Sparring

[Daniel Sullivan]

I enjoyed reading your post as I do with most of them.

I second that!

Help me understand this please. As a karate man, I believe there are fundamental strategies embedded within the kata I practice. Most of the strategies I favor involved closing with the foe, striking him in hopefully a destructive fashion and then ending the altercation with a forceful take down or a controlling pin of some fashion.

We can practice these so-called bunkai in a cooperative fashion with a partner where each one of you take turns playing a mannequin for the other to manipulate. At some point however, I think it is imperative to gradually decrease the level of cooperation from the partner until there is none and the two are now actually engaged in a form of free sparring with each seeking to implement the lessons learned from our kata. Of course, the application now looks nothing like our pretty prearranged drills, but we have learned to use the specific teachings in 'organized chaos', and I think this is as close as it gets to real combat as we can simulate in our dojo.

We are seeking to take our kata and gradually build from a static solo exercise to a prearranged partner drill and then finally to a reasonable free form expression. I don't see how we can make a truer simulation. Do you? We have no running kata, so I would preclude discussion of running or other similar strategies as an alternative, even though certainly it might be a best option in reality.

The question then becomes whether or not what you describe constitutes sparring or something else. That brings us back to how sparring is defined and what is meant to be achieved in sparring.

Daniel

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi dancingalone,

I enjoyed reading your post as I do with most of them.

Thanks, I try.

Help me understand this please.

I'll do my best. Let's see how we go, shall we?

As a karate man, I believe there are fundamental strategies embedded within the kata I practice.

As a former karate guy (and TKD, and a few others....), I agree completely. I think one of the most under-rated quotes in karate was from Funakoshi, when he said that the secret to karate was in the kata. But I will say that I have developed a somewhat unorthodox interpretation of the bunkai due to other arts I have since trained in, and the similarities and differences I have noted within them. But that's another conversation....

Most of the strategies I favor involved closing with the foe, striking him in hopefully a destructive fashion and then ending the altercation with a forceful take down or a controlling pin of some fashion.

A good strategy. Of course, having a second course of action would be advisable as well, in case that one didn't work out for any reason, as it leaves you close to a now angry opponent....

We can practice these so-called bunkai in a cooperative fashion with a partner where each one of you take turns playing a mannequin for the other to manipulate. At some point however, I think it is imperative to gradually decrease the level of cooperation from the partner until there is none and the two are now actually engaged in a form of free sparring with each seeking to implement the lessons learned from our kata. Of course, the application now looks nothing like our pretty prearranged drills, but we have learned to use the specific teachings in 'organized chaos', and I think this is as close as it gets to real combat as we can simulate in our dojo.

Within traditional Japanese systems there is the training concept of Shu Ha Ri, which is a form of breaking learning into various stages. Shu is the initial stage, in which techniques learnt are trained exactly, with no variation, in order to attain skill in the fundamental application of the mechanics of the art (this is a very basic version, really, but it'll do for here). Ha allows the student to adapt the technique, recognising the underlying principles, and allowing them to fit it to different situations and circumstances. By the time we get to Ri, the practitioner moves beyond even the lessons of the initial technique, in order to freely apply the breadth of their knowledge and skill to any situation, essentially becoming their own teacher.

With your scenario, the learning of the bunkai with a compliant training partner (the manequin you mention) is very much a "Shu" form of learning. Resistance moves more into "Ha", and free-form application of the lessons is closer to "Ri" (it must be noted that I am using these terms as an over-all concept, the actual application of Shu-Ha-Ri is much more far-reaching than is indicated here). In essence, I think your approach there is a very good one.

We are seeking to take our kata and gradually build from a static solo exercise to a prearranged partner drill and then finally to a reasonable free form expression. I don't see how we can make a truer simulation. Do you? We have no running kata, so I would preclude discussion of running or other similar strategies as an alternative, even though certainly it might be a best option in reality.

Adrenaline scenario drills are my prefered choice. In these, they mimic a self defence scenario in that there is a defined attacker (or attackers), which could be a pre-determined attack with a pre-determined defence, or a free-form defence, up to random, full speed and power attacks with completely free responces from the defender. This can include weapons, groups, and so forth. In order to get the feel of adrenaline, that can be achieved with visualisations to put you there, or by any number of physical methods.

In terms of "running kata", no, they aren't common in many systems. In fact, Ninjutsu is rather rare in that we do actually have them (they feature in the Togakure Ryu quite a bit). I might suggest adding it to your self defence scenario training, though, as well as verbal defusion, reading body language, working on your own, and far more.

Hope that cleared some things up for you, if not, just ask.

 

[dancingalone]

Adrenaline scenario drills are my prefered choice. In these, they mimic a self defence scenario in that there is a defined attacker (or attackers), which could be a pre-determined attack with a pre-determined defence, or a free-form defence, up to random, full speed and power attacks with completely free responces from the defender. This can include weapons, groups, and so forth. In order to get the feel of adrenaline, that can be achieved with visualisations to put you there, or by any number of physical methods.

We have 'bull in the ring' exercises which sound very much like what you describe.

I appreciate the response.

 

[ap Oweyn]

Hmm, gonna disagree with you, there, Stuart. Respectfully, you understand, but, well, you're wrong!

