did sparring help your fight outcome???

[cfr]

I dont have a ton of street fight experience. (hopefully I never will) Ive got even less sparring experience. (hopefully I will someday) So I was wondering, do those of you with a fair amout of real life fights (self defense, not NHB competitions) put alot of stock into sparring? Do you think your real fights were influenced by your sparring in class? Do you think you won/ lost due to lots of sparring/ not sparring enough? Do you wish you would have sparred differently? Learned more from another style? (weapons, ground, throws, etc.) Its easy for people with little or no actual street-fighting experience to say how sparring would benifit them when the time came. But I want to hear from those of you that actually have a decent amount of experience in it.

 

[Black Bear]

What DO you train? Just rehearse dead patterns? I mean come on, your place, aseama, does JKD and MT. How could you not spar?

 

[cfr]

What DO you train? Just rehearse dead patterns? I mean come on, your place, aseama, does JKD and MT. How could you not spar?

Unfortunatley, (to me anways) we dont do real sparring for about 2 - 2 1/2 years. Im 10 months in now. We do lots of partner drilling. But no all out, even light contact, unscripted sparring. However I really dig the styles, training, and the instructor. Basically I really love it except for the lack of sparring.

 

[markulous]

Unfortunatley, (to me anways) we dont do real sparring for about 2 - 2 1/2 years. Im 10 months in now. We do lots of partner drilling. But no all out, even light contact, unscripted sparring. However I really dig the styles, training, and the instructor. Basically I really love it except for the lack of sparring.

To me, that is WAYYYYYYYYYY too long before sparring. I would say if the person has NEVER taken any martial art at all then a few months MAX. Without sparring and having contact you can't test to see if anything works or not. I mean honostly if I were in your shoes I would tell the teacher, "Either we are sparring full contact(with gear on of course), or I'm leaving." It's a MARTIAL art, to me that is requiring a form of sparring.

 

[Black Bear]

Well, maybe take the following in consideration and see what you think:

http://www.straightblastgym.com/page.asp?section=qa&parent=Press
http://w3.blackbeltmag.com/featurecontent/view.asp?article=222
http://www.straightblastgym.com/philosophy12.html#alive

Our school has newbies sparring within their first couple days. It's difficult to get real valid fighting skill without it.

 

[ShaolinWolf]

Yeah, I fully agree. Without any kind of self-defense/sparring sessions, what's the point of MA? It's a requirement, in my mind, to spar by the time of atleast 5-6 months, if not earlier than that. I started at 4 1/2 months, but during the time previous, we worked on drills alone. I think even 1 year, let alone 6 months is too much time wasted.

I think that within a few weeks of joining, you should be allowed to spar. Now, working with Weapons is different because there are some people who can be dangerous with them at the first few months, but nonetheless.

 

[Black Bear]

I guess that depends on the weapons. Sparring weapons at our place are always padded, with as close to realistic dimensions and weights as possible. If a beginner is "dangerous", then great: in alive training our guy would get "hacked" (but not hurt) and we'd know that our method sucks and is easily defeated by what people do instinctively.

For one-inch-thick sticks, the weapons are composed of 1/2 inch PVC piping, wrapped with carpet underlay and electrical tape. Cheaper than anything we ever bought, lasts longer, and handles very realistically. Extremely safe.

 

[Rainman]

I dont have a ton of street fight experience. (hopefully I never will) Ive got even less sparring experience. (hopefully I will someday) So I was wondering, do those of you with a fair amout of real life fights (self defense, not NHB competitions) put alot of stock into sparring? Do you think your real fights were influenced by your sparring in class? Do you think you won/ lost due to lots of sparring/ not sparring enough? Do you wish you would have sparred differently? Learned more from another style? (weapons, ground, throws, etc.) Its easy for people with little or no actual street-fighting experience to say how sparring would benifit them when the time came. But I want to hear from those of you that actually have a decent amount of experience in it.

First let me say yes I put a lot of stock into fighting... If you don't fight you can't fight. Time wise is a different story. Knowing what I know now I would say folks are ready to fight when they have a certain amount of basics that are moslty correct and have a few combinations they have been working on. There are some ideas about forming a base from which to operate... Once you have enough of those it really needs to be exercised in the various forms of free fighting.

Once you get to the point of having certain amount of skill and experience fighting out on the street is the last thing you really want to do. The thug types really aren't that tuff. You could very well kill one of those yahoo's without really trying very hard. If you can avoid that type of aggression do it. If you have left yourself no way to manuever out of a situation (and it could happen if you don't pay attention for just a second) then your trained aggression (mainly through hard contact) must carry the day.

There is another school of thought though. Those in the Tai Ji Quan method go about their training methods without combat rehersal for a period of time. They are a very patient lot and their skills are also excellent. So the real answer is it depends on what your goals are and when you need and want to reach them.

The drills and patterns you are practicing/rehursing with are setting up a foundation. You teacher prolly has an idea of when he want to put your skills into action. Don't be afraid to ask what the point is or what the idea is for belated serious resistence in your training.

