How important is contact sparring in MA?

Would you prefer this;

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No I wouldn't. Both video samples show how NOT to duck properly, the people in them were lucky they didn't get kneed in the head.



I didn't see too much of either in these vids;


See how much head movement you have after 2.5 hours of sparring.


Just saying.....

Rhee TKD is not boxing or MMA, it's primary means of defending against strikes is blocking/deflecting, head movement is secondary. Feel free to post some videos of your training or your schools training so we can compare the difference.
 
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Again it comes down to simple logic; Who's better at knocking someone out? Someone who has actually knocked someone out, or someone who has never knocked someone out?

Who is better at choking someone? The person who has actually choked someone out, or the person who has only simulated choking someone out?

The person with the greater skill. For the record I have actually knocked someone out in sparing.
 
I'm forced to disagree. There's far too many examples of sport-based techniques working just fine in "real world" altercations for that statement to be true. Those sport-based techniques were honed through constant sparring practice.

So what would you consider to be a sport based technique, I mean one that was not originally designed for self defense or combat.art? Martial arts techniques are also honed through constant sparring practice, not just sport-based ones and there are numerous examples (not all caught on video) of them working too.

For example, you're never going to find a Judo school where you're not going to be thrown to the mat.

Stands to reason considering Judo is a throwing art.
 
My guess - on Martial Arts forums, as in all dojos, everyone trains, some teach, some fight-some professionally-most for sport, some have defended themselves on the street, some haven't. The one thing all of them have in common is total conviction about being right.

Maybe this guy is sharper than we thought.

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Wouldn't it be funny if we were ALL full of crap? :)
 
No I wouldn't. Both video samples show how NOT to duck properly, the people in them were lucky they didn't get kneed in the head.

LoL! That's a pretty arrogant statement.



See how much head movement you have after 2.5 hours of sparring.

There wasn't much head movement from the get go.


Rhee TKD is not boxing or MMA, it's primary means of defending against strikes is blocking/deflecting, head movement is secondary.

Really? It seemed that your instructor had adopted some boxing/MMA principles in his sparring practice.

Feel free to post some videos of your training or your schools training so we can compare the difference.

I'm currently training in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Vids shouldn't be too hard to find.
 
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LoL! That's a pretty arrogant statement.

There is nothing arrogant about it, just a statement of fact based on my training. One thing we tell students not to do when they duck is to lean forward in that fashion.


Really? It seemed that your instructor had adopted some boxing/MMA principles in his sparring practice.

As stated in one of my earlier posts, he was sparring according to the rules and target areas of the person he is sparring. There are some principles that many martial arts have in common with MMA and other martial arts.

I'm currently training in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Vids shouldn't be too hard to find.

Then why have you not shown any so far? You always seem to indicate that you think videos prove everything and take every opportunity to show them of other styles and schools. So hunt them down and show us, I'm curious.
 
So what would you consider to be a sport based technique, I mean one that was not originally designed for self defense or combat.art?

The Triangle Choke for example. It was created purely for sporting purposes, but it has a strong self defense application seen here;


And here;

Female US Navy Sailor Puts Rapist To Sleep With Triangle Choke In Dubai | Bjj Eastern Europe

Martial arts techniques are also honed through constant sparring practice, not just sport-based ones and there are numerous examples (not all caught on video) of them working too.

Honed through constant sparring practice in those schools that actually spar.

Stands to reason considering Judo is a throwing art.

Yes, but the point still stands.
 
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There is nothing arrogant about it, just a statement of fact based on my training. One thing we tell students not to do when they duck is to lean forward in that fashion.

It's pretty arrogant to assume that you know more about striking than a professional boxer, and that said boxer is doing it "wrong".




As stated in one of my earlier posts, he was sparring according to the rules and target areas of the person he is sparring. There are some principles that many martial arts have in common with MMA and other martial arts.

Why the need to switch over to a boxer/MMA style? Isn't TKD good enough?

Then why have you not shown any so far? You always seem to indicate that you think videos prove everything and take every opportunity to show them of other styles and schools. So hunt them down and show us, I'm curious.

Well what would you like to see? Here's my instructor's instructor Relson Gracie playing around with a white belt;


That isn't my particular school, but Relson tends to run his Gjj academies in similar fashion.
 
