Contact Sparring

[Maestro402]

Crew

I respect your opinions here and need some help.

I began learning and practicing Taekwondo about 2 years ago. I began in the Taekwondo America system and LOVED it. Now I have moved to a different state and am practicing/learning in a WTF dojang under a very traditional Korean team of instructors. My technique has honestly never been better via a text book. HERE IS MY PROBLEM ......

.... in this dojang we spar but have NO NO NO contact during sparring. We will contact each other in a controlled enviroment of you go then i go but no free sparring contact. I asked around and they said at least once or twice a week they used to but not in a year or so.

I am all about using control when sparring anyway. When in Taekwondo America we use to spar daily but we used control. I found that being able to make contact but with control helped a TON.

My delima is this .... what do I do. I love the instructors and fellow students. I think if we could make contact we could help each other alot. A couple of us bend the rules a touch and work with each other but get corrected. I actually had a couple of the students correct me and/or get aggravated while shadow sparring I got within 2 feet of round kicking to someones head .... literally ... 2 feet (no where close to them).

What should I do! I love the school but this is really bothering me. I know when i go back to my TA school to visit friends my sparring skills are gonna lessened.

Thoughts ... Opinions?

 

[jda]

Go to a different dojang. I feel that if you practice missing, you'll miss when it counts.

 

[Gemini]

You need to trust your instructors. If you don't beleive in them, don't train under them. It won't benefit either of you.

That said,no contact sparring is pretty common though different schools do have different beliefs and opinions on the subject. I personally am a strong believer in no contact simply because no contact = light contact. Light contact = heavy contact. Newer students have not yet learned to gauge either power or accuracy and Instructors don't want students hurting each other.

In your case, I'd really have to see it to completely understand the situation as you described it. Getting corrected for kicking 2 feet away doesn't make sense, but them again, you said it was a fellow student, not an instructor? Anyway, no contact is meant to be full speed as close to the target as possible without touching.

Maybe next time ask specifically what you're being corrected for and challenge what you don't understand. It wouldn't be the first time an assisting student misrepresented his instructors wishes.

Regards,

 

[Maestro402]

You need to trust your instructors. If you don't beleive in them, don't train under them. It won't benefit either of you.

That said,no contact sparring is pretty common though different schools do have different beliefs and opinions on the subject. I personally am a strong believer in no contact simply because no contact = light contact. Light contact = heavy contact. Newer students have not yet learned to gauge either power or accuracy and Instructors don't want students hurting each other.

In your case, I'd really have to see it to completely understand the situation as you described it. Getting corrected for kicking 2 feet away doesn't make sense, but them again, you said it was a fellow student, not an instructor? Anyway, no contact is meant to be full speed as close to the target as possible without touching.

Maybe next time ask specifically what you're being corrected for and challenge what you don't understand. It wouldn't be the first time an assisting student misrepresented his instructors wishes.

Regards,

I see your points and they are well taken. Do you believe that learning defense becomes an issue. I find that it is impossible to practice combinations or defense b/c the person hardly moves when being kicked at. They know they aren't going to be contacted. Thoughts?

I trust the instructors and sure they are a reason. I want to discuss with them but don't want to be disrespectful.

 

[Gemini]

I see your points and they are well taken. Do you believe that learning defense becomes an issue. I find that it is impossible to practice combinations or defense b/c the person hardly moves when being kicked at. They know they aren't going to be contacted. Thoughts?

No, I absolutely do not believe it inhibits defense at all, but your next statement is a key component.

A common side effect of no contact is exactly what you said. The person getting kicked does not acknowledge the kick. Everyone (including me once upon a time) starts here and it's something that you have to get past to be successful.

Most importantly, the practitioners have to understand the concept that you're not there to improve your skills, you're there to improve your partners skills and then he in turn, yours. Really no different than when you practice things like take down drills, You always have the "tough guy" that insists on showing his superior strength by never going down. He just can't get his brain around the concept that he's on the receiving end of someone who's trying to learn a technique.

A good partner understands it's his job to provide the acknowledgement to his partner of success or failure. People don't generally intend to be poor training partners and when you explain the concept, more often than not, they get with the program.

Unfortunately, there's always will be the guy mentioned above that won't. He earns full contact humility with me so he see first hand how ineffective he's being for his partner. If that doesn't work, I reserve the right to remove him from the program until he demonstrates he's mature enough to contribute productively FOR HIS PARTNER. Fortunately, it's never gotten that far.

