How often should you technical spar striking?

[skribs113 133]

My experience with the frequency of sparring in grappling vs. striking is very different. In wrestling and BJJ, we spar pretty much every class. In fact, we have some classes that are just sparring (and some schools train entirely by "sparring" with ecological games). However, in both TKD and Muay Thai, sparring has been limited to 1-2 sessions per week.

• In my main TKD school, there was sparring in your class either Wednesday or Thursday (folks were either on a Monday+Wednesday or Tuesday+Thursday schedule) and we had an additional sparring class on Fridays.
• In my most recent TKD school, there was a dedicated sparring class on Tuesdays, and they didn't spar in their regular class.
• In my BJJ gym's Muay Thai class, I believe they do technical sparring either Monday or Tuesday, and then hard sparring either Wednesday or Thursday.

For technical striking, I don't personally see a reason to avoid sparring more than once per week. For example, if I were to run a sport-focused TKD class where the entire class is:

• Speed or precision kicking drills
• Partner footwork kicking drills
• Technical foot fencing point sparring with medium-to-hard body contact and no-to-light head contact

Would there be a reason to limit sparring to 1-2 sessions per week? Or would it be a better idea to spar most-to-all sessions?

 

[Prince_Alarming114 144]

To my mind, it's best to do some sparring every week. There's no need for it to all be full contact, but a student needs to be able to integrate what they have learned with their own style of fighting. And you learn a lot from just watching the experienced guys.

 

[skribs113 133]

To my mind, it's best to do some sparring every week. There's no need for it to all be full contact, but a student needs to be able to integrate what they have learned with their own style of fighting. And you learn a lot from just watching the experienced guys.

The question was whether 1-2x week is the max I should do, or if 3-5x per week would be fine.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf114 144]

The only reason would be a timing one. So long as it's technical sparring there's not a lot of increased risk from doing it more often, but whenever you're sparring that's time you're not practicing other things.
FWIW in every muay thai place I've trained, the last bit of class was always dedicated to sparring, every day.

 

[HighKick]

My experience with the frequency of sparring in grappling vs. striking is very different. In wrestling and BJJ, we spar pretty much every class. In fact, we have some classes that are just sparring (and some schools train entirely by "sparring" with ecological games). However, in both TKD and Muay Thai, sparring has been limited to 1-2 sessions per week.

• In my main TKD school, there was sparring in your class either Wednesday or Thursday (folks were either on a Monday+Wednesday or Tuesday+Thursday schedule) and we had an additional sparring class on Fridays.
• In my most recent TKD school, there was a dedicated sparring class on Tuesdays, and they didn't spar in their regular class.
• In my BJJ gym's Muay Thai class, I believe they do technical sparring either Monday or Tuesday, and then hard sparring either Wednesday or Thursday.

For technical striking, I don't personally see a reason to avoid sparring more than once per week. For example, if I were to run a sport-focused TKD class where the entire class is:

• Speed or precision kicking drills
• Partner footwork kicking drills
• Technical foot fencing point sparring with medium-to-hard body contact and no-to-light head contact

Would there be a reason to limit sparring to 1-2 sessions per week? Or would it be a better idea to spar most-to-all sessions?

Your bullets should be part and parcel of any good TKD program. For the third bullet, hogu/gear up and go at it. Let the students dictate the contact level. This should be at least 3x's/wk. Once people get used to the ebb and flow, gearing up is a quick endeavor. But this is different from what you describe.
For 'technical foot fencing' if you mean working strategy and combinations, all good.

It has a lot to do with the people training, their willingness to the time commitment, and how 'hard' you are sparring. There is always going to be a difference in contact sparring and rolling. No one wants to go to work the next day with a juicy black eye, but a body bruise or strain is usually acceptable.

 

[skribs113 133]

For 'technical foot fencing' if you mean working strategy and combinations, all good.

I meant in comparison the the hand-heavy head-hunting of a sport like boxing or Muay Thai, where the goal of competitions is to knock out your opponent.

Sparring in TKD which is a foot-heavy body-hunting sport where the goal of competitions is to score more points than your opponent.

