For some of us, 10 students enrolled would actually be almost ideal. I've discovered I really like small classes, though mine are a bit smaller than I'd like.
Sparring
- Thread starter Azulx
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JR 137
Grandmaster
We're pretty sure this is a college TKD club, not a dojang. If so, he doesn't need a minimum number to pay the overhead. The college could theoretically cancel it due to turnout, however, depending on the college's policies.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Your student isnt fighting to win. He is fighting not to loose. He has to stop giving a love that you are the black belt. That you are the instructor. And that you are basically phoning those sparring sessions in.
Otherwise both of you need to know where the edge of that mat is. Constantly backing up to a point where you are being driven off the mat to halt the sparring session is not super helpful from a skill development point of view.
Hit the edge of that mat and move defensively.
Agree!
There is another "fun" sparring training and that is:
If I can make you to move back just 1 step within the 30 seconds round, I win that round, otherwise, I lose that round. Test this for 15 rounds and record the result. Reverse the attacker and defender and repeat.
This training will develop "courage" that no matter how hard your opponent's attack, you are not going to move back for even 1 inch. It will force you to train how to block punches and kicks big time.
marques
Master Black Belt
Following the Kung Fu Wang ideas, you can also set a variety of objectives, as using and abusing of the technique of the day, make your student succeed in a particular situation, limit yourself to punches...
Someone already asked 'what is the sparring objective?' Perhaps you had one and we don't know. But just in case, it is better to have one each sparring time, than just spar, generically.
I have 2 or 3 things that I do by default. 1) My usual tricks, 2) Looking for the best strategy according to opponent dimensions and skills and 3) Trying to find a solution for a difficult situation (usually due to opponents speciality). Just to send out more ideas.
Someone already asked 'what is the sparring objective?' Perhaps you had one and we don't know. But just in case, it is better to have one each sparring time, than just spar, generically.
I have 2 or 3 things that I do by default. 1) My usual tricks, 2) Looking for the best strategy according to opponent dimensions and skills and 3) Trying to find a solution for a difficult situation (usually due to opponents speciality). Just to send out more ideas.
Sometime you may just force yourself to train one move and one move only. For example, when your opponent punches at you, you kicks out your toes push kick on his belly.
This method is commonly used in wrestling. One of my friends had forced himself to use "hip throw" only for 2 years. Later on he became Taiwan national SC champion. I had forced myself to only use "single leg" in wrestling for 6 months. The result was great.
Sorry guys, what I meant by not taking any new students. I meant not until I start officially instructing in January. I think 10 students will be my maximum.This also depends on how many are showing up regularly. I would like 5-8 students. Right now I have 2. I will take all those drills into consideration. I really appreciate all the feedback. Definitely great advice to help practice sparring.
KangTsai
2nd Black Belt
I don't think leg kicks were allowed in this sparring session.
Understood. In my case, it could be a kick or a sweep, but yeah, styles vary and I totally get it.
Leg kicks are something I want to eventually introduce into our sparring. Just not yet.
OK, this is what I see. Watched it four times. Remember, I'm not an expert on anything, and this is generic observation stuff, might not apply to your style.
1) Distance. You're both too far away.
2) Gold belt needs to keep his elbows in.
3) Don't just block with your gloves. Drop arms, block with elbows, deflect, get offline. You don't have to receive every punch or even deal with it if you can avoid it.
4) Jabs are nice but not powerful. Use them to set up the next shot. I see the guy without the helmet did that pretty well. Gold belt not so much.
5) No-Helmet throws half-punches to connect with Gold belt's head or body. They connect, but they're not real punches. More for show than go.
6) Several times, No-Helmet leads with his face and lets Gold belt inside, but Goldie doesn't take advantage. Real fight, someone will remove that noggin.
7) Bouncy feet. Maybe good for TKD style kicking, not sure if it's that great for stand-up punching. If it were me, I'd try to time those hops and attack while the opponent was in mid-air. Might work, might not, but I'd push in every time those feet left the floor.
1) Distance. You're both too far away.
2) Gold belt needs to keep his elbows in.
3) Don't just block with your gloves. Drop arms, block with elbows, deflect, get offline. You don't have to receive every punch or even deal with it if you can avoid it.
4) Jabs are nice but not powerful. Use them to set up the next shot. I see the guy without the helmet did that pretty well. Gold belt not so much.
