Sparring, concussions, and children

Dirty Dog

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In another thread, the subject of children engaging in full contact sparring came up, and concerns were voiced about the dangers of serial concussions.

It can be said, and rightly so, that the only way to learn to take a punch is to take a punch. I suspect we've all seen new students, who have never been hit, drop to the floor thinking they're about to die from a relatively light hit. And we've seen the same student ignore a much more solid shot after a bit of experience.

On the other hand, after far too many years in the ER, I've seen way too many people who have had their brains scrambled by serial concussions.

As far as I am concerned, children have no business competing in full contact matches. While body shots delivered with a fairly high degree of impact may be tolerated, contact to the head must be much more controlled.

In our Moo Duk Kwan school, we do not allow children or lower ranks of any age to spar with heavy contact, especially to the head. As they gain experience, adults are allowed to increase the level of contact if they so choose. Most of our black belts do spar with fairly heavy contact, but at all levels, contact to the head is light.

How does your school deal with this issue?
 

Grenadier

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Our school is on the same line of belief, that an experienced practitioner should be able to take a number of decent strikes to the body (not uncontrolled, though) in areas that can handle them, such as the abdominal area, the chest (for guys), etc. I strongly believe that once a student has a decent amount of conditioning, that once he takes his first shot to the body, he'll realize that it's not going to be a debilitating thing, especially when sparring an advanced person with good control, and using fist pads.

Vigorous shots to the head, though, aren't going to accomplish anything. You can't really condition your head, unless you're willing to do some drastic measures that will result in killing off your facial nerves. My opinion is this, that unless you intend on being a professional boxer who fights like a lead-footed Rocky Balboa in the first two movies, that it's not worth the price you're going to pay. Imagine having a hard time putting a forkful of food into your mouth because your lips have an uncontrollable quivering, or splashing that cup of coffee all over your face because your trembling jaw is making the process of drinking hot coffee extremely difficult. This doesn't even take into account the damage that will occur to your brain, which is irreversible.

This is why at the advanced levels, we'll allow touch contact to the head for kids, and light contact to the face for adults. There is nothing to be gained from allowing your students to hammer each other in the head. While it's important for them to realize that failure to protect the head can result in bad things occurring, there are better ways for them to learn that lesson than to let them take hard shots there.

At the lower levels, they can still strike to the face, but can't touch it. This way, they refine their abilities on how to throw a strong attack with control.


On another note, if a school is a place where concussions occur on a regular basis, they're being reckless, and will find themselves going out of business pretty quickly. This is exactly what happened to a MMA school that opened up a few miles away from my dojo. At first, they were quite the rage, where their "Korean Jiu Jitsu" (actually modified Hapkido), brought in many young male adults into their school. Their parking lot was always full for those first two months, and I was beginning to wonder if this would be detrimental to our school.

After those first two months, I noticed that the parking lot wasn't quite as full, and that with each passing month, it would become even less full. After 6 months, the sign out front changed to say "Ninjitsu (sic) classes offered here!"

The next month, they closed up, and the place became a barbershop.

As it turned out, they would routinely hold MMA matches, trying to emulate the UFC. When you had people leaving with knocked out teeth, broken bones in the face, and concussions, along with dislocated joints, that pretty much summarized what can happen when control isn't being given a premium.
 

MJS

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In another thread, the subject of children engaging in full contact sparring came up, and concerns were voiced about the dangers of serial concussions.

It can be said, and rightly so, that the only way to learn to take a punch is to take a punch. I suspect we've all seen new students, who have never been hit, drop to the floor thinking they're about to die from a relatively light hit. And we've seen the same student ignore a much more solid shot after a bit of experience.

On the other hand, after far too many years in the ER, I've seen way too many people who have had their brains scrambled by serial concussions.

As far as I am concerned, children have no business competing in full contact matches. While body shots delivered with a fairly high degree of impact may be tolerated, contact to the head must be much more controlled.

In our Moo Duk Kwan school, we do not allow children or lower ranks of any age to spar with heavy contact, especially to the head. As they gain experience, adults are allowed to increase the level of contact if they so choose. Most of our black belts do spar with fairly heavy contact, but at all levels, contact to the head is light.

How does your school deal with this issue?

At my dojo, my teacher doesn't allow kids to go full contact. Full contact is usually defined as not wearing any gear at all. Despite the cloth hand pads, shin pads and headgear that is worn, I've still seen kids, and adults as well, take some solid kicks to the head. Sure, even with the padding, the contact is still hard. I've come to realize that there really isn't any light contact in Kyokushin. LOL! Never resulted in anything serious though. Body shots...yeah, everyone has taken a hard punch or kick to the body. Despite the art though, safety is always a concern. :)
 

Makalakumu

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Lots of good posts above. My dojo is very similar to Grenadiers. I try to limit the contact at all levels, not just for children. I consider full contact matches to be too risky and there isn't enough pay off for what we're trying to do. It's interesting, even professional UFC MMA fighters are starting to really limit their contact. Robby Lawler recently stated that he doesn't spar by striking and focuses more on drilling, wrestling and jujutsu. I completely see where this is coming from, because the wear and tear on your body from these all out sparring matches is intense. A lot of fighters are getting injured and dropping out of matches. It seems like a very expensive problem.

So, for the average student, be they adult or child, I think you can learn martial arts without beating the hell of each other. The bottom line is that for the non-professional martial artist fun is part of the equation. At some point, the contact the resultant injuries pulls the fun out of the training and that's why a lot of people stop training.
 

Danny T

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We spar and we spar a lot. Kids, Teen, and Adults all spar.
That said; Sparring Is Not Fighting!
Sparring is about learning and we 'never' spar 100%. Padwork and heavy bags for power and speed; when we spar we seldom go more than 50% power and speed. More often than not we go 20-30% max. However, our pad work drills are at full speed and power. If hurt in training they can't train or fight.
 

K-man

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As far as I am concerned, children have no business competing in full contact matches. While body shots delivered with a fairly high degree of impact may be tolerated, contact to the head must be much more controlled.

In our Moo Duk Kwan school, we do not allow children or lower ranks of any age to spar with heavy contact, especially to the head. As they gain experience, adults are allowed to increase the level of contact if they so choose. Most of our black belts do spar with fairly heavy contact, but at all levels, contact to the head is light.
Agree 100% and that is how we train in our school.
 

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