 

[skribs113 133]

It has a lot to do with the people training, their willingness to the time commitment, and how 'hard' you are sparring. There is always going to be a difference in contact sparring and rolling. No one wants to go to work the next day with a juicy black eye, but a body bruise or strain is usually acceptable.

Hence the discussion of frequency. How often to risk those body bruises and strains.

 

[HighKick]

Hence the discussion of frequency. How often to risk those body bruises and strains.

The older I get the more scalar answer to this question is. When I was in my teens/20's, I lived with bruises/injuries throughout high school & college from football & wrestling. Beyond normal. Fast forward a few years and I thought this was supposed to be the norm in martial arts. After peaking in competition, I lost some of the drive that covers or insulates the aches and pains. This and some very hard injuries tempered some of my fire. My first school was also well established and I had already figured out that high levels of continuous contact was not for everyone, particularly kids and 'older' folks.
Is there still a place for hard contact? Absolutely, but it is 100% up to the person and sometimes has to be either pushed out or controlled by the instructor(s). This includes understanding the environment they train in and deciding whether it is for them or not. It is very hard for any school/gym to offer enough of 'something for everyone' to make it worthwhile.

 

[HighKick]

I meant in comparison the the hand-heavy head-hunting of a sport like boxing or Muay Thai, where the goal of competitions is to knock out your opponent.

Sparring in TKD which is a foot-heavy body-hunting sport where the goal of competitions is to score more points than your opponent.

Scoring more points is true of any style, but what you describe is Definitely Not the TKD I am familiar with nor is it akin to Olympic style TKD. Not even ITF which does allow punching to the face would make that statement.
You sure you worded that the way you meant to?

 

[skribs113 133]

Scoring more points is true of any style, but what you describe is Definitely Not the TKD I am familiar with nor is it akin to Olympic style TKD. Not even ITF which does allow punching to the face would make that statement.
You sure you worded that the way you meant to?

There was a typo in there, but yes.

• Muay Thai, which is another art I have recently trained in, has a heavy emphasis on knockouts. Same with arts like boxing, kickboxing, and the striking portion of MMA. In these martial arts, I believe there is good reason to restrict the frequency of sparring. It's restricted at my gym. With that said, @Monkey Turned Wolf has said that he's been in gyms where it hasn't been restricted.
• In Taekwondo, the primary objective is usually points. Where in Olympic TKD you can technically go for knockouts, points is usually the primary goal, and in lower divisions often the only goal. For example, at local tournaments a blue belt may be DQ'd for KO'ing their opponent because head contact or excessive head contact would not be allowed. In this situation, sparring more regularly may not be as taxing on the body.

 

[Anarax]

Technical sparring is great to polish, refine and grow as a striker. Personally, I like classes being compartmentalized, a theme or focus for each session. Drilling something new or less familiar then trying to work it into technical sparring is great for connecting new neural pathways. Assess the class during normal sparring, see where the larger skill gaps exist, amongst the most students, then focus on said areas to minimize said gaps.

Short answer: I think technical sparring should be incorporated into at least a third of your classes.

 

[Buka29 3]

My experience with the frequency of sparring in grappling vs. striking is very different. In wrestling and BJJ, we spar pretty much every class. In fact, we have some classes that are just sparring (and some schools train entirely by "sparring" with ecological games). However, in both TKD and Muay Thai, sparring has been limited to 1-2 sessions per week.

• In my main TKD school, there was sparring in your class either Wednesday or Thursday (folks were either on a Monday+Wednesday or Tuesday+Thursday schedule) and we had an additional sparring class on Fridays.
• In my most recent TKD school, there was a dedicated sparring class on Tuesdays, and they didn't spar in their regular class.
• In my BJJ gym's Muay Thai class, I believe they do technical sparring either Monday or Tuesday, and then hard sparring either Wednesday or Thursday.

For technical striking, I don't personally see a reason to avoid sparring more than once per week. For example, if I were to run a sport-focused TKD class where the entire class is:

• Speed or precision kicking drills
• Partner footwork kicking drills
• Technical foot fencing point sparring with medium-to-hard body contact and no-to-light head contact

Would there be a reason to limit sparringt to 1-2 sessions per week? Or would it be a better idea to spar most-to-all sessions?

