Monkey Turned Wolf

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Thanks.

I am kind of sorta just getting "used" to taps to the head. I This includes putting my cloves up and just dealing with a hit though my gloves pressed to my head. My fellow students (beginners) tend to be as kind as I am when light sparing - and they are at my level in terms of speed. I am 50 and started when I was 49.

My instructor however is 3 degree black belt and one time MMA fighter. He pushed a little more on the intensity and frankly when I went to hit him, he came in so quick I could not see it coming. I did not freeze, or stop hitting back or defending and was able to lightly catch him with a counter cross - but I will be honest that was the hardest I have been hit and I kind of had to process that feeling for a long while after classes.

From a self defense perspective I think I am better suited not to crumble or panic if I am caught with a punch now in the real world - and I would work harder as you say to defend against it.
Something that I've seen done to work with this, that appears to have worked well:
Have a spar where both of you are moving back and forth, you don't attack, and your partner just tries to punch your head while you dodge. They start off slow and then get faster. Helps build confidence that you know what to do when someone comes at your head faster, and it slowly acclimates you to the super fast punches your sensei throws.
It won't help so much with the actual 'getting hit' part, but it should hopefully help responding when the punch comes, and its a way to do it that doesn't risk any brain injuries.
 
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Bill Mattocks

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Perhaps, but the goal is simulating reality as close as you can.

Is that the goal? And does sparring simulate reality? I am not at all certain that this has been proven to be the case. You are making an assumption.

If you are going to train for a fight (boxing, mama, may thai, etc) you are going to spar, and spar pretty hard. It's still not a fight, but you want to get close. If you are going to go into space, you're going to spend time in simulators.

I agree that sparring is good practice for controlled fighting, which is just sparring for points, extra hard. Again, I do not assume that sparring is anything like a real fight.

It's also a build up. You don't muck around on dry land doing exercises about diving then step up onto the 10 meter and go for a fancy dive. You build up, one step at a time. Are you saying that because I can't actually do a couple flips off the 10 meter I should not bother with training on the tower until I have to try it for the first time?

I said nothing of the kind. I said that practice at swimming is swimming. If you want to use it as an analogy, then practice fighting is fighting. Not sparring.

All that said, who cares? Most of us are never going to get in a street fight in our life. Do what's fun for you, if you don't like sparring then don't spar. But in that fantasy world where fights happen as frequent as in kung fu movies the person who trained the closest to reality is going to be at an advantage.

I never said I don't like sparring, where did you get that? We spar in my dojo, I've sparred in various tournaments, I find it entertaining and fun.

I am not even convinced that sparring is not effective to try to prepare for a self-defense situation that might never happen; but I am also not convinced that it is. As I mentioned, I've seen trained military professionals freeze or otherwise not behave the way they were trained in stressful situations; this leads me to believe that people are different. Not everyone reacts the same way, even when they have the same training. I don't know how to get around that.

I've certain had to fight for my life, hand-to-hand, with people who wanted to kill me. It was not fun, not once. I haven't had it happen since I started martial arts training (I started formal training at age 46) and may never have it happen again. I only know a few things for certain, and they only apply to me. One is that I know I try hard not to get into fights. I'll go to great lengths to avoid one. Another is that if the fight is on, I can keep my head and do what I have to do. Another is that I'm a freaking monster if I think my life is in danger. And (so far) when losing isn't a good option, I haven't lost.

I don't know if sparring has helped me with 'street' (by which I mean self-defense, I don't get into 'challenge' or 'macho bullpucky' fights) or not. I tend to think it has. But I have no proof of that, and neither does anyone else. It's all guesswork.
 

Dinkydoo

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A combination of fitness/conditioning, good pad/partner drills to ingrain good habits (like forward pressure, stepping to the side when under stress instead of just backwards, blocking properly...etc) and free sparring will be required if you want to be able to fight.

Sparring is great for lots of things but without the good padwork/partner drills, I've found it's not so good. You'd be surprised at how much you can spar without actually getting any better. If you can't or haven't tried to do something as a reflex in a drill, don't expect to be able to do it in free sparring.