5) No-Helmet throws half-punches to connect with Gold belt's head or body. They connect, but they're not real punches. More for show than go.
6) Several times, No-Helmet leads with his face and lets Gold belt inside, but Goldie doesn't take advantage. Real fight, someone will remove that noggin.
7) Bouncy feet. Maybe good for TKD style kicking, not sure if it's that great for stand-up punching. If it were me, I'd try to time those hops and attack while the opponent was in mid-air. Might work, might not, but I'd push in every time those feet left the floor.
Thank you so much Mr. Mattocks. By the way, I am the person with no helmet.
I thought so, but wasn't sure. By the way, thank you for posting these vids. I do not by any means intend to be harsh or overly critical. I am not an expert.
marques
Master Black Belt
Second video (only hands) opinion:
Far too much pressure. It would be nice once in a month, graduation examination... Pointless if every day practice with that gap in skills and range. (It would be good for you to eliminate your reach advantage in some way... or finding bigger students or partners.)
Much lower speed would be better. Your student never touched you. Let him do something. Perhaps limit yourself to hooks or something. Let him have some success (touch you) and learn proper distance, timing, confidence...
Besides lower speed, you can repeat the same technique or combination again and again and observe what your student do. Better defence each time? Different defence? Counter? No success at all? Why not? According to results, you can give personalised advice, plan next training session... Personally I repeat the same a few times until training partner success. Perhaps I give a suggestion if no progress or just move to the next experiment. I just play with all resources when it is really challenging. So it keeps useful for both.
As instructor, you just need to show "you're the boss" from time to time. Most of the time is teaching, motivating... Point any tiny success. If a jab has less one fail, out of 20, that is a progress to point out! Or they will just feel awkward all the time and quite training...
On the other hand, you're already adding variety to the sparring session, which is good. And alI wrote here is relative to a yellow belt student. A brown or black belt should survive to this and much more, including full contact.
My 50 p.
Far too much pressure. It would be nice once in a month, graduation examination... Pointless if every day practice with that gap in skills and range. (It would be good for you to eliminate your reach advantage in some way... or finding bigger students or partners.)
Much lower speed would be better. Your student never touched you. Let him do something. Perhaps limit yourself to hooks or something. Let him have some success (touch you) and learn proper distance, timing, confidence...
Besides lower speed, you can repeat the same technique or combination again and again and observe what your student do. Better defence each time? Different defence? Counter? No success at all? Why not? According to results, you can give personalised advice, plan next training session... Personally I repeat the same a few times until training partner success. Perhaps I give a suggestion if no progress or just move to the next experiment. I just play with all resources when it is really challenging. So it keeps useful for both.
As instructor, you just need to show "you're the boss" from time to time. Most of the time is teaching, motivating... Point any tiny success. If a jab has less one fail, out of 20, that is a progress to point out!
Or they will just feel awkward all the time and quite training...On the other hand, you're already adding variety to the sparring session, which is good. And alI wrote here is relative to a yellow belt student. A brown or black belt should survive to this and much more, including full contact.
My 50 p.
- Get rid of the boxing gloves. If you are doing martial arts then you want full use of your hands, You want to be able to go from hands open to hands closed as needed. You won't be able to work efficient non-glove parries with the big gloves on.
- The yellow belt needs some defensive blocking and basic punching drills. This is where you guys should be trying to use those "funny" blocks (upward blocks, downward blocks, rising blocks, blocks to the sides,etc.) that are common in martial arts.
- At the intensity you two were punching at you should have really been trying to do your techniques from your system. The worst case scenario is that you guys spar for an hour and never to martial arts. The best case scenario is that you'll get a light punch to the face and actually learn how to use martial arts techniques from your system. The same techniques in your from are the same techniques that you should try to use at this intensity level.
- Yellow belt's arms are too extended which means that before he punches he'll actually have to bring them in. Arms should be in a guard position where they are always ready to strike without withdrawing towards the body first.
- Too much footwork that leads to no where. In martial arts in general, if you are moving your fee,t then you need to be moving to somewhere useful.
You may consider to end with "clinch" before you separate and move back again. If you can establish that "clinch", you can finish your opponent with an "uppercut" if you want to. This way, you will have "finish a fight" as your "goal". You won't just throw one punch here and throw another punch there.
