Slippery people

[Carol]

Forgive the gratuitous Talking Heads reference

Now that summer is here...ever have trouble sparring when its ninety-eleven degrees outside and you and your sparring parter are soaked in sweat?

How do you adapt to the conditions?

 

[Eternal Beginner]

Definitely! Especially when we roll no-gi. Secret is grip strength a lot of times. I do a lot of specific excersises with my strength and conditioning coach to improve my grip and it makes a huge difference in both gi and no-gi.

 

[Yeti]

Forgive the gratuitous Talking Heads reference

Now that summer is here...ever have trouble sparring when its ninety-eleven degrees outside and you and your sparring parter are soaked in sweat?

How do you adapt to the conditions?

Ha! Try doing sensitivity drills / push hands! You go to uproot your opponent and slip right up his arm to his shoulder. LOL!

 

[bushidomartialarts]

I have a student who's literally 6'8". And he sweats like it's a medical condition. Sometimes in the summer it feels like rain.

At least he's healthy with a good diet, so it doesn't smell bad.

 

[Carol]

I have a student who's literally 6'8". And he sweats like it's a medical condition. Sometimes in the summer it feels like rain.

At least he's healthy with a good diet, so it doesn't smell bad.

So how do you adapt to that, Jason?

 

[bushidomartialarts]

Why, I wear a wide-brimmed hat. Sometimes we do self-defense with an umbrella.

Mostly, I just kid him.

Kenpo is so strike-oriented, most of the time sweat doesn't really affect our training. Shots might glance off a little weird, but we rarely go for a grab.

 

[Mark L]

What EB said, have a good grip. We don't go no-gi, so that helps (and I do recognize that that is a limitation in our training). When we roll I try to get grips that minimize slippage: Muay-Thai clinch on the ground or standing with full wraps with both hands and wrists hooking around the neck, wrap up arms tight and above the elbow, grab the wrist between the ulna-radius and meta-carpal bones, make it hard work to get past those bulky bone endings rather than just slippery skin, when you make a grab take the focus away from that action by offering a distraction (if you're focus is on grabbing the wrist or elbow to execute a specific technique, feint towards a throat/neck attack or collar choke activity to make that the opponents focus). If slippery is to difficult an obstacle, then just whack 'em.

 

[CuongNhuka]

We took off our jackets the other day at sparring. First time we did that, since I was there.

 

[Kacey]

We don't do much grabbing - but we do work out outside in the summer, usually in dobak pants and t-shirts. It's entirely possible that you could be attacked by a sweaty attacker, so it's just another condition to train for. As BMA said, we don't do much grappling; sweat doesn't affect strikes as much, although when your opponent is really sweaty and sweat flies off their face and body into your eyes, it's kind of nasty... but it's something that could happen in a real self-defense situation.

 

[ChingChuan]

Yesterday I trained in a dojo where there wasn't really much ventilation, so everyone and the mats got all sweaty... It wasn't really hard to adapt to it - you just had to watch out that you didn't slip on the floor. We were doing some grappling techniques but I didn't need to adjust my grip or something.

I mean - how much does everyone sweat? Don't we all sweat during the warming up etc?

 

[megat]

better ventilated rooms, hehehhe sweat smells can kill

 

[tellner]

You just learn to cope, especially if you practice something up close and personal like wrestling or Silat.

 

[qi-tah]

Now that summer is here...ever have trouble sparring when its ninety-eleven degrees outside and you and your sparring parter are soaked in sweat?

Not that i miss 40 degree days and bushfire haze or anything, but it would be nice to build up a sweat at training at the mo...

It's so cold right now that everyone is wearing jumpers to train in!

How do you adapt to the conditions?

To sweat? I don't grip as hard or as much, oddly enough. I try to use locks and hooks more than grabs during grappling, and leg takes also become more appealing. Also, as others have said as well, i look for more in the way of striking solutions.

 

[Andrew Green]

How would you train with people not soaked in sweat for more then a few minutes...? Seems thats the way everyone ends up at any time of the year:shrug:

 

[IcemanSK]

When I had my 3rd Dan test in March (hot, sticky Florida) we did SD against grabs with a partner. In my 1st throat grab to my partner, I couldn't hold him; he was so slippery. When the jugding pannel saw that they gave me a disapproving look. Needless to say, he had a much harder time getting out the next time. Grab harder, is the only thing I've ever found that helps in those cases.

T-shirts with wicking properties under a uniform help a lot. Or just the shirt, if your instructor allows it.