General guidelines that work for me
 

Touch Of Death

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A combination of fitness/conditioning, good pad/partner drills to ingrain good habits (like forward pressure, stepping to the side when under stress instead of just backwards, blocking properly...etc) and free sparring will be required if you want to be able to fight.

Sparring is great for lots of things but without the good padwork/partner drills, I've found it's not so good. You'd be surprised at how much you can spar without actually getting any better. If you can't or haven't tried to do something as a reflex in a drill, don't expect to be able to do it in free sparring.

General guidelines that work for me
Pads? We don't need no stinkin' pads. :blackeye:
 

crazydiamond

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Buy good headgear, like $80-100 that Boxers use, and not the junk that many TMA schools train with, made by Century, Pro Force... You are taking a lot of risks at your age with head shots...sparring, even with the agreed upon, light level, can spike to hard at times when people get mad....but it's true, getting hit pretty hard and often, is apart of real Self Defense training.

Thanks - I kind of agree with you.. but my instructor does not - he feels headgear encourages sparing partners to hit harder and the gear will not help then. This is the gear I got before I started the class -I have never got to use it. The again our sparing is not intense at this point and we have 16 oz gloves. But I may have another discussion with the instructor in the future.

Boxing sparing is maybe once every 5 weeks (we do other sparing other weeks).

Headgear with Cheek and Chin Protection, MMA Headgear
 
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Touch Of Death

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Thanks - I kind of agree but my instructor does not - he feels headgear encourages sparing partners to hit harder and the gear will not help then. This is the gear I got before I started the class -I have never got to use it. The again our sparing is not intense at this point.

Headgear with Cheek and Chin Protection, MMA Headgear
They gotta toughen you up a little. A lot of pain is superficial, like hair pulling. It hurts, but did you die? Stuff. You need some contact conditioning, before you pad up. What if you forgot your gym bag, on the street? :)
 

drop bear

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Is that the goal? And does sparring simulate reality? I am not at all certain that this has been proven to be the c

Dosent my techniques have the same effect in sparring as they do in self defence?
 

JowGaWolf

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Sparring, even with moderate to heavy contact, is not fighting. It resembles fighting in some ways. It is similar to fighting. But fighting it is not.
This is true but for the most part the only real difference between fighting and sparring is the intensity. To keep students from trying to hit each other too hard. I remind them that if a weak or slow punch makes contact, then a strong and fast punch will surely make contact.
 

Bill Mattocks

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This is true but for the most part the only real difference between fighting and sparring is the intensity.

I disagree, if you are referring to the kind of fighting one is likely to encounter in a self-defense situation or a typical barroom brawl. I have never encountered a so-called real life situation that resembled sparring in any way other than there were fists involved.
 

JowGaWolf

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Technique is technique. do you throw a punch in a barroom differently than you throw a punch in sparring? Or is it the same punch at a higher intensity?
 

Bill Mattocks

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Technique is technique. do you throw a punch in a barroom differently than you throw a punch in sparring? Or is it the same punch at a higher intensity?

I throw a different punch when my feet are slipping under me in blood, when I have a kabar embedded in my flak jacket, when I'm trying to punch a guy whose buddy has one of my arms in a half-assed wristlock, when I'm kneeling on the desert sand with a steel helmet banging me on the bridge of my nose, and so on.

In other words, I threw what I could and technique be damned. I also used mace, a maglite, and a night stick at various times. I have hit people on the head with a 45. Whatever it took.

The only time anyone ever tried to square off with me it was a fake, his buddies tackled me from the side and I got a good head kicking for being foolish.

And although that was all long before I ever started training, and I have excellent techniques now (bragging), I am not convinced that sparring is the reason for it. I'm sure it didn't hurt.
 

Bill Mattocks

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And now that you've got me thinking about it, I realize that I never learned to testicle grab sparring, or knee in the face, eye gouge, eardrum slap, or hyper extend elbows sparring. I did learn in the dojo though. I did not develop my punch sparring, but on the heavy bag and with a willing (and pain tolerant) uke. The stances and transitions I've learned, I have used sparring, but I didn't learn them there.

