I’m not sure visualisation will help with sparring, per se, since sparring requires an opponent to throw unexpected techniques with unpredictable timings to which you react and of course, you know what your imaginary opponent (Jp. kaso teki) is going to do. At best, you’d essentially be performing two person set forms.
Yeah it wouldn't be true sparring. The one I've been doing lately is, opponent throws a right cross, I slip it to the outside, trap the arm, knee to liver, outside leg sweep. I like this style of training and I think there's great value in it. I still do my normal stuff, but think most of my peers are training 2 days a week and I'm doing those 2 days plus conditioning and solo drills at home and also mental reps of techniques. I liked Jared's story alot about how he used jiu jitsu in real life from visualisation and studying. I've seen people do vr sparring and also virtual sparring on the TV or a tablet, it's a virtual opponent who throws strikes and you react and defend against the virtual opponent. Maybe not in my future but maybe in my kids future the technology will get so good that they can drill against dummy machines with ai.
