Sparring, What Level Will You Take it To?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
21

at my school we spar oftenly with gloves only. My only concern with your style of sparring is if you are used to “pulling” your devastating techniques, what kind of second nature does this produce.

I admire your focus on training in the “real” but as you know most fights are over in a second and most fights are won in split seconds, if you dont concentrate on developing the devastating techniques(which you could do with proper padding) then you will not take those to the next level.
Just my $0.02

Shaolin36

22

Didn’t most of the legendary kung fu fighters fight? Without pads, full tilt, against equals, betters, pretty much all comers?

Sure, its a dangerous game, but if you make it away without crippling injury, you probably will be a good fighter, as long as you progressed, using more techniques, etc.

23

Shaolin,

Would you take a crashing elbow to the forehead just because you had pads on? Maybe full gear, but pads aren’t enough to guard against devastating techniques. I saw a guy get KO’ed from a simple jab to the side of the head with sparring gear on. Any real power is too much for regular pads to defend, IMHO.

Now, if I could afford it, I would definitely be into sparring in some sort of kendo armor type stuff.

24

KC-those are chance we take every time we step into the ring. If padded properly, you will be protected against most devastating techniques.
I understand them to be basically on the same level which means not one of them will dominate the match.

25

True enough. My case is that you are also taking a risk, just a smaller one than Dragon Spirit.

Dragon Spirit didn’t say that this friend was the only person he spars with, just his most consistent partner. I spar with my teacher, my fellow students, whatever. Some of those people are equals, but that does not, by default, invalidate those training sessions, does it?

26

Sounds like you and your friend have gotten very good at sparring each other. Do you spar other people? I have 10 people of various rank, size and abilities at my school and I still get used to them.

[I]Signed,
Rogue, Soke and Senior Grandmaster of Southeast American Brazillian Bagua Combat Chi jitsu Kempo Karate Do and Choral Society.

The only tactical principle which is not subject to change; it is, “To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time."

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his countr

27

While I agree that realistic sparring gives you the ability to actually do your moves under stress, I wanted to point out too that sometimes its good to isolate different things and make them more crisp, etc.
For example, I want to work on my clinching a lot these days, and to do that I have partners put the gloves on, and go at it. But I can only clinch them, not really do anything else.
This makes my limitation great, and puts me at a disadvantage obviously, but I’ll tell you one thing.

My clinching gets functional real fast. :wink:

Ryu

“One who takes pride in shallow knowledge or understanding is like a monkey who delights in adorning itself with garbage.”

28

KC- no that does not invalidate those sessions.

Fair enough. The risk is a smaller one, kinda closer if not the same to the one you take when stepping in the ring at any time.

In my opinion there is a difference between sparring and trying to take someone out with out mercy. If you spar and hone your skills in the ring for use of the devastating techs. then it becomes a question of force applied not second nature reaction. You will still be going through the motion and incorporating those moves into you natural reaction arsenal, from there you can take the force aspect and work on those with 2 man techniques and padwork.

what do you think?

Shaolin36

29

Ryu is correct, as usual.

Whoever said that it’s a good idea to spar with as many people as possible, regardless of whether they’re better or worse than you, is also correct. You get experience against people with different backgrounds, body types, and habits.

Also: In my opinion, going full contact with no pads is gonna get you injured real fast. Save full contact for the ring, or a real fight, if you ask me. My favorite kind of sparring is half-contact (or less) without pads. If you wanna practice hitting full force, hit the punching bag. Sparring is for developing timing and technique.

Going full contact no pads is probably a good idea if you do it once in a while.

People say, “if you don’t go full contact, you’ll get into the habit of pulling punches,” but that’s never been a problem for me. I think this is something of a myth.

30

full contact sparring

Yes I used to do the same. Had a friend in high school (I’ve since moved away) that I sparred regularly, maybe 5 times a week for 4 years without any pads (couldn’t afford them). We both had occasional injuries but it was well worth it. And yes, we did get used to each other, but nobody else around would spar half-way realistically.

To those who’ve never done it: try it! before you tell me not to. Although I’m not advising that be your only practice.

“Box a fighter and fight a boxer”. Bruce Lee

31

Shaolin,
Sounds sensible. I’d like to point out that I do not consider myself an expert on this topic, as I’m sure there’s a lot of people here with more sparring experience than me. However, I’ve done enough to recognize that true fighting can teach things very quickly, but with more risk. The only question for most people is whether the risk is worth it.

Otherwise, I don’t feel either approach is wrong.