 

[cfr]

First let me say yes I put a lot of stock into fighting...

My question was do you put alot of stock into sparring? Im assuming thats what you were referring too?

 

[Black Bear]

There is another school of thought though. Those in the Tai Ji Quan method go about their training methods without combat rehersal for a period of time.

If the goal is to learn to fight or defend yourself, then that "school of thought" is incorrect.

 

[Rainman]

My question was do you put alot of stock into sparring? Im assuming thats what you were referring too?

Sparring is going to be a lower level of your free fighting... More rules so to speak which means less tools at your disposal. Yes, sparring of all sorts is valuable and necessary.

 

[Rainman]

If the goal is to learn to fight or defend yourself, then that "school of thought" is incorrect.

Longer does not equal incorrect. That is like saying it takes too long to become a doctor, why go that long when you can become a nurse in half the time.

 

[7starmantis]

If the goal is to learn to fight or defend yourself, then that "school of thought" is incorrect.

I have to agree with Rainman, that doesn't make alot of sense. Now let it be known we are talking not about no "combat rehersal" just not for a period of time. Its like being a medical student with no patient contact for the first year.

Maybe thats a bad analogy, but I don't think learning without hard contact for a certain amount of time is detrimental to fighting or defending one's self.

7sm

 

[Black Bear]

Rainman, what a funny analogy you have chosen. Please elaborate on it. I'm up for a laugh.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Sparring helped me.

Being hit and being able to continue after taking a significant shoot, helps a person in a real fight outcome.

Well that is just that my opinion.
:asian:

 

[Rainman]

Wrong person blackbear- I can appreciate both ways but don't really care to defend either. I know both ways have their advantages and draw backs. To put an absolute on anything is a mistake, and you are making one by assuming a particular point of view. It all depends on information and how it is processed and how long it takes to be processed.

 

[8253]

I dont have a ton of street fight experience. (hopefully I never will) Ive got even less sparring experience. (hopefully I will someday) So I was wondering, do those of you with a fair amout of real life fights (self defense, not NHB competitions) put alot of stock into sparring? Do you think your real fights were influenced by your sparring in class? Do you think you won/ lost due to lots of sparring/ not sparring enough? Do you wish you would have sparred differently? Learned more from another style? (weapons, ground, throws, etc.) Its easy for people with little or no actual street-fighting experience to say how sparring would benifit them when the time came. But I want to hear from those of you that actually have a decent amount of experience in it.

from what i understand sparring is to get you used to seeing knuckles coming at you and not flenching or freezing up.

 

[Tony]

I'm doing more sparring now in my Kung fu classes. This is normally with the other senior grades. I'm beginning to get used to being hit so hopefully this will stand me in good stead if ever I am attacked for real! However with sparring and anything lese such as tournaments there are rules which do limit what you can do, such as not being able to hit below the waist and not swinging punches. I would be more inclined to use eye gouges, strikes to the groin, solar plexus, knee joint, shins, throat strikes, kick to back of thighs, basically anything!
But our sparring is structured so we might do light, or semi contact, sometimes with different partners. I haven't really sparred with anyone new or anyone bigger then me. What would also be useful would be to spar against maybe 2 or 3 people.

 

[7starmantis]

As far as addressing the eye gouges and breaks and such, there is no sparring or any way of practicing those techniques, not truly doing them. That is what forms are good for. I forget who is was, I think Lee Kam Wing said that in your forms is your chance to actually break someones arm, to really gouge their eyes. If you play your forms correctly, in your head you can practice those dangerous techniques. Is it as good as going out and gouges out someones eyes, no. But then again, society kind of frowns on that as a whole.

7sm

 

[loki09789]

As far as addressing the eye gouges and breaks and such, there is no sparring or any way of practicing those techniques, not truly doing them. That is what forms are good for. I forget who is was, I think Lee Kam Wing said that in your forms is your chance to actually break someones arm, to really gouge their eyes. If you play your forms correctly, in your head you can practice those dangerous techniques. Is it as good as going out and gouges out someones eyes, no. But then again, society kind of frowns on that as a whole.

7sm

7* hits the weakness of sparring as self defense training. The format to a free form 'sparring' session is key to how successful you will be in a real fight. I hesitate to talk about 'fighting' over self defense, only because the generally accepted connotation of 'winning' and 'losing' that come with the sparring/fight mentallity vs. the free form/scenario training.

sparring that is for points where people stop you if you get a clean, light contact shot to successfully connect could be an introductory level, but it really isn't going to get you results for self defense if that is what you stay with. Moving to more intense contact and fighting for goals other than time or points is more productive for street defense.

If the idea is to fight like you train, then you will have to train like you want to "fight." So, on the street, the goal should be to be able observe a threat, orient to it, decide on a course of action, and then take that planned course of action. This could be so fast that it happens on an instinctual level or be slower depending on the type of threat. Training that let's students 'fight' their way to an escape route or out of an ambush or effectively act as a 3rd party to me is more productive than a purely sparring approach to 'fight' training.

Sparring is great for some martial skills, but it can also detract from some street skills if not used properly in a given program