Old man sparring kids

[Fall of Titan]

Question for the older folks here...

How do you handle sparring against kids who are younger, faster, and stronger? I'm in my 40s and practice TKD because it's fun, but while the kids continue getting taller and stronger, I'm just getting older and slower. I feel like a sloth when sparring teens, and it's demoralizing. I can't seem to react fast enough to move out of the way before getting kicked. Perhaps most of all, I just seem to have no energy.

After age 40, do you think it's possible to be competitive in sparring? Is it possible to build faster reaction/reflexes and not feel so sluggish?

 

[HighKick]

Question for the older folks here...

How do you handle sparring against kids who are younger, faster, and stronger? I'm in my 40s and practice TKD because it's fun, but while the kids continue getting taller and stronger, I'm just getting older and slower. I feel like a sloth when sparring teens, and it's demoralizing. I can't seem to react fast enough to move out of the way before getting kicked. Perhaps most of all, I just seem to have no energy.

After age 40, do you think it's possible to be competitive in sparring? Is it possible to build faster reaction/reflexes and not feel so sluggish?

I feel ya.

It is all relative, so remember that when sparring someone younger/faster. And Always remember the old saying "your biggest enemy is yourself". In other words 'spar yourself', not the other guy.
You can hang with the younger guys but it will take cunning and experience, and a willingness to take a few hits. Defense and counters are your ally. Learn that you are Not going to give the first hit most the time and use that as your strategy with counters. Play the back game and let them wear down some. Then start to press, then press some more, then some more. Get in their head. Remember you are the senior, by age if not by belt. Use that to your advantage.
As far as competition, sparring regularly with younger people will better prepare you for competitions in the Seniors bracket.

You got this.

 

[Prince_Alarming]

As you get older, you get slower, but you also get much more devious. Learning to interpret telegraphing and being better able to analyse what your opponent is doing goes a long way.

 

[Fungus]

Question for the older folks here...

How do you handle sparring against kids who are younger, faster, and stronger? I'm in my 40s and practice TKD because it's fun, but while the kids continue getting taller and stronger, I'm just getting older and slower. I feel like a sloth when sparring teens, and it's demoralizing. I can't seem to react fast enough to move out of the way before getting kicked.

I feel the same way, I'm in 50s and do kyokushin, and this thing you mention makes things harder, to so try to not see it as demoralizing, but as an "extra challenge".

I noticed two things

- age itself surely can slow down reflexes and decisionsmaking

- your size and bodycomposision also changes your physical movementime, regardless of age, and often the kids are not only younger, but also smaller, so faster for two reasons. Also if you "bounce", your typical "natural bouncing rate" depends on your body mass. A big guy has a lower frequency than a smaller one, just from physics alone.

I try to think that if if you can't but them on their own terms, instead of getting out of the way, options at least in kyokushing is: instead move closer or change angle, to choke their attack, that is sometimes faster that the time to move out of the way completely. I realisez i can't do that, so i try a different strategy. move in closer, dont let them rule the range. Block harder on their limbs for deterring effect.

I will never beat the younger and smaller people with speed. So I think the chance is to change strategy, depending on what other strenghts you have. I am still strong, so noone peats me by strength just because I'm older. But in speed I am behind for sure. I also like feints, so these things are what i try to compensate with. young people tend to just rely on what they do best, so perhaps thing less about other things. Use that to your advantage.

 

[skribs]

Sparring is a puzzle. A puzzle that constantly evolves as you and your training partners evolve. Sparring in class is not about winning or losing, it's about trying to solve the puzzle, or at least figure out a piece of it. Or in some cases, you are the piece that needs to be solved. Sparring in competition is competitive with people of a similar age, size, gender, and experience.

If you look at most martial arts, brackets are broken into the above four categories. At least to some degree. For example, when I did wrestling in middle school, it was by age (we were all 6th-8th grade) and size (weight class). Experience and gender weren't a factor, but if there were more girls wrestling then we probably would have had a separate bracket.

