How to spar without sustaining major injuries?

Bruno@MT

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The two are tied togeather. You can't be exposed to it unless there is violent behavior.

Not true.

If I am a frail old lady, then my chances of getting mugged in the street at night and my purse stolen are higher then if I was a bear like Bas Rutten.
And somehow I doubt that that statistic implies violent behavior on the part of frail old ladies.
 

ATC

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Not true.

If I am a frail old lady, then my chances of getting mugged in the street at night and my purse stolen are higher then if I was a bear like Bas Rutten.
And somehow I doubt that that statistic implies violent behavior on the part of frail old ladies.
:rofl:
 

ATC

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Are you intentionally trying to be insulted or what?
MY color indeed does not have anything to do with the seriousness of a concussion, but it does have to do with the chances of me being a victim because that is what crime statistics indicate.

So if I was that factory worker who does not have to look at a computer screen all day (something known to be the potentially problematic after a concussion) then concussion is less of a career risk. Furhermore, if my color and circumstance put me in the higher risk range for violence, then those odds outweigh the risk of concussion.

Why are you intent on picking the worst possible meaning for my words?
Your words not mine and most of what you just said really did not even make any sense.
 

ATC

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WRONG. You are using the term "stats" to mean something it doesn't. Of course at an individual level it feels like stats tell us nothing, but that isn't the case. And I've never implied that stats were absolute.

It's like in poker, if I have pocket Aces and my opponent has pocket queens on a flop of Ace Queen 4 of clubs, statistically I am ahead about 93-7. I can base decisions off this. Doesn't mean I always win, but there is good predictive validity. Same thing in social sciences research. We DO model the intangibles. They come in as confidence intervals and variances. And the great thing about science of any flavor, when the model isn't enough, you do more research and keep trying to figure out the model.

Thinking there are too many intangibles is the type of thinking that gets people thinking that remote prayer, homeopathy, and other things work even when the data shows they don't.
I can see we are not even in the same book let alone the same page. You keep trying to justify someone racist statement with statistics and studies. I am simply pointing out that no matter the odds (I do understand what you are trying to say) you just can't make those blanket statements as if they are absolutes.

Anyone in any bad neighborhood has bad odds. Just as anyone in any good neighborhood has better odds. A well to do Hispanic living in a nice upscale neighborhood only staying in that nice neighborhood has just as good of odds as any white in the same neighborhood. So knowing that, there is no need to state that you are white, black, brown, red, or any color when making such statements. Doing so hints on racism, if you don't think so then you don't, but I do.

What purpose does it serve for me to say, "Being a middle class white male with an engineering job, living in a safe neighborhood, the added benefits of full contact sparring does not outweigh the risk of full contact sparring injury."?

If you can't see how that statement appears racist then something is wrong. It implies that only white males can have engineering jobs and live in safe neighborhoods.

I have an engineering job and live in a safe neighborhood. As well as many of my engineering friends who are also not white.

Then to follow up that statement with the next was classic and right on time. "If I was a colored factory worker living in Schaerbeek (bad place near Brussels) then the consequences of a concussion would not be as serious."

Why not? colored people don't need their brains. I would love to hear the doctor patient converstation.

Doctor: So I see you are a colored factory worker, Just take two aspirins and call me in the morning. You don't need a cat scan to see if you brain is bleeding, we have more important white engineers to tend to.

Colored person (green I guess): But doc my head hurts and I can’t see, and everything is blurry. I might kill someone down at the factory if I can’t see what I am doing.

Doctor: Don’t worry about that, just as long as it isn’t a white engineer.

You keep on defending statements like the ones above.
 

ATC

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FYI, Bruno @MT made his statement with no reference to any statistical data at all. He simply made his statement based off the fact that he was placing more value on his job than any full contact sparring. He never intended for that statement to be in reference to any studies or stats, just read the post again. It is only after I inferred his statement to be slanted that justification of the statement was made, and not by him I might add. Read post number 47 again.

So any debate between JWLuiza and granfire is just that, debate.
 

Chris Parker

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Hmm. Well, this is interesting.

ATC, I hate to say it, but you are being overly sensitive to a non-situation. What Bruno said, if you take his entire sentence, rather than just the fragment you constantly use, in context, he simply stated that due to who he is (a white middle class male), what he does (he is an engineer, a rather safe indoor job), and where he is (uh, Belgium actually. We'll return to this though...), he is fairly unlikely to be involved in a serious violent encounter. Therefore his need for full contact sparring, and the added risk of serous injury which could take him from his livelihood, was not sufficient to justify it in his personal circumstances. So you know, I'm in a very similar situation. I'm a white, middle-upper class male in a very safe job in a very safe environment with a very safe lifestyle.... hmm, I suppose I'm racist now that I mentioned a simple fact too.