It depends on a whole bunch of things. Martial Arts are like restaurants. Just because you’ve dined in a couple of restaurants doesn’t necessarily mean the dining experience and quality of the food is the same in all restaurants.

As for sparring, it depends on what you’re selling to the public. Self defense? What kind of self defense? Fighting? What kind of fighting?

If the sparring isn’t contact sparring, which incudes contact to the head/face, when would a student learn that a self defense situation sometimes includes getting punched in the head/face for the first time? In the heat of the moment? For the first time?

Is that a viable plan for self defense? If you’ve ever seen someone exposed to violence for the first time, and get punched in the face for the first time, it’s something you’ll probably remember.

 

[skribs113 133]

Technical sparring is great to polish, refine and grow as a striker. Personally, I like classes being compartmentalized, a theme or focus for each session. Drilling something new or less familiar then trying to work it into technical sparring is great for connecting new neural pathways. Assess the class during normal sparring, see where the larger skill gaps exist, amongst the most students, then focus on said areas to minimize said gaps.

Short answer: I think technical sparring should be incorporated into at least a third of your classes.

As in it should take 20 minutes of each hour session, or if students attend 3x classes per week it should be done at least once per week?

 

[skribs113 133]

If the sparring isn’t contact sparring, which incudes contact to the head/face, when would a student learn that a self defense situation sometimes includes getting punched in the head/face for the first time? In the heat of the moment? For the first time?

Here's my personal theory: the best way I learned not to get punched in the face is to avoid Muay Thai class.

I believe if you are expecting to be in fights, because:

• You plan on fighting in sanctioned bouts where people can knock you out (i.e. boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, MMA).
• You have a profession which puts you into dangerous situations (military, police, other first responders, ER, etc.)
• You live or work in a dangerous place in which self-defense is a regular occurrence
• You run your mouth too much

In those cases, you absolutely need to train boxing skills (whether it's boxing or a less-focused art like Muay Thai), because you will absolutely need those skills to protect yourself.

However, I believe that if you are not expecting to be in fights, but rather preparing just in case, then you need to do a risk assessment where you weigh:

• The likelihood of injury from not having the boxing skills should you get into a fight, compounded with the likelihood of being in a fight.
• The likelihood of serious injury or cumulative brain injury as a result of training in boxing skills.

I'm not saying that nobody should train these skills if they aren't in the "expecting to be in fights" group. But rather it's a risk assessment that folks need to do. For me, I've been an adult for nearly 2 decades now and never been in a fistfight. Every self-defense situation I've either avoided or de-escalated. My boxing skills (or lack thereof) haven't been a factor. I also have avoided getting hit in the head every day in training.

 

[isshinryuronin4 4]

Here's my personal theory: the best way I learned not to get punched in the face is to avoid Muay Thai class.

I believe if you are expecting to be in fights, because:

• You plan on fighting in sanctioned bouts where people can knock you out (i.e. boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, MMA).
• You have a profession which puts you into dangerous situations (military, police, other first responders, ER, etc.)
• You live or work in a dangerous place in which self-defense is a regular occurrence
• You run your mouth too much

In those cases, you absolutely need to train boxing skills (whether it's boxing or a less-focused art like Muay Thai), because you will absolutely need those skills to protect yourself.

However, I believe that if you are not expecting to be in fights, but rather preparing just in case, then you need to do a risk assessment where you weigh:

• The likelihood of injury from not having the boxing skills should you get into a fight, compounded with the likelihood of being in a fight.
• The likelihood of serious injury or cumulative brain injury as a result of training in boxing skills.

I'm not saying that nobody should train these skills if they aren't in the "expecting to be in fights" group. But rather it's a risk assessment that folks need to do. For me, I've been an adult for nearly 2 decades now and never been in a fistfight. Every self-defense situation I've either avoided or de-escalated. My boxing skills (or lack thereof) haven't been a factor. I also have avoided getting hit in the head every day in training.