In both Taekwondo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you sign up for tournaments based on belt, age, gender, and weight. (In TKD, weight is often only for higher-end competitions, and you just try to make brackets with similar size after the other three are considered). Age is something where Adult is the highest competitive bracket, and adult has a hard lower limit of 18 and soft upper limit of 30. A 15-year-old cannot compete as Adult. A 35-year-old can compete in the Seniors (TKD) or Masters (BJJ) division, or they can opt into the Adult bracket if they want higher competition.

There's even a rule of thumb in BJJ that when you go down in age by 10 years or up in weight by 20 pounds, that's the equivalent advantage of going up a belt in skill level. So a 25-year-old blue belt at 200 pounds should be roughly competitive with a 35-year-old brown belt at 180 pounds.

I recently completed my 4th degree test, and one item I had to complete prior to testing was an essay on how martial arts benefits everyone. In my section on seniors, my research showed the following as you get older:

• Slower response delay to stimulus, slower reaction times
• Slower metabolism, slower healing, increased recovery times
• Reduced athleticism and reduced flexibility

All of these things are disadvantages. However, the benefit that comes from training and experience is you are less reliant on youthful stats for success. It's the same as size. In BJJ, if you have two white belts who are 50 pounds apart, the smaller white belt is pretty much guaranteed to lose. But if you have two brown belts that are 50 pounds apart, the smaller brown belt will have the technique and experience to overcome it. As you get older, you have less athleticism, slower reactions, and less flexibility, but you can still make things work with proper timing and strategy. So can your opponent...but the young ones tend to rely on their speed over anything else.

My Dad has always said, "Old age and treachery beats youth and enthusiasm."

 

[skribs]

A lot of younger fighters are one-trick ponies or "specialists". If you can find a way to counter their one move, you usually have a good advantage.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Question for the older folks here...

How do you handle sparring against kids who are younger, faster, and stronger? I'm in my 40s and practice TKD because it's fun, but while the kids continue getting taller and stronger, I'm just getting older and slower. I feel like a sloth when sparring teens, and it's demoralizing. I can't seem to react fast enough to move out of the way before getting kicked. Perhaps most of all, I just seem to have no energy.

After age 40, do you think it's possible to be competitive in sparring? Is it possible to build faster reaction/reflexes and not feel so sluggish?

Draw them out. Set them up. Make them overextend. Make them chase you so when they get tired you can go on the offensive. Learn how to feint effectively. I make my strikes softer and slower early on. It helps to encourage them to underestimate me. I turtle up and let them tire out. Make mental notes on their preferred techniques. What do they do well? What do they do sucky? When I get offensive, I will train them to attack me in certain ways. Ways that are easily blocked, especially when I know it's coming. I train them to respond to my strikes in ways that make it easier to hit them. One example: 2-3 quick rear leg front kicks. That teaches them that when my rear leg starts moving, they should block low. Follow the training with a question mark kick. Or throw a jab/straight punch combination. Doesn't matter if either hits. With the rear hand straight punch, you're actually going to push their hand across and down. Which will create a great opening for an inside crescent kick.
I'm 63. The last tournament I won was in my early- or mid- fifties. But keep expectations reasonable. I was not going up against Olympic caliber fighters. Most of the men I fought in that tourney were 30-40. I wasn't planning on fighting in that category, but the "worn out tired old fat man" class only had one other.

 

[Fall of Titan]

Thanks all. I appreciate the encouragement and advice.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

I'll be 45 later this year, and I still spar the youngins' regularly. Fortunately, I have experience on my side, having competed and sparred since I was 6 years old. I'm no where near as fast as I used to be, but I still land more than I take. I think the game is much more mental as we get older, because we know we aren't what we used to be. Bait them, use angles, create openings, etc. I have enough variety in my sparring repertoire I tend to always keep them guessing. I haven't competed in sparring in years, but I'm seriously contemplating stepping back into the point fighting arena again soon.

 

[wab25]

Two thoughts here:

First.... Timing beats Speed. It doesn't matter your age... everyone will meet someone faster than they are. Everyone needs to know how to beat speed. And you can't always rely on speed to do the beating (though that is fun to do when you can....) The thing that beats speed is timing. There is a lot of advice here about feinting, drawing them out, setting them up, figuring out what their tendencies are.... all these are great ways of knowing where he will be. You need to time things so that your fist is in the right place at the right time, once you know where it needs to be. There are a lot of other ways to do this as well. The point here is don't get obsessed with trying to out quick someone faster than you... time him.