You then siezed upon one word, "white". For you that made his entire comment about race, when that was one of many different aspects of his personal situation that he brought up... not first, not last, just one of quite a few. But you leapt on it. That suggests a few things to me. For one thing, it suggests to me that you haven't taken the time to recognise the full reality of Bruno's situation, or his post.

Another thing it suggests to me, and forgive me if any of this is incorrect, I haven't really followed your posts on the forum in general so this may have been addressed by yourself or others at some point, but I feel that perhaps you yourself are not white. I would probably guess Hispanic if pressed. Your location is given as San Jose, so it is not out of the question that you have seen both racism and reverse racism, depending on exactly where you are, with yourself, your friends, your family, and people around you in general. But you need to remember that that is your situation in your home. In the US.

Bruno is not in the US.

Although I would never suggest that racism is only present in the US, or that it doesn't exist in Belgium (or anywhere else, for that matter), the US does seem to have it's own peculiar brand. There are many reasons for this, and I'm not going to go into them here. The point is more that you actually cannot apply the same hysterical politically-correct standards to other cultures and societies, and when reading Bruno's words (or mine, I'm not in the US either), you cannot apply your personal meaning and construe that he or I, or anyone, are guilty of racism that frankly is present only in your interpretation.

With the comments about the relative seriousness of a concussion, I believe what Bruno was saying was that with his life and circumstances as they are, risking a concussion in training when weighed up against his likelihood to require the benefits of such hard contact in training in the immediate future were minimal. However, for another who was more likely in need of immediate ways of handling sudden violence, such training (the risk of a concussion due to solid contact) had immediately recognisable benefits, so it would be more realistic for them to train in such a manner. It was not that the concussion itself would be less serious, it was that the relative risk made it less of a serious issue (as the higher risk of a violent encounter in the near future was more of a serious issue for our fictional high-risk individual). You really are reading too much into this.

As to disputing the statistics, well, you're really up against it there. Certain racial groups, same as certain socio-economic groups, same as certain age groups, same as certain gender groups, same as certain sexual preference groups, same as any other group with a significant differential, will be more or less likely for certain life experiences. Any study/statement (that can be backed up) which claims such is not racist/sexist/prejudiced etc any more than a statement that saying that white cars tend to stay cooler than black ones. It's just an observation, devoid of judgement or blame. That is how Bruno's statement was to be read. You may want to go back and re-read it, perhaps the entire sentence this time.

As I said, I get the feeling that racism has been a part of your past, and is possibly still quite a part of your present, and for that I am sorry. But that in no way makes any tiny mention of race a racist statement, and you may need to widen your own views of prejudice before re-entering this discussion. Granfire and JWLuiza have been more than correct, and Bruno has been unfairly vilified. I may even go so far as to suggest an apology may not be out of the question.

Okay, that was interesting for a bit.

As to the OP (although I'm noting that they have yet to return and post again, let alone reply here), those injuries are far from serious. We don't spar, but we push things pretty hard, and injuries, although not common, do happen. If you are training a martial art, recognise that a big part of the training is getting you used to (become comfortable) a dangerous situation. And some exposure to injury is to be expected. It should never get to the point where control is forgotten, but there needs to be some risk.
 

Jade Tigress

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ATTENTION ALL USERS

This thread has veered way off topic. Please return to the original topic of how to spar without sustaining major injuries.

Thank you.

Pamela Piszczek
MT Asst Admin
 

ATC

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Hmm. Well, this is interesting.

ATC, I hate to say it, but you are being overly sensitive to a non-situation. What Bruno said, if you take his entire sentence, rather than just the fragment you constantly use, in context, he simply stated that due to who he is (a white middle class male), what he does (he is an engineer, a rather safe indoor job), and where he is (uh, Belgium actually. We'll return to this though...), he is fairly unlikely to be involved in a serious violent encounter. Therefore his need for full contact sparring, and the added risk of serous injury which could take him from his livelihood, was not sufficient to justify it in his personal circumstances. So you know, I'm in a very similar situation. I'm a white, middle-upper class male in a very safe job in a very safe environment with a very safe lifestyle.... hmm, I suppose I'm racist now that I mentioned a simple fact too.

You then siezed upon one word, "white". For you that made his entire comment about race, when that was one of many different aspects of his personal situation that he brought up... not first, not last, just one of quite a few. But you leapt on it. That suggests a few things to me. For one thing, it suggests to me that you haven't taken the time to recognise the full reality of Bruno's situation, or his post.

