sparring

[The Kai]

If someone grabs you by the throat and you massage thier face, your problem ain't sparring. If in spite of yor fear, anger and adreline you still manage to hold your strikes back you really should not blame sparring. A couple of the years ago the regional point sparring champs had a reputation as feared fighters inside or outside the dojo-good thing they were holding back

Training with full force takedowns and full contact grappling/wrestling on acement floor in conjection with full strenght kicks and punchs to the head, man the injury rate had to be incredible. I know when I was coming up Sensei could pretty much stop me in my tracks with a punch to the body, and that was with a glove on-I can't imagine how it would be if he took his fist and smashed my face, so the back of my head would crack onto the concrete!

 

[Andrew Green]

Sensei could pretty much stop me in my tracks with a punch to the body, and that was with a glove on

No offence here, but I'm sure there are a lot of boxers that can punch a lot harder then your instructor, they all manage to train hard.

What kind of glove was he wearing? Are you used to full contact training and do you have the conditioning and the experience to absorb heavy blows to the midsection?

-I can't imagine how it would be if he took his fist and smashed my face, so the back of my head would crack onto the concrete!

Once again, there are many full contact fighters that can I would imagine hit a lot harder, yet fights don't end after one punch.

As for your floor, that is an equipment issue. Get some good mats. You wouldn't spar without a cup and mouthguard right? Mats are no different when working a good chunk of the things related to fighting.

 

[BlackCatBonz]

andrew, my whole point is about removing restrictions.
im not talking about competition.
im not talking about gloves, headgear, and cauliflower ears.
im talking about self defense.
training for competition of any sort will help you with stamina, and MMA is the big deal now. some of those guys are tough hombre's. but the fact remains, not all guys that study MMA's are tough hombre's.......if you want to practice for competition, then you use that method. if you want to practice in order to save your own life, or to protect your family, i believe it requires a different kind of training that one doesnt see very much anymore.

back to the very first question on the thread, which i dont think i answered.

get out of the way of speeding cars.

 

[The Kai]

Unfortunatly the day of exageratted step thru punchs, overly obvious garb attacks are gone. Sparring is not a end all by a means to the end

 

[BlackCatBonz]

I can't imagine how it would be if he took his fist and smashed my face, so the back of my head would crack onto the concrete!

tuck your chin!

 

[Andrew Green]

andrew, my whole point is about removing restrictions.

That's good, that's what needs to be done...

im not talking about competition.

Ok.

im not talking about gloves, headgear, and cauliflower ears.

Well, equipment dictates what you can and can't do safely in training, so it is rather relevant. Not sure where cauliflower ears came from though...

im talking about self defense.

If you like.

training for competition of any sort will help you with stamina,

Tactics change, not much else. Competition training means adding things like ring work, scoring points in case of decision, watching round times, etc.

and MMA is the big deal now.

Which begs the question, why?

MMA is nothing new, it's just new here. Pankration goes all the way back to the ancient Olympics.

not all guys that study MMA's are tough hombre's.......

Same for anything else...

But anybody that spars hard, is gonna get fairly tough.

if you want to practice for competition, then you use that method. if you want to practice in order to save your own life, or to protect your family,

Then go to University, get a better job, move to a nicer area and install a security system. Much more effective then learning empty handed fighting.

It has nothing to do with competition, it has to do with getting effective. Boxers, Wrestlers, Judo, Football players, Hockey players, etc. All train in basically the same way. Why? Because it works, and it works well, so far we haven't found a way that works better.

If training to fight in a ring under time limits and judges isn't your thing, then don't train for those things. But the training methods stay the same, just the tactics differ. Want to throw weapons in there, go for it, we do. It's good fun, and teaches you a lot about weapons fighting (Like, if you do it you will get hit / cut, it's just a matter of how many times and how bad)

Want multiple attackers, do that. Same method, tactics will differ though.

Want eye gouges? Get some googles or masks and go for it.

Sparring is not something that has to follow competition rules. Even MMA rules can be broken in sparring.

i believe it requires a different kind of training that one doesnt see very much anymore.

Such as?

 

[The Kai]

tuck your chin!