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I disagree for two reasons. First, you need to define the venue in which they have an edge. Is it in a sporting competitions? If so, we've got an apples and oranges comparison. Is it in the street? I'll take someone with real world combatives experience over a TKD or BJJ gold medalist. Sparring makes a difference for sport, it makes no difference in real world altercations (and is detrimental) for the reasons I've listed above. Secondly, it depends on the school as to how conditioned the practitioner is and not the goal of the school. A martial artist is a person and a person can either be fit or unfit. It is a choice.

Most martial arts instructors have zero real world combatives experience.


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No I wouldn't. Both video samples show how NOT to duck properly, the people in them were lucky they didn't get kneed in the head.

No luck involved at all. The second clip is from a boxing match, so no knees allowed. The first clip is of Anderson Silva, one of the best unarmed fighters on the planet in any style. A whole bunch of top-level professional fighters have had their chance to try kneeing him in the head and none of them has been able to. When he ducks he has precise understanding of where and how his opponent is able to punch, kick, or knee in that moment.
 
LoL! That's a pretty arrogant statement.
I'm sorry but this really is this pot calling the kettle black! :lfao:

It's a real shame that you cannot accept that other styles are trained for many other reasons than fighting in the ring. MMA is great for what it is and other styles are great for what they do too.
 
I'm sorry but this really is this pot calling the kettle black! :lfao:

It's a real shame that you cannot accept that other styles are trained for many other reasons than fighting in the ring. MMA is great for what it is and other styles are great for what they do too.

Styles are trained for fighting period.

I'm of the opinion if a style can't do well in the ring, it probably can't do well in the streets either. That opinion is backed by quite a bit of evidence. For example, boxers, wrestlers, and now MMAers and Jiujiteiros are all "thugs" which traditional martial artists train to fight against in their self defense classes. In all my years in Bjj, we've never trained to stop a "karate guy" from beating us up.

I wonder why that is? ;)
 
Not new. If you have to fight you engage and fight. That is the basic concept of Okinawan Karate and the way they teach the application of kata. Same principle in Krav and in Aikido. Judo engages, BJJ engages, Jujutsu engages, Wrestling engages. I can't think of any non-sport, empty-hand martial art that bounces around give and take like you see in Boxing, most Karate, and TKD. In MMA there is engagement but prior to the engaging you still have the sporting dance. You get penalised for not attacking. Muay Thai is similar in that it has the exchange of strikes but does allow the clinch.

As I have said all along, it is all in the definition. I didn't come into the discussion in the early stages as 'sparring' was defined as;


which is loose enough to cover everything. I don't know any empty hand form of martial art that does fall under that umbrella, unless it is one of the Ninjutsu sub sets. By this definition wrestling does not spar yet is a contact sport. I would suggest that training for wrestling is also sparring, in the broader sense, as much as any other martial art.

So by the definition given we spar in every area of our training. It's just not what a lot of people seem to expect to see when people 'spar'. By the definition given I would suggest contact sparring is essential in most martial arts, just that 'sparring' can be conducted in different ways.
:asian:

Wrestling has a different dynamic to striking. In wrestling yes you need to be re engaging all the time. For striking. You are probably right as I think that is one of the lessons contact sparring teaches you is that you can't just sit there and trade.
 
The Triangle Choke for example. It was created purely for sporting purposes, but it has a strong self defense application seen here;


Again, I'm going to disagree with you. Let me explain why, with respect :wavey:

Did the triangle choke work in this video? Apparently it did. Was it self defense? Hard to say from the video clip, however, let's assume it was. Rather than having a strong self defense application, it has an extremely poor self defense application. First, the guy was so focused on trying to get the choke applied that he was oblivious to his surroundings. Secondly, at no time was he trying to regain his feet as quickly as possible. Thirdly, if this individual had a weapon he would not have been hindered in using it. Fourthly, he was only able to apply this choke due to the good graces of the people surrounding him. If the other guy had a buddy willing to step in and kick in the head of the guy on the bottom it would have gone quite differently. A good ground defensive strategy does NOT employ staying on the ground and does NOT assume that it is a one-on-one fight. A good ground defense strategy utilizes a strategy of regaining the feet as quickly as possible, by whatever means is necessary.

