First I'll show you an aspect of light sparring. Most of the times you only see me working on one or 2 techniques at a time when I spar. I use sparring to learn which means I care more about getting things correct than about winning. This is what I can do with a front leg sweep (my front leg does the sweeping here). Play it in slow motion and you can see that I need very little room to pull it off.
The reason I'm showing this video is because of the reality of the sweep and how things don't always appear as they seem.
- The faster you come at me, the easier it is for me
- The harder you come at me, the easier it is for me
- The faster you come at me, the more I'll increase my intensity and speed.
- The harder you come at me, the more power I'll put into my attacks
The first 44 seconds one would think I'm below average in sparring. beginning it looks like I'm not that experienced in sparring. Count the number of punches and kicks I throw. I look horrible. But what you don't know until now, is that the first 44 seconds is just me studying my opponent. Taking notes, identifying patterns, looking for openings, testing my opponents reaction and a bunch of other things. Did I mention I spare to learn? This is how I am most of the time when I spar. Think about it, Do you really think that sweep is going to be lighter and slower if I increase my intensity, speed, and power? When it comes to sweeps the more you increase your intensity the easier it is to pull off a sweeps. Sweeps 101. When my opponent increases intensity and power it means he's fully committed to the movement, it also means it's more difficult for him to stop and evade, reverse and evade, change direction and evade. This is why I like fighting brawlers. The difficult fighters are those who commit just enough to nail you without reducing their ability to backout of a bait, counter, or trap.
I have one more light sparring video to show then I'll show my intermediate sparring.
I probably should have made this a different thread. So the next one will probably be in a different thread.