32

I grew up sparring hard contact no pads, and mostly the only injuries were smashed shins, or bruised arms-okay sometimes you caught an elbow. I broke my buddies metatarsals blocking a roundhouse to the head with an elbow-oops, and I sheared the tendons on my foot incorrectly jamming a sidekick-but those were actually the only injuries that stand out. In Kyokushin-kai, we never wore pads, and in TKD we never wore pads and we fought pretty hard.In Kenpo, we kicked to the groin, and grabbed uniforms, hair, everything goes, not many injuries. In all these schools, we never had head contact-we went AT the head, but not TO the head. I am interested in how you folks spar-what kind of contact, what target areas, what’s allowed what’s not. Let’s bring this back on track.

33

How about boxers or Muy Thai fighters? Don’t they spar full tilt with pads? I know that both can take hit’s in a real fight. So why should those who practice CMA do anything less? I think that going full tilt every once in a while is a good idea. Like Ryu said, he works on one technique until he can get it down pretty well in a real situation. I think there are a lot of good ideas here.

34

KC,
I would agree, both are equally beneficial. I too am far from an expert, just wanted to give a different perspective. Thanks for your input.

Back on topic.
At my school, we spar with gloves and everything goes except for groin attacks, unless wearing a guard, neck shots and beating someone while their on the floor. Also, Sifu will stop it when he sees the session going from “skill honing” to someone taking it personal and trying to take out the other person.-Which he has had to do from time to time.

Shaolin36

35

Here’s the sparring routine we tend to go through:

Push hands for a while, until the practitioners are somewhat comfortable being close to an opponent.
Sticky hands(not wing chun sticky hands, but similar) for a good long time.
3-step sparring focusing on occupying the opponent’s space.
Full sparring, no gear, head shots allowed within reason.

Full sparring is only for people comfortable with all the other practices, and again, we stop anyone who is losing their cool, or just flailing.

We don’t generally do all those in one session, but everyone goes through each of those steps before they get to sparring(fighting).

There’s a risk of injury, but because only the top guys(by ability, no belts here) spar, it minimizes the chance of injury.

Of course, we let the less proficient people try to spar us if they are feeling brave, but we go light on them, and they usually cannot place enough power in their techniques to hurt those of us who do insane iron body for fun.

36

I think it depends on a person’s level, what is it that you’re training for what skills does your style develop or use.

At higher levels I haven’t seen to many CMA people “spar” why is this? I think because it tends to introduce fixed ideas of fighting (self-defense). Assuming this is the goal of your training,
They have trained certain skills and ideas contained in their style to a degree that they can apply it.

also they want to keep their minds open.

an example might be if you’re attacked and there is a bottle or brick laying there dose this become part of your art? or do you go for the shoot or what ever? How you answer this will depend on your out look and why / how you train.

i think there is no right answer depends on what you want.

What are you training for: this is a key question, answer this and you will have a clear idea of what and why you need to learn or do something.

Deny this and I think a large part of your training time will be wasted. For example if you intend to fight in any of the current contest then you need to train for the type of contest you want to fight in. the training itself will condition you mind and body to think and see things in a certain way.

Many of these skills will carry over to self defense uses but I think they may also limit a persons out look in terms of self-defense.

People tend to view things in the context of their training and experience.

Look at the many post concerning the merits of BJJ vs CMA. While I think there are similarities to many things, true fighting is formless. the way that works at that moment is the correct way.

The higher level of skill required to understanding use a style (idea) the longer it takes to build real skills. Some may never reach the point of having real skills. Just as many do not get to the level of playing in some of the contest that many talk of here.

the question of can sparing help you to the next level, I would say depends on what you are training for and the goal or aim of the practice.
:slight_smile:

Good topic

bamboo leaf
www.cyberkwoon.com

37

sparring is part of the curriculum. If you don’t spar, it is difficult to understand how to apply your chosen art.

sparring is a learning experience and not a competition though and it is always important to show courtesy. IE: Don’t smash your partner in the mouth or throat or groin.

you’ll run out of partners who want to train with you.

sparring helps to prepare you for live use of the art should you be so unfortunate to have to do so.

the salient moment of true combat is where your sparring lessons learned will pay off for you.

more than knowing what you will be able to do, you will be able to understand what you can’t do from the lessons learned in sparring.

sparring with a lot of different partners at a lot of different levels of ability improves your understanding even more. especially if they are all different sizes and weights. Gives you a broader picture of what you are facing when you are facing it.

weapons sparring is the next level and the uppermost levels would be to spar empty hand against a weapon, or at least to work on several varieties of defenses against a variety of standard weapons and to drill them over anbd over again until it is ingrained in you as second nature.

so if someone attacks you with a bat (common) you will know a few things that can help you out of that. same goes for someone attacking you with a knife (also common).

as for guns, well now you must use your powers of escape and evasion :smiley: this is where the 5 mile wind sprints will get you further than sparring.

peace

Kung Lek

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