Tucking your chin would be a great way to stop from your head snapping back into the mat during the fall, but when a guy is crunching a fist into your face the force of the punch would pretty much give your head the basketball effect, if not cause you to lose consciousness and then you get your head bounced. Wow! On a concrete floor what if a punch misses or richochets off your melon, knuckles on concrete!

 

[BlackCatBonz]

i guess that depends on whether or not you let someone crunch a fist into your face.
has it happened? you bet.
did it happen often? nope......you learn to keep your hands up.
have i lost consciousness during class and hit my head on the floor?......yep, and it wasnt pretty but it was what i signed up for.
have my knuckles hit the floor? indeed, hurts like hell. along with knees, heels, face and elbows.
i never had any teeth knocked out or had any limbs broken.......but ive had my nose mashed into my face on a few occasions which has resulted in a funny looking offset.

my whole point, todd, you get out what you put in.......you'll only get punched in the face until you start learning how to get out of the way or keep your hands up.
the sadistic way i was taught may seem out of line with the way people go about it now, but it is no different than how the pioneers of jujutsu, karate, and more recently kajukenbo learned how to fight.
there are still teachers out there that use this method........they just dont have a whole lot of students.

 

[The Kai]

Even monkeys fall out of trees, right so even the most expert of anybody gets caught with a punch once in a while. Thinking of a full power, bare knuckled punch while I have my back to the floor-Kinda Scary-Well i imagine what would be the liabilty rates be like, how easy would it be to sue someone who did'nt take any precautions for the safety of his students, I imagine that you guys had people going to the hospital at a pretty good clip! Was there ever a lawsuit?

In the old days the KaJu crowd banged without gear on, because there was no gear!
Something that always has me scratch my head, Hanshi made a name in sparring, in fact still does spar (at least until a few years ago)-and a couple of years back actually promoted a tournament with his annual gathering. Yet, the average sksk guy refuses to spar. Most odd.

 

[Andrew Green]

Anybody that claims they don't get hit never spars/fights.

It's one of the guarantees of fighting, you WILL get hit.

 

[BlackCatBonz]

Well i imagine what would be the liabilty rates, how easy would it be to sue someone who did'nt take any precautions for the safety of his students, I imagine that you guys had people going to the hospital at a pretty good clip! Was there ever a lawsuit?


In the old days the KaJu crowd banged without gear on, because there was no gear!
Something that alwys has me scratch my head, Hanshi made a name sparring, in fact still does spar (at least until a few years ago)-and a couple of years back actually promoted a tournament with his annual gathering. Yet, the average sksk guy refuses to spar. Most odd.

we signed a waiver before we started training and it was done in his basement.
there is a certain amount of trust that one puts in his teacher. i was told i would get hurt......but we were learning how to fight and thats what happens. you knew what you were in for before you even stepped into the dojo. i would imagine if someone was killed there would be a lawsuit, but the reality is.....you made a decision to give informed consent to have someone teach you, understanding the pros and cons of the method.
plenty of people watched before they made up their mind.

when i look back on it, it doesnt seem as hard as it might sound, simply because that was our normal routine.

ive never been to one of the SKSK gatherings.....i cant afford such luxury.
as for the SKSK people that i train with......we never really sparred either.
as with any group.....there are some pretty wishy washy teachers out there. there is only so much you can do in a commercial environment.
ive learned a lot by studying kosho.......but the classes i attended were pretty tame compared to what i was used to.

 

[MJS]

Should'nt sparring complement your training and not be an end it?

Absolutely! Its only one part of the training. However we're gearing our training is IMO how we should be gearing our sparring. There are other things though that should be addressed in ones training other than sparring.

Mike

 

[The Kai]

Waivers protect from reasonable risks if a court decides that you were put through unreasonable risks. Holding Classes in his basement-now his house is up for grabs. Unfortunatly any injury, short term or life long as a result of unreasonable risks would be grounds for a lawsuit.


Did you guys were mouth pieces and cups at least?

If this was how you trained every day there must be a ton of trauma injuries as well as overuse or stress injuries

Irronically with the right incorporation papers to protect his personall assets, a comercial location would probably be better protection!

So Hanshi is wrong for sparring?

 

[BlackCatBonz]

Waivers protect from reasonable risks if a court decides that you were put through unreasonable risks. Holding Classes in his basement-now his house is up for grabs. Unfortunatly any injury, short term or life long as a result of unreasonable risks would be grounds for a lawsuit.