Well, as long as it's respectfully.

Okay, I'll be a little more serious.

Okey dokey

As I've said a number of times, there are as many reasons to train in martial arts as there are martial art students, and not all of them train in them to "apply" them. Not all arts are designed to be "applied" in such a manner, either. Ken's already mentioned Iaido and Jodo, and I'll expand on Bruno's answer in a moment, but to that you can also add Kyudo, pretty much all Koryu systems, and many more. Let's take Kyudo.

Kyudo is trained as a solo experience with the aim of perfect unison between self, the bow, the arrow, and the target, even beyond the idea of accuracy in the shot itself. There is no opponent, there is only the target and yourself. But then again, the art teaches you how to draw a bow, notch the arrow, aim accurately, and fire towards a target. It certainly covers both the description of "martial" and "art", to my mind.

Now, if I understand your argument, you are claiming that if it is removed from combative purpose, or self defence application, then it ceases to be a martial art. I'd actually argue the opposite. And it comes down to the application of terminology.

No offense, Chris, but I'm not going to get into a semantic argument. If that's the crux of the disagreement, let's nip it in the bud. I don't really care whether someone calls something a martial art or no. I'm not a diehard on that count. You're right, archery doesn't really simulate the reality of shooting an opponent with an arrow. And I regard archery as a martial art. We can expand that basic logic outward and encapsulate all sorts of things. And I'd be fine with that.

The more fundamental point I was making was that if someone's intent is to apply taijiquan (or anything else) in a freeform, hostile situation, then some form of sparring is going to be necessary.

Whether we want to call it martial arts regardless is ideological and personal. No skin off my nose one way or the other. I'm not into telling other people what they are and aren't doing. But I do believe that training needs to include some simulation of randomness, impact, etc. For simplicity's sake, I regard such simulations as "sparring."

For me, a martial art is beyond simple technically applicable concepts, frankly it has outgrown such base ideologies. Military skills and methods are not martial arts per se, they are military skills and methods. Self defence skills are devoid of the breadth of conceptual detail and knowledge, the depth of subtlty that martial arts encapsulate. They are by necessity simple, gross motor, reliable. Maybe if we think of them as cars (sorry, watching Top Gear right now....), that may help. A military approach can be either a tank, or a jeep. A jeep can have some civilian usage, with soem sacrifice and a fair amount of compromise, but a tank really doesn't. Self defence is a basic, sturdy vehicle, maybe a Ford Transit van for instance. Martial arts, on the other hand, are the luxury and high-end machines, filled with things that are not really necessary, move away from the pure practicalities of the van, in order to give various experiences. And there are as many of these luxury vehicles as there are drivers, some customised to the specific needs of the driver, others more considered "classics", others factory-standard but well-equipped. Hmm, may have gone off on a tangent there....

That's as good a distinction as any other.

So it really does come down to why someone is training in a particular art themselves. If it is for self defence, then that should be the priority. If it is sport, then that should be the priority.

Agreed. And I was making reference to the application of taijiquan. I don't believe that someone whose training consists primarily of doing the long form is suddenly going to be able to operationalize all of that when someone grabs them and starts trying to genuinely enforce their will.

Now, as it comes to sparring, I think you and I have been here before, but here we go again! For me, sparring is far from ideal, as it is completely removed from the reality of what I train for, in all the myriad forms that I do. My reasons are many, and listed in various other threads here, but in brief, my biggest complaint is the lack of reality involved. That is closely followed by the restrictions on applicable tactics and expressions of the strategic methods of my art.

Again, no offense Chris, but if you and I have been here before, you've likely already heard my response to this. But lemme hold off on that for a sec.

This is different to saying that free-form, spontaneous expression of tactics and technique against random, unnominated attacks, all the way to full speed and power, pressure testing, and so forth are bad. In fact, I think they're essential, especially if you're looking at defensive skills being developed.

How is it different? It's only different if your definition of "sparring" is different from "freeform, spontaneous expression of tactics and technique against random, unnominated attacks." Frankly, that sounds like an awfully convoluted way of saying "sparring."

Now, sparring is shaped by all sorts of rulesets, equipment, and so on. But the common thread that runs through various rulesets of sparring is this idea of spontaneity, freeform technique, unrehearsed exchange, etc. But sparring formats can include weapons use, grappling, multiple attackers, verbal exchange, "win conditions" like escaping versus staying in the engagement. I would describe all of these things as "sparring." There don't have to be points, referees, etc. involved.

Sparring is the lab.

But the common cry of "it's as close as you can get" is frankly wrong. It's not really close at all, when you get down to it. And there are better methods that are far closer to reality and the skill development required. Once again, these are detailed on other threads, but if you ask, I'll go through them here again.

Nothing is really close. All training is an approximation. That's just the way it is. It's simply a question of where you take your compromises. Practicing an eye gouge or groin rip is still a pretty big approximation if you're pulling it, working it on a dummy, or practicing it on some guy wearing a helmet so big it's effectively doubled the circumference of his head. In training, we triangulate the truth. We seldom land on it.

In terms of the tactics that Bruno was talking about, sparring demands certain things, like staying involved in the situation when