Second thought... This is what your basics are for. Your basic footwork, basic stances, basic movement drills. Put in more time to perfect your basics. When your basics are bad, you have to have very good vision to see what is coming and very fast reactions because you have to make large movements to cover openings... The better your basics, the smaller the adjustments you need to make to cover openings, and even the openings will be smaller. This means you don't have to be as fast... just at the right place at the right time..... instead of increasing the speed of movement, you are reducing the distance things need to move, if at all. Now you have time to wear him down, pick out his favorite tendencies and decide how to time him....

 

[Yokozuna514]

I'm in my 50's and still enjoy sparring with the teens. Although I am not particularly tall, I have a bit of mass so as long as no one gets cheeky, we can all have a good sparring session. I also do Kyokushin and so playing with range and angles to control the distance certainly helps. Occasionally I will come up against a teen or young adult that is training for a large tournament and so cannot give them as good as workout as I would like to unless we keep it light contact but age is just a number.

Many years ago when I was still a coloured belt, my Sensei suggested I start to train and fight like a lightweight. Use lightweight footwork and lightweight contact speed. It took me years to bring that style into the tool belt but it certainly had it's uses. I had to focus more on my cardio and rely less on my body mass to win fights but most opponents of my size and vintage had no idea what to do with me and ya.......that made things a lot of fun.

 

[isshinryuronin]

let them wear down some.

Now you have time to wear him down,

Maybe it's just me, but over 60 yrs. old I don't see getting a much younger opponent wore out. I don't see this as a winning strategy at all to be honest. Youth has a natural stamina that an older guy just can't match, even by trying strategies to get the young guy to overwork himself or by using experience to stay relaxed and efficient to conserver one's energy. While that helps, I don't think it's enough to bridge the stamina gap. It may give the old guy a couple minutes more to employ the things below:

Remember you are the senior

This is good advice. As several have expressed, experience, strategy and tactics are the senior's advantage. Breaking the opponent's timing, changing angles, and other things to reduce his offensive capabilities means you will have less attacks to defend as well as frustrating the opponent getting him off his game. These weapons and psychological warfare, along with the mindset of "I am the senior" which gives a quiet self-confidence, can give the older guy the winning edge.

 

[HighKick]

Maybe it's just me, but over 60 yrs. old I don't see getting a much younger opponent wore out. I don't see this as a winning strategy at all to be honest. Youth has a natural stamina that an older guy just can't match, even by trying strategies to get the young guy to overwork himself or by using experience to stay relaxed and efficient to conserver one's energy. While that helps, I don't think it's enough to bridge the stamina gap. It may give the old guy a couple minutes more to employ the things below:

This is good advice. As several have expressed, experience, strategy and tactics are the senior's advantage. Breaking the opponent's timing, changing angles, and other things to reduce his offensive capabilities means you will have less attacks to defend as well as frustrating the opponent getting him off his game. These weapons and psychological warfare, along with the mindset of "I am the senior" which gives a quiet self-confidence, can give the older guy the winning edge.

Also, when we are talking about wearing down the opponent, this has a Lot to do with the mental/psychological game. Getting them to guess, stress, and frustrated greatly accelerates the wear-down time. Keep them tense and don't let them relax. That is why I said press, press some more, and press some more.
Keep a smile on your face and keep them guessing.

Good on ya for going hard with the kids at 60-years old.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

So last night I sparred all of my black belt students that were in class for a total 25 minutes. All were between the ages of 17 and 22. Our dojang is located in a 125 year old school building, where I teach out of the top floor, including the gymnasium. In the summer it's 90+ degrees and super humid; kind of like working out in a sauna. I love it, as it really limbers the body, but wow does it sap you! This is where youth shines, because in the middle of the night I cramped in my forearm so badly I thought I'd broken my arm! I hydrated and took electrolytes, but all of that blocking combined with the heat and humidity lead to a mild incident of compartment syndrome at 12:40 in the morning. Ice, NSAIDs, and a few hours of lost sleep, and it's only just a bit sore this morning. I have a feeling those teens and 20 year olds did not experience the same thing last night, haha!