Another thing it suggests to me, and forgive me if any of this is incorrect, I haven't really followed your posts on the forum in general so this may have been addressed by yourself or others at some point, but I feel that perhaps you yourself are not white. I would probably guess Hispanic if pressed. Your location is given as San Jose, so it is not out of the question that you have seen both racism and reverse racism, depending on exactly where you are, with yourself, your friends, your family, and people around you in general. But you need to remember that that is your situation in your home. In the US.

Bruno is not in the US.

Although I would never suggest that racism is only present in the US, or that it doesn't exist in Belgium (or anywhere else, for that matter), the US does seem to have it's own peculiar brand. There are many reasons for this, and I'm not going to go into them here. The point is more that you actually cannot apply the same hysterical politically-correct standards to other cultures and societies, and when reading Bruno's words (or mine, I'm not in the US either), you cannot apply your personal meaning and construe that he or I, or anyone, are guilty of racism that frankly is present only in your interpretation.

With the comments about the relative seriousness of a concussion, I believe what Bruno was saying was that with his life and circumstances as they are, risking a concussion in training when weighed up against his likelihood to require the benefits of such hard contact in training in the immediate future were minimal. However, for another who was more likely in need of immediate ways of handling sudden violence, such training (the risk of a concussion due to solid contact) had immediately recognisable benefits, so it would be more realistic for them to train in such a manner. It was not that the concussion itself would be less serious, it was that the relative risk made it less of a serious issue (as the higher risk of a violent encounter in the near future was more of a serious issue for our fictional high-risk individual). You really are reading too much into this.

As to disputing the statistics, well, you're really up against it there. Certain racial groups, same as certain socio-economic groups, same as certain age groups, same as certain gender groups, same as certain sexual preference groups, same as any other group with a significant differential, will be more or less likely for certain life experiences. Any study/statement (that can be backed up) which claims such is not racist/sexist/prejudiced etc any more than a statement that saying that white cars tend to stay cooler than black ones. It's just an observation, devoid of judgement or blame. That is how Bruno's statement was to be read. You may want to go back and re-read it, perhaps the entire sentence this time.

As I said, I get the feeling that racism has been a part of your past, and is possibly still quite a part of your present, and for that I am sorry. But that in no way makes any tiny mention of race a racist statement, and you may need to widen your own views of prejudice before re-entering this discussion. Granfire and JWLuiza have been more than correct, and Bruno has been unfairly vilified. I may even go so far as to suggest an apology may not be out of the question.

Okay, that was interesting for a bit.

As to the OP (although I'm noting that they have yet to return and post again, let alone reply here), those injuries are far from serious. We don't spar, but we push things pretty hard, and injuries, although not common, do happen. If you are training a martial art, recognise that a big part of the training is getting you used to (become comfortable) a dangerous situation. And some exposure to injury is to be expected. It should never get to the point where control is forgotten, but there needs to be some risk.
Sorry I disagree.
 

Daniel Sullivan

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You got to be kidding me in my school it takes about 18 to 24 months to get to green. In four months you are maybe ready for a yellow stripe, my beginners belts stay that way for at;east a year. Why doeas the ITA geet people to mid belt so fast, not knocking it but trying to ynderstand the way of teaching, I believe the basics take a longtime to get prety good at it.
This is one of the reasons that I prefer to use keup grade rather than belt color. I have no idea where a greenbelt falls in the ITA syllabus. If is where ours is (6th keup), then four months is definitely very short. At our school, green is roughly a year out and is 6th keup.

But if green belt is representing eighth keup, then four months isn't so outrageous.

Daniel
 

Daniel Sullivan

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I just watched this clip and I am wondering something: why are they both hanging their arms down, instead of keeping their guard up?
Not sure if this has been answered.

The reason is that they are doing WTF sport taekwondo.

Without a lengthy explanation, and without inviting any commentary on WTF sport TKD (the OP is ITF, so for her, what people think of WTF sport is irrelevant), the basic strategy is highly effective within that rule set.

The arms staying at the sides make it harder for your opponent to score a torso shot and timing, distance, and movement are used to defend against kicks to the head. Punches are very difficult, if not impossible, to score with and they are only permitted to the body, which is well padded.

Daniel
 
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jks9199

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Hey, what does any discussion of race have to do with the OP's question? Maybe the OP can give us an update? Have things improved? Or are there still problems in her school?
 

terryl965

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But will she want to?

If her car was unable ro turn left..
icon10.gif
 

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