 

[dancingalone]

Look around for a sparring group in your area. You can continue to train TKD at your school... just try to find sparring opportunities elsewhere with contact. It is healthy anyway occasionally to work with people outside your usual training grounds.

 

[ATC]

As far as what you should do, I can't answer that. Only you can do that and should do that, not anyone else.

However sparring with no contact is great for white belts, but even they need to understand what it feels like to be hit and to hit. If you don't then don't expect to win in any situation. Be it sparring, competition, or in real life.

I have been to many full contact tournaments where I have seen kids that do light to no contact quit after the first time they are hit with a light to medium type hit. These kids squirt tears like I have never seen and crumble to the ground with the lightest touch.

If you can't use your art or even sport in some cases then what good is it and why waste time and money. Well maybe not a waste if you just want and activity but still you get the point.

You cannot learn to hit hard or with power if you don't do it. Your body needs to be conditioned to give and take. You cannot develop this conditioning without hitting and getting hit, not even on a bag. Bone on bone hurts both ways. To kick an elbow and keep on going means that you have to get use to it. To block a punch or kick and to keep on going means that you have to get use to it. Without contact you don't even understand how you will react one way or another.

Now that is just one reason why you need contact. You also need contact to understand that how you kick or punch a target is vastly different then how you kick a person that is kicking and punching back. Opponents test your accuracy vs. timing as well as your balance all at the same time. Nothing else test this. You want to kick your opponent but your opponent wants to kick you and you both do this at close to the same time. The person that hits hardest wins as the soft kicker will be kicked off balance and may simply drop his/her kicking leg instead of continuing the kick.

We have all white belts use full contact vs. any Sr. level belt. Sr. levels belts can make no contact to white belts at the same time. This at least gets the white belt use to kicking an understanding that kicking or punching someone hurts, not only the person that they are hitting but for them as hitters as well.

Once you get your yellow belt you will be hit back, but with control. No hitting does not create control. Hitting and learning to disengage your technique at the last minute create or develops control. Just because you don't hit does not mean you have control, it just means that you missed.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Find some people over 18 with their heads screwed on straight who would benefit from sparring that does not set them up for failure and arrange for some private meetings. You may want to designate someone in that group to de a designated observer, rotating throughout the workout. That person can offer onservations and alos keep a lid on things if needed.

 

[StudentCarl]

IMO, using non-contact sparring to learn to apply taekwondo is like using shadow boxing or a video to learn how to box: it's good for some aerobics but it won't give you useable technique...and you'll have no confidence if you ever have to cross hands with a real boxer.

Getting hit is distracting (sometimes painful), it changes your balance, and the space from your opponent is much different than when you stay at a "safe distance". You can't effectively learn to check (feint) or cut (footwork), and most of all you can't learn to distance your kicks.

In tournament sparring, the most noticeable changes in sparring as students progress is learning to manage distance (so feet don't miss or hit with shin/knee) and their own balance. Contact adds urgency that you don't get with a safe air cushion: you don't have to be fast if your opponent is safely out of reach.

Sparring is about learning to put it all together so you can avoid getting kicked and kick a moving target with power. If you take out the moving target part, we could all train our technique only by breaking boards. That's what was done long ago, but only because they didn't have dipped foam (ok, kidding on that).

Boards don't move.

Carl

 

[ATC]

Did you ever ask why they stopped contact sparring? Maybe someone got hurt real bad and sued. Maybe some one just got tapped and sued. Ask why the no contact, you should not get any flack for that as it is a legit question to ask.

 

[jthomas1600]

I personally don't think I could attend a school with absolutely no contact. Our school is generally a light contact school. But the definition of "light" changes a lot. The higher belts really get after it...there's a lot of solid contact. Contact sparring is just too big of a piece of the picture for me to not have it.

 

[Maestro402]

I think all points are valid. I am going to ask the Master about the contact just so I know.

I agree that no contact has it's place and partners DEFINITELY need to work with one another. I have some guys and gals taht I love working with for that very reason but there are always others ... but that is all schools.

I would love to have a mix of the two. Some non-contact with a mix of some contact. I'm not saying lets put on the pads and go full contact but I want to be struck as much as doing the striking. I find that my counter attacks are my best skill and w/o the feeling of knowing how it is to lose balance or change directions when a kick is really trying to strike my head or torso .... I can't learn.