You mentioned training Gracie BJJ, that's great. I know Royce Gracie. At one time he taught at our regional training center. What he taught was the same sport BJJ he taught to competitors. He was invited to teach by a HL coordinator that had never actually been in a use-of-force nor knew what a police or corrections officer really needed in a training venue. BJJ was the flavor of the month and he was apparently a big MMA fan. Now, for the BJJ players reading this....I'm not bashing BJJ. In a sport venue it's fine. In a street venue, particularly for HL professionals it is detrimental training. At first people were a bit dazzled at being able to train with a celebrity. Then they realized that none of the training was useable on the street. He no longer teaches there. Nothing against him personally. It's just that what he has to offer, for the most part doesn't work in our venue. Same thing if Tony Blauer tried to teach sport competitors, it just wouldn't work. BJJ contains 'some' useful tidbits if you find yourself on the ground, but overall the methodology is completely wrong for the goal.

Hopefully that will drive the point home in a way that doesn't get anyone's nose out of joint but provides perspective for consideration.
 
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Most martial arts instructors have zero real world combatives experience.


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I am lucky enough to get ex bouncer ex soldier pro mma fighters. My coach doesn't have real world street. But I do. And i seriously doubt i could take him in a street fight. A lot of the guys I work with have real world street but no formal training to speak of.

The best street fighters I know are generally ex or current sport guys.
 
Styles are trained for fighting period.

I'm of the opinion if a style can't do well in the ring, it probably can't do well in the streets either.

Again, with respect, this is a very narrow view that is limiting your perspective. You are comparing apples to oranges and confusing an attacker with an opponent. A style/system doesn't have to do well in the ring to do well in real life. Why? Because the ring is an artificial environment with an artificial rule set that BOTH participants have agreed to abide by. That isn't real life. A combative system/style will contain strategies/principles/movements/techniques that are not allowed in the ring. And for good reason. In order for a style that is based purely on street combatives to be allowed in the ring it would have to be neutered to fit the sport environment, which means it is no longer the original combative art. It would be the same thing as saying that the BJJ player can't go to the ground or use submission holds, or the TKD player can't kick.
 
Again, with respect, this is a very narrow view that is limiting your perspective. You are comparing apples to oranges and confusing an attacker with an opponent. A style/system doesn't have to do well in the ring to do well in real life. Why? Because the ring is an artificial environment with an artificial rule set that BOTH participants have agreed to abide by. That isn't real life. A combative system/style will contain strategies/principles/movements/techniques that are not allowed in the ring. And for good reason. In order for a style that is based purely on street combatives to be allowed in the ring it would have to be neutered to fit the sport environment, which means it is no longer the original combative art. It would be the same thing as saying that the BJJ player can't go to the ground or use submission holds, or the TKD player can't kick.

Which makes it harder to be sucsessfull winning in a sport context. Basically if you are good at sport. You are going to be better at street when you are not held back.

Train hard fight easy.
 
Styles are trained for fighting period.

I'm of the opinion if a style can't do well in the ring, it probably can't do well in the streets either. That opinion is backed by quite a bit of evidence. For example, boxers, wrestlers, and now MMAers and Jiujiteiros are all "thugs" which traditional martial artists train to fight against in their self defense classes. In all my years in Bjj, we've never trained to stop a "karate guy" from beating us up.

I wonder why that is? ;)
Well that is your opinion and you have stated it over and over until everyone is quite sick of hearing it. I have never thought of boxers etc being thugs although it is true that certain 'colourful' identities have been known to hang out in gyms. I have never trained with the intent of protecting myself against them and I have never heard anyone I have trained with say anything like that, so I'm not sure where that piece of BS came from.

As as to wanting to beat up on MMAs. Sure! If I wanted to do that I would train MMA. The mere fact that I don't proves the lie.
 
Which makes it harder to be sucsessfull winning in a sport context. Basically if you are good at sport. You are going to be better at street when you are not held back.

Train hard fight easy.

Except that under duress/stress you revert to your training (which includes the methodology). Haven't you researched into this yet? You really should if you haven't.
 

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