Sparring is great. I've learned a lot doing it. It does not resemble any fight I've ever been in. I'm not a badass, I didn't grow up streetfighting. I had a job where trained Marines tried to kick my *** and occasionally tried to kill me no fooling, and I had to deal with it. I gained a small level of understanding that a real fight is chaos.
 

drop bear

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I disagree, if you are referring to the kind of fighting one is likely to encounter in a self-defense situation or a typical barroom brawl. I have never encountered a so-called real life situation that resembled sparring in any way other than there were fists involved.

Yet a lot of people do. Bjjers jump guard and sub people. Boxers punch guys in the head. Tkders drop people with kicks. People self defence in a reflection of their style of fighting

They are not all just closing their eyes and swing for the rafters
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...xmKJy6cVwcU4ep-lA&sig2=dEJ-HnpxxSbmXeFUIebaUQ
 
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JowGaWolf

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I realize that I never learned to testicle grab sparring, or knee in the face, eye gouge, eardrum slap, or hyper extend elbows sparring. I did learn in the dojo though. I did not develop my punch sparring, but on the heavy bag and with a willing (and pain tolerant) uke. The stances and transitions I've learned, I have used sparring, but I didn't learn them there.
I do all of these in sparring to a certain extent. Testicle grabs for me are a combination of conditioning the hand and improving grip strength and technique. In sparring I target the groin as if I was going to grab or strike the groin but I never make contact, knees to the face we do the same way. This allows me to throw my knee as if I was going to knee the face and it gives my sparring partner the opportunity to block the knee that is coming to his face, eye gouge we do at distance so that the fingers aren't close to the face. We do eardum slaps as well but do not target the ear (we target the cheek) unfortunately we hyper extend elbows during sparring but it's not done full force. I recently hyper extended my sparring partners elbow after caught his punch. He tried to remove his arm so I locked it, when he couldn't escape he tried to punch me with the other hand, which at I responded by increasing pressure on his elbow until he stopped his attack. A real fight situation would have just been more intense and the pressure would have be quickly done instead of gradually done.

Punching for me works like this. Pads and heavy bags develop conditioning. Sparring develops technique because I have to know how to throw punches in the context of someone punching back at me or trying to take me to the ground. A heavy bag can tell me if my opponent is watching my eyes to determine when and where I'm going to throw a punch. A heavy bag can't force me to change strategy when my initial game plan doesn't work. A heavy bag can't attack me or put me in a bad situation.

All of the techniques that I drill are eventually done in the context of fighting via sparring. This includes 2 vs 1 sparring and sparring against other fighting systems. Drilling techniques is not the same way as using techniques in contact sparring and without the sparring, a person isn't going to be able to utilize those techniques in the context of fighting. In my school the students who spar are significantly better at reading attacks and defending against attacks.

I'm not saying this is a right or wrong case, I just wanted to share a little of how sparring is done in my school.
 

Bill Mattocks

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Sorry, deleting my reply. Taking me places I don't want visit again. Think what you want about the efficacy of sparring. Perhaps you're right. I'm done.
 
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Flying Crane

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Technique is technique. do you throw a punch in a barroom differently than you throw a punch in sparring? Or is it the same punch at a higher intensity?
It is different. In sparring I am holding back. That makes delivery very different on fundamental levels.
 

Paul_D

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Technique is technique. do you throw a punch in a barroom differently than you throw a punch in sparring? Or is it the same punch at a higher intensity?
No, it's not the same punch at all. Boxers throw punches differently. When they argue at a press conference and it descends into a brawl does it look anything like the skilled exchange of a boxing match?

They aren't stood in the same stance for a start, as they usually grab hold of each other, it's just wild fists flailing. So boxers punch differently in a brawl than they do in training.
 

drop bear

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No, it's not the same punch at all. Boxers throw punches differently. When they argue at a press conference and it descends into a brawl does it look anything like the skilled exchange of a boxing match?

They aren't stood in the same stance for a start, as they usually grab hold of each other, it's just wild fists flailing. So boxers punch differently in a brawl than they do in training.
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...K-1PJs9EP_3O_Y0bA&sig2=qhdrslsJfRQddYHn_YHsQg
 

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