I really do not want to nor intend to leave my current school. i really enjoy the teaching and it's on point .... plus i have some fellow students taht I would miss way too much. It would definitely be last case scenario.


All of the input on here is GREAT and it's nice to have different viewpoints. We have a good community here.

 

[WC_lun]

How do you test your skill if you don't have contact...some hard contact at that? If you are doing martial art for a reason other than fighting, such as the comraderie or getting in shape, then no contact still can fullfil those goals. However, to learn to fight either for a sporting match or street self-defense, you MUST have contact. There is just no other way to check your skills and find out where you need work.

 

[Gemini]

I'm not sure why but there seems to be some responses to no contact sparring that verge on real animosity...and we haven't even heard his school's reasoning yet. Tough crowd...

I actually agree with most of the posts here, but I think there's some misunderstandings as to what no contact sparring is about. At least to me as someone who teaches primarily no contact sparring, or what I prefer to call "controlled" contact.

First, Of course contact is essential for reasons well described by others in previous posts. It's a contact sport after all, no? A tournament is not the place to find out how well you can give and receive punishment or most importantly, try to control your temerament which as we all know happens most when you're really pissed off because someone just tried to take your head off. I'm sure most here would agree that's the best way to lose a match. But once you've got that, periodic contact is more than enough to maintain the "Feel" for contact. Continued abuse begins to act more as a detriment that a positive. Even in competition sports like the UFC, (common in Vegas) I have yet to meet anyone that practices full contact against a partner. The most obvious reason, no one can take that kind of punishment on an ongoing basis. It's just not necessary. Just as when we practice joint locks in class, we don't actually rip anyone's arm out of the socket to make sure we "understand" how it's supposed to feel. Everyone seems to pretty much get it once once the lock is made and pressure is applied.

Speaking from my personal experience in my days as a player, multiple broken bones in in both of my feet, fingers, constantly bruised shins, jammed joints and so on, really wasn't necessary for me to get "tough" or have an understanding of what was going to transpire in a tournament. The first time was enough. The rest over years of full contact training was in my mind, well, let's just say it was unnecessary and looking back, what I perceive as less than desirable training methods. I think how many classes I had to sit out nursing an injury. For what? It wasn't until I reached black belt and trained almost excluseivly no contact that I really advanced in my abilities as a player. I learned that there are many aspects of training that are essential that can easily be developed without contact. Speed, distance, timing, awareness, body language (tells) and yes, accuracy to name a few. None of which require contact. Anyway, that's from my own experience and I'm fairly confident that if any of you met me, regardless of what you thought of me, "soft" wouldn't come to mind. Your experiences of course, may have taught you different lessons. That's absolutely fine, but don't critique what you don't know or understand.

Anyone walking in the door can kick like a bull through a target, but only skilled practitioners can hit a target with a predetermined amount of force. Because of that, our white belts, as many of yours, begin practice with full contact while senior players practice no contact. Even then, because it's ongoing learning, there's almost always consequential contact. We just try to limit the amount of it. Learning to control contact levels begins to come into play as students develop. A player's mettle is determined early on. Players that have it continue, those that don't wash out. Beyond that, it becomes less and less necessary as more advanced lessons are taught. This is pretty much where my initial post comes in.

I absolutely agree that learniong how to give and take physical punishment is a big part of training in any martial sport. Learning how to take a punch isn't going to hurt you on the street either. But it's role is limited and once learned, it's necessity deminishes...and I can say in all honesty that in over a decade of this, I've never had a student crumple and cry from my training methods.

Some of you feel that without it you can't know how to develop your art. My own experience has taught me otherwise and I think we'll probably find there's more to Maestro402's schools training method than what was described in the original post.

Regards,

 

[ATC]

I'm not sure why but there seems to be some responses to no contact sparring that verge on real animosity...and we haven't even heard his school's reasoning yet. Tough crowd...

I actually agree with most of the posts here, but I think there's some misunderstandings as to what no contact sparring is about. At least to me as someone who teaches primarily no contact sparring, or what I prefer to call "controlled" contact.