Did you guys were mouth pieces and cups at least?

If this was how you trained every day there must be a ton of trauma injuries as well as overuse or stress injuries

Irronically with the right incorporation papers to protect his personall assets, a comercial location would probably be better protection!

todd, would you sign up for a class knowing injury was imminent and then turn around and sue that same teacher for being injured?
less than honourable, if you ask me.......no one forced you to play.

im sure thats why Doc goes through what he does with prospective students.......to weed out the hackers, which the martial arts world is full of.

if you were to teach like that in a commercial location.....im sure you would spend most of your time staring into the big fancy mirror on the dojo wall.

is learning how to fight or how to end another persons life reasonable?

 

[The Kai]

DEpending on the extent of the injuries, if you are out of work for a while you kinda "have" too.


You guys at least wore a cup and a mouthguard, right?

 

[kempoguy71]

I've read bits and pieces of this thread and it seems that there's an incongruence regarding the term "sparring".

How do people here define "sparring"?

In my opinon, sparring for sport (e.g. point-sparring) vs. sparring for self-defense purposes are two different things. (Fwiw, my opinion is that sparring for sport is not conducive to actual skill in self-defense. In other words, it could be counter-productive to learning how to defend yourself).

Also, sparring could mean a free flow sparring (e.g a "fight") where two people square off (mutually agreeing to fight like in NHB, Boxing etc.) vs. self-defense type sparring.

For me "sparring" (free flow and self-defense) is part of the training process, not a means to an end. It is a way to train your fear reactivity, i.e. how to cope with your flinch reflex and adrenal response. This type of training (again imho) should be done at various speeds, such as slow movement sparring (without changing physics, i.e. track someones head by changing your force vector in the middle of your strike, which would be impossible at full speed); free-flow sparring in a NHB type environment with striking, clinching and grappling if appropriate; to full contact training wearing something like Tony Blauer's 'High Gear'.

Again, this type of training should not replace your other training (including solo forms training), but should be an important aspect of your training.

Here's an example of what I mean by 'self-defense type sparring':

When training for self-defense we frequently simulate a potential 'self-defense scenarios'. By the way, for this type of training you "MUST" suit up in protective gear, we use "Hi Gear" for those who may be familiar (which is a body armor along with a facemask / helmet), as it can be rather dangerous.

In any event, let me give you an example of what happened during one of these simulations (an actual event). One of the scenarios we often introduce is a simulation where the "victim" is standing by an ATM (ok, so we pretended it's an ATM).

The simulation started with the would-be attacker walking up to the victim. After a verbal exchange between the two (the attacker was distracting him) another guy, the accomplice, came up behind the victim. Who by the way was unaware this was going to happen (in other words it was not pre-arranged).

Now this is where things got interesting...

The accomplice rushed the victim for a takedown from behind. (Keep in mind all the participants are wearing "armor" and this is 'anything goes' type of training). Somehow the victim managed to free himself (it wasn't pretty but resembled one of our techniques) and managed to cut the first guy off in mid-stride with a heelpalm strike to the helmet (it was to his jaw and knocked the guy out cold for a few seconds)... and at the same time managed to distract the accomplice enough to get out of the 'area' (which is what we always suggest in a self-defense scenario).

As a side note, I found it interesting that contrary to popular belief (in particular by the BJJ crowd) our simulations only went to the ground 30% of the time...

As you can see, this has very little to do with point-sparring, yet it is sparring nontheless. I personally feel that if someone is serious about DEFENDING themselves, they ought to take the proper precautionary measures and train to defend themselves by training alive against fully resistant opponents using the technology available (the protective armor and training methods) to its fullest extent.

Just some thoughts from the cheapseats...

KG

 

[BlackCatBonz]

DEpending on the extent of the injuries, if you are out of work for a while you kinda "have" too.


You guys at least wore a cup and a mouthguard, right?

no and no.

 

[The Kai]

No Cup< No mouthguard Full Contact strikes being delivered when on your back on a concrete floor. I don't think there is liability waiver that would get you out of a lawsuit!

Also I imagine given the injury rates that most students would be short timers!