Getting hit in the head is not everyone's cup of tea. There is a spectrum of contact severity from "kiss" contact to knockout that one can risk receiving. But I think that anyone who is a martial artist (for whatever purpose) should be exposed to the middle range at some point - one cannot appreciate the art otherwise.

 

[Fungus104 2]

I would prefer high contact sparring twice a week as ideal, but right now our club only offers once a week. We don't knock each other out in sparring. If it happens its accident. Most accidents is also hurting yourself, such as breaking a toe or hitting someones kneed or elbow. These can take month to heal. But its a good reasons that makes you realise that wild swinging is a very bad idea.

Buit we do give each other pain and bruises. But normally they stay for 2 days or so. So twice a week, then your body can recover from bruises. I find once a week too little. As after each session, my head is full of thinkgs so try next time. After one week of everyday life, you forget some of the things.

I would love to do sparring twice a week, i feel it would be ideal. Then the level of buirsing that is just about gone to the next session.

The day after sparring, sore sore knees or arms are awesome.

Only touch sparring I dont like, I want to feel some pain the day after, it makes you thik about MA even you are doing other things

 

[Anarax]

As in it should take 20 minutes of each hour session, or if students attend 3x classes per week it should be done at least once per week?

Reviewing something so the students can incorporate it into sparring I think is a good idea. Once you incorporate warm ups and refinements, 20 minutes of technical sparring out of an hour class isn't bad. See where some students are struggling and offer the refinements in between rounds. Having a class solely dedicated to technical sparring isn't bad either, just give them something to work on at the start of class.

 

[isshinryuronin4 4]

I would teach a 3-step attack combo drill then pair off the students - one would attack with that combo, the defender choosing a counterattack of their own at the end, the attacker defending that and counterattacking as he chose. This had elements of structured 3-step and free sparring combined. Other than for beginners, I am not a fan of just standard 2 or 3-step sparring. I like including some spontaneous give and take. Most every class had some freestyle sparring at the end. Contact was light to medium, no (intentional) head contact - the only protective gear being a cup.

 

[drop bear114 53]

Applying your techniques in real time is super important. So possibly end of each class.

 

[HighKick]

There was a typo in there, but yes.

• Muay Thai, which is another art I have recently trained in, has a heavy emphasis on knockouts. Same with arts like boxing, kickboxing, and the striking portion of MMA. In these martial arts, I believe there is good reason to restrict the frequency of sparring. It's restricted at my gym. With that said, @Monkey Turned Wolf has said that he's been in gyms where it hasn't been restricted.
• In Taekwondo, the primary objective is usually points. Where in Olympic TKD you can technically go for knockouts, points is usually the primary goal, and in lower divisions often the only goal. For example, at local tournaments a blue belt may be DQ'd for KO'ing their opponent because head contact or excessive head contact would not be allowed. In this situation, sparring more regularly may not be as taxing on the body.

The way the OP is written, I assumed it was about you (or any specific person) or an adult(ish) class.
Kids cannot be allowed to go all out unless very controlled. The vast variability in coordination alone of kids the same age, along with other markers, just doesn't allow a 'one size fits all' answer. This goes back to my previous comment about the high level of instructor control required. It is also why we have competition specific programs.
But, hopefully this may better answer your query: We spar nearly every class, every age. For kids, light contact, light gear, heavily instructor controlled. We line up the same as doing partner drill work and rotate one person every round (class size and time dependent). When kids line up with an older person/adult, they are encouraged to go harder. When lined up age equivalent, it is all about standard sparring rules. We will single out people/pairs sometimes and let them go alone. This is done for various reasons such as displaying good form (mental/physical), discussing rule/combos, bad form, or to push a kid sometimes. It is always done with a purpose.

This has never changed in my 42+ years of MA's, there is two primary TKD sparring methods: 'full' contact WT style sparring or 'tippy/tappy' extremely unrealistic point/stop sparring. The defining quality to old school points sparring is the hand speed of very specific techniques. Not particularly realistic so we have never encouraged this kind of sparring.
Yes, the three scoring rules have changed a little in WT sparring over the years but the premise is still the same.