam padding, possibly headgear.
Continuous Based- Light to medium contact but without stopping after a strike is landed.
MMA Based- Sparring with head gear, light gloves or MMA gloves, possibly shin guards, takedowns and ground work are implemented. Medium to heavy contact.
Grappling/Rolling- Takedowns and groundwork but without striking. Can start from standing or knees but focuses mostly on the ground work.
No sparring- No contact sparring is present.
Please feel free to include Chi Sau or Shuai Chaio as I do not have exerience with those and do not want to comment because of this. This is an experiment to see who does what as far as sparring and training methods and compare individuals, styles, training methods, and how traditional and modern methods differ in a constructive manner. Anyone’s participation is appreciated.
To start off, my class does 1,3,and 5 based on the level of experience of the student. Usually starts off with light to medium continuous sparring for beginners, moving up to heavier contact with more equipment as they advance. Our grappling coach starts everyone rolling and doing basic positioning and set ups.
As students advance the striking and grappling together are incorporated into sparring.
All study or teach San Da or MMA based martial arts and spar accordingly.
Bruce Steveroy’s class follows more of a kickboxing regiment.
Myself personally I follow a Kickboxing/San Da regiment with cross training in ground work. We still also do two man drills, forms, and stance training which for the most part are traditional methods of training.
Thanks for the input guys. I would still like to hear from some of the TCMA people on their sparring methods.
No gear, no gloves, medium to heavy contact ranging from 50% up to maybe 90% depending on the persons involved, takedowns, clinches, knees and elbows. I still find to this day that its easier to trust and use your bare hands if you have trained with them fairly regularly. This also is a point where a lot of people choose to leave the school unfortunately.
As my goal is not about producing professional ring fighters but to introduce practical fighting skills in Stand-up, clinch and ground to the general public, we don’t sparr with particularly hard contact (going all out). That takes away some needs for all sorts of “body amour”. I know some of you are going to clench the teeth about not sparring hard. But going all out is for competition and there are venues for that but not at the school. We need students to be able to have as hard training as they can without the reliance of protective gear (you won’t have those on the street anyway) but still goes to work or school the next day in relative good shape. BTW, I am also for the idea of non-attribute based boxing (ie Rodney King’s crazy monkey).
We aim to spar in UFC format (3 rounds 5 mins ea.) and encourage use of style specific techniques. After all, we want to make Kung Fu training practical and fun at the same time.
There is generally a progression in the way I’ve seen it done by my Sifu.
3: The student learns movements and the basics of control and mechanics in a stressful situation…for a new student, the prospect of sparring is a scary one and the adrenaline can be very high in this element. As a beginner I remember being thrown to the wolves against a black sash…that teaches you some humility and a sense of helplessness…but I found it taught me to really work to make things work and to not turn my head and cower.
1: This is the most common form of sparring that we do but we do not use any gear or padding save for the occasional usage of gloves… and cups and mouthpieces are allowed. This is more medium contact based. More often than not this is the approach that we use. This does generally not mean we do wrestling based takedowns but ones from our art. We save that for:
4: The same as above but with ground fighting thrown in and takedowns such as single and double leg.
On my own and with training partners, we will often use headgear and 5oz gloves or kempo gloves and go full contact, basically close to fighting but stopping if someone gets hurt and still trying new things.
Personally, I like a medium contact but still high paced sparring session that allows one to really work on new technqiues and perfect older ones…this to me is the ideal range for sparring…but full contact and survival mode instilling training is very important and although painful, very fun and rewarding.
[QUOTE=Golden Arms;752914]1, 3, and one that is not on the list:
No gear, no gloves, medium to heavy contact ranging from 50% up to maybe 90% depending on the persons involved, takedowns, clinches, knees and elbows. I still find to this day that its easier to trust and use your bare hands if you have trained with them fairly regularly. This also is a point where a lot of people choose to leave the school unfortunately.[/QUOTE]
you spar 90% with elbows and no pads? what are the allowable target areas?
3 and 5, with the occasional sets of heavier striking, and grappling with strikes. The occasion usually depends on who you’re working with, and what they feel comfortable handling.
Like I said Seven, depends on the people involved, but yeah we have, and I and a couple other guys I have worked with have the scars on our faces to prove it unfortunately. All target areas, including eyes, crotch, throat, etc. Generally the way it works though is the more advanced guy can use enough control to drop the intensity down for both, by for instance, slapping open hand an eye he can touch with his fingers, or pulling a chop to the neck that could have hit harder. If the person getting hit doesnt realize what is going on though and keeps turning it up, one person tends to get hurt. As a guy who has had a trained finger roll into the back of his eyesocket, it can be a learning experience.
Generally the intensity stays in around the range you would use if you were doing a non cooperative drill, but its not uncommon to see things split, teeth knocked out, etc if people want to bang.
[QUOTE=Golden Arms;753008]Like I said Seven, depends on the people involved, but yeah we have, and I and a couple other guys I have worked with have the scars on our faces to prove it unfortunately. All target areas, including eyes, crotch, throat, etc. Generally the way it works though is the more advanced guy can use enough control to drop the intensity down for both, by for instance, slapping open hand an eye he can touch with his fingers, or pulling a chop to the neck that could have hit harder. If the person getting hit doesnt realize what is going on though and keeps turning it up, one person tends to get hurt. As a guy who has had a trained finger roll into the back of his eyesocket, it can be a learning experience.
Generally the intensity stays in around the range you would use if you were doing a non cooperative drill, but its not uncommon to see things split, teeth knocked out, etc if people want to bang.[/QUOTE]
And this is at Leong’s Hung Gar?
Why? If you cripple yourself preparing for self defense, what’s the point in going to MA class?
You might as well just let yourself get beaten up on the street, for all the good it’s not doing you.
This is pretty hard to believe, isn’t it? I haven’t been to Leong’s but none of the other Seattle MA places are like this that I’ve been to, not even the MMA places.
Please read the whole thing, Seven pulled one part out that was the most extreme portion of what I described in my training. I also wasnt speaking of Leongs training, but I picked up some of this type of training there, they train as rough as you want.
I know just recently they had a guy get his knee blown out and another guy got his ribs cracked up pretty good there, so if you want to train hard its no joke. That being said, I personally find this combination tends to be present in schools that I see turning out good fighters, regardless of style:
Equipment used, higher intensity sparring or non cooperative throwing/rolling/you name it
Non Equipment, variable instensity drills and sparring, but less often so you dont have a constantly injured stable of fighters
Light intensity, explorative/playful drills on occasion to encourage exploration without worrying about getting your head taken off.
4)Competition or training with people not in your style that will work with you under pressure/try to win. Variable builds and bodyweights as well.
Together they form a decent system of checks and balances that can keep you on a decent track of where you are and where you realistically need to be. The rest is up to you (athleticism, balance, mindset, etc)