First, Of course contact is essential for reasons well described by others in previous posts. It's a contact sport after all, no? A tournament is not the place to find out how well you can give and receive punishment or most importantly, try to control your temerament which as we all know happens most when you're really pissed off because someone just tried to take your head off. I'm sure most here would agree that's the best way to lose a match. But once you've got that, periodic contact is more than enough to maintain the "Feel" for contact. Continued abuse begins to act more as a detriment that a positive. Even in competition sports like the UFC, (common in Vegas) I have yet to meet anyone that practices full contact against a partner. The most obvious reason, no one can take that kind of punishment on an ongoing basis. It's just not necessary. Just as when we practice joint locks in class, we don't actually rip anyone's arm out of the socket to make sure we "understand" how it's supposed to feel. Everyone seems to pretty much get it once once the lock is made and pressure is applied.

Speaking from my personal experience in my days as a player, multiple broken bones in in both of my feet, fingers, constantly bruised shins, jammed joints and so on, really wasn't necessary for me to get "tough" or have an understanding of what was going to transpire in a tournament. The first time was enough. The rest over years of full contact training was in my mind, well, let's just say it was unnecessary and looking back, what I perceive as less than desirable training methods. I think how many classes I had to sit out nursing an injury. For what? It wasn't until I reached black belt and trained almost excluseivly no contact that I really advanced in my abilities as a player. I learned that there are many aspects of training that are essential that can easily be developed without contact. Speed, distance, timing, awareness, body language (tells) and yes, accuracy to name a few. None of which require contact. Anyway, that's from my own experience and I'm fairly confident that if any of you met me, regardless of what you thought of me, "soft" wouldn't come to mind. Your experiences of course, may have taught you different lessons. That's absolutely fine, but don't critique what you don't know or understand.

Anyone walking in the door can kick like a bull through a target, but only skilled practitioners can hit a target with a predetermined amount of force. Because of that, our white belts, as many of yours, begin practice with full contact while senior players practice no contact. Even then, because it's ongoing learning, there's almost always consequential contact. We just try to limit the amount of it. Learning to control contact levels begins to come into play as students develop. A player's mettle is determined early on. Players that have it continue, those that don't wash out. Beyond that, it becomes less and less necessary as more advanced lessons are taught. This is pretty much where my initial post comes in.

I absolutely agree that learniong how to give and take physical punishment is a big part of training in any martial sport. Learning how to take a punch isn't going to hurt you on the street either. But it's role is limited and once learned, it's necessity deminishes...and I can say in all honesty that in over a decade of this, I've never had a student crumple and cry from my training methods.

Some of you feel that without it you can't know how to develop your art. My own experience has taught me otherwise and I think we'll probably find there's more to Maestro402's schools training method than what was described in the original post.

Regards,

Sorry but I just don't agree. What would take a lifetime to learn without contact can be picked up in just minutes with contact.

Example: Just last night we had two new white belt girls (teenagers) start in class. We were working hand work that day and I decided to start them off with the simple left jab then right cross. During the jabbing drills the one girl kept dropping her hands and jabbing from her mid chest level. I kept telling her to keep her hands up. I mentioned this to her 10 times if not more. I explained why and showed her why. She still kept dropping her hands. I walk around with a kicking target when I teach just for these reasons. As she continued to jab with the hands dropped while also bringing back the jab hand dropped or low I use the target to whack her face. Not hard but enough so to get my point across. Her hands stayed up. 15 minutes of talking and explaining did nothing. A 1 second whack to the face with a padded target got the point across. Contact.

My point being that if you use a no contact approach then you don't receive the feed back needed to help you correct mistakes. You just continue to do it wrong and build a habit that will get you hurt or killed.

I watch people make incorrect fists all the time. Great if you are just punching air, punch a body or head and watch your hand break. Won't know that without contact.

I see kick done all the time with bad foot positioning. Well kick when it counts with a bad foot position and jam the toes in or break the foot or ankle. You have to go through some minimal pain in the beginning with light to medium contact doing it incorrectly to correct it with trial and error.

Plus if you never make contact then how can you control contact that you never made. You only know how to miss, or stop short.

Sorry but no contact is like playing air guitar. You will never learn to play the real thing if you don't play it.

 

[bluewaveschool]

Speaking of contact, I made to of my BB that are married to each other spar tonight. She always complains about him being frustrating to fight (he is) and not liking that, so I made her do it. Not full out, light to medium power/speed...


He may have broken her hand. I feel freakin great....

 

[Gemini]

Sorry but I just don't agree. What would take a lifetime to learn without contact can be picked up in just minutes with contact.