Try my invention, the "rhino guard". For punching and clinching only game, it works pretty good.
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The student is definitely striking from far too far away nearly every time. He reaches near full extension several inches from any useful target. You may want to work on some drills to challenge that. Since his issue is with judging distance to the target, mitts won't be a good answer (they actually foster staying too far away). Here's one option: you put up your guard, and his job is to enter and hit you in the body at 25% power (or whatever level you prefer). You don't block or strike, you just move. Start with no movement until he's actually hitting you. Then move a little until he's hitting you again. Keep going until you're using movement closer to what you normally would.
Later, you can repeat this with some limited blocking to better challenge his ability to find a hole. In all cases, you should restrict your speed (since you should have better reactions than him) to make sure there are actual openings for him to work with.
I like the cheap cloth sparring gloves from AWMA for light sparring with lower-ranking students (or if I just don't want any rib bruises that night). They cushion light hits very nicely and still allow easy use of the hands. And they are cheap.
JR 137
Grandmaster
He's too far away. He's reaching too far, which causes two issues -
1. The punches won't connect with nearly enough power.
2. Just as importantly, his head has to come up higher than usual in relation to his trunk, thereby exposing his face and more so his chin.
Trying to hit you from this distance, he'll only smack the surface rather than punching through the opponent (think of how you'd want to punch a hole in a wall or break a board; you don't want to reach full extension at the surface, you want to strike through it). He's also off balance and can easily be swept or pulled straight down.
I think a big part of it is him being afraid to get hit. He's trying to hit you without being hit back. He doesn't have confidence. He doesn't understand how to get in. He doesn't know when to punch. He only knows he has to punch, and he's going to get hit in the process.
I have the same problems, albeit to a lesser extent, when I spar with people way above my league. There's a guy at the dojo who's just way too good. Every time I think I'm in, I catch something upside the head or in the ribs. Then he'll work with me. Once I get more confident and I'm landing stuff successfully, he's back at me. I love it.
How does he overcome this? More mat time, aka experience.
One thing you can do with him is slowing down the sparring speed. You punch slow, so so does he. It'll give him some good feedback. Have him focus on where his job-punching hand is, where his head is, where his center of mass is. He'll realize how off balance he is. He'll realize how far away he is. Even when going slow, tell him every punch counts; no throwing a punch for the sake of throwing a punch. Every punch he throws doesn't have to be a power punch, but every punch needs a purpose. If it's not a power punch, it's a jab to set up a power punch.
He also has to be reassured that you're not going to hurt him. Only experience sparring with you will truly give him that.
All of that will end up helping both of you.
Just my opinions. I'm not an MA teacher nor expert. Just a guy who's been training for a while, and a school and PE teacher.
1. The punches won't connect with nearly enough power.
2. Just as importantly, his head has to come up higher than usual in relation to his trunk, thereby exposing his face and more so his chin.
Trying to hit you from this distance, he'll only smack the surface rather than punching through the opponent (think of how you'd want to punch a hole in a wall or break a board; you don't want to reach full extension at the surface, you want to strike through it). He's also off balance and can easily be swept or pulled straight down.
I think a big part of it is him being afraid to get hit. He's trying to hit you without being hit back. He doesn't have confidence. He doesn't understand how to get in. He doesn't know when to punch. He only knows he has to punch, and he's going to get hit in the process.
I have the same problems, albeit to a lesser extent, when I spar with people way above my league. There's a guy at the dojo who's just way too good. Every time I think I'm in, I catch something upside the head or in the ribs. Then he'll work with me. Once I get more confident and I'm landing stuff successfully, he's back at me. I love it.
How does he overcome this? More mat time, aka experience.
One thing you can do with him is slowing down the sparring speed. You punch slow, so so does he. It'll give him some good feedback. Have him focus on where his job-punching hand is, where his head is, where his center of mass is. He'll realize how off balance he is. He'll realize how far away he is. Even when going slow, tell him every punch counts; no throwing a punch for the sake of throwing a punch. Every punch he throws doesn't have to be a power punch, but every punch needs a purpose. If it's not a power punch, it's a jab to set up a power punch.
He also has to be reassured that you're not going to hurt him. Only experience sparring with you will truly give him that.
All of that will end up helping both of you.
Just my opinions. I'm not an MA teacher nor expert. Just a guy who's been training for a while, and a school and PE teacher.