Example: Just last night we had two new white belt girls (teenagers) start in class. We were working hand work that day and I decided to start them off with the simple left jab then right cross. During the jabbing drills the one girl kept dropping her hands and jabbing from her mid chest level. I kept telling her to keep her hands up. I mentioned this to her 10 times if not more. I explained why and showed her why. She still kept dropping her hands. I walk around with a kicking target when I teach just for these reasons. As she continued to jab with the hands dropped while also bringing back the jab hand dropped or low I use the target to whack her face. Not hard but enough so to get my point across. Her hands stayed up. 15 minutes of talking and explaining did nothing. A 1 second whack to the face with a padded target got the point across. Contact.

Interestingly enough ATC, I would handle your example in exactly the same way you did for the same reasons. I thoughht I said as much...

Of course contact is essential for reasons well described by others in previous posts. It's a contact sport after all, no? A tournament is not the place to find out how well you can give...bla bla bla

and

...our white belts, as many of yours, begin practice with full contact...

and

Learning to control contact levels begins to come into play as students develop. A player's mettle is determined early on.

I watch people make incorrect fists all the time. Great if you are just punching air, punch a body or head and watch your hand break. Won't know that without contact.

I recently covered this in a thread I believe was called "How important is the punch" here in the Taekwondo section. Again, we are completely in agreement on this. Though my post above did not address punching, I can say I have never practiced or taught the "air" punch beyond warmups at the beginning of class. We practice those on paddles, boards, bags and such, not each other unless we're wearing a hogu.

Plus if you never make contact then how can you control contact that you never made. You only know how to miss, or stop short.

Umm, nowhere in my previous post did I ever say anything about "never". I thought I covered the advantages/disadvantages of varying degrees of contact pretty thoroughly. When I see a sentence like this, it tells me either you didn't read the post or I've failed miserably at making my position clear, because nothing in my entire post is remotely similar to that statement.

Either way, I've explained my position to the best of my ability and both my own experience and the performance of my students confirms that my training methods and those of similar schools have proven effective, so I'll leave it there. :asian:


Interesting side note, there's a thread in the General Martial Arts section where a new practitioner is in exactly the opposite situation where he's subjected to only full contact. Kind of puts into perspective how extremes in either direction can be problematic. Give it a read if you get a chance.

Regards,

 

[ATC]

So we all agree that "NO" contact is not a good thing.

As for the thread in the General Martial Arts section about the poor guy that gets tossed in with the HULK every class, I have read that and had no response. But if you ask me it is like a 5 year old to take the college entrance exams. What do your really thing the results will be. I really don't mind the full contact, but with no training and against someone bigger, stronger, better than you is just confidence crushing. That poor guy may stop his training altogether.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Example: Just last night we had two new white belt girls (teenagers) start in class. We were working hand work that day and I decided to start them off with the simple left jab then right cross. During the jabbing drills the one girl kept dropping her hands and jabbing from her mid chest level. I kept telling her to keep her hands up. I mentioned this to her 10 times if not more. I explained why and showed her why. She still kept dropping her hands. I walk around with a kicking target when I teach just for these reasons. As she continued to jab with the hands dropped while also bringing back the jab hand dropped or low I use the target to whack her face. Not hard but enough so to get my point across. Her hands stayed up. 15 minutes of talking and explaining did nothing. A 1 second whack to the face with a padded target got the point across. Contact.

.

Interesting. I do exactly the same. Especialy with the kids. I show them the pads and say "Theseare my memory improvers. If you forget to keep your hands up they will help you remember. If you think you don't like getting hit with this, then you will like getting hit with this (showing fist) a whole lot less. "

"Pain is a wonderful instructor, but no one wants to go to his class". - Choi Hong Hi.

 

[dancingalone]

Interesting. I do exactly the same. Especialy with the kids. I show them the pads and say "Theseare my memory improvers. If you forget to keep your hands up they will help you remember. If you think you don't like getting hit with this, then you will like getting hit with this (showing fist) a whole lot less. "

Yes, I agree with everyone. Students often learn best if there is a combination of auditory, visual, and tactile context given.

If you only talk...they can tune you out (involuntarily of course).

If you only show them visually, they might miss any nuances which invariably are rather important to making it work.

If you have them 'feel' the technique, they only get half of the instruction.

So the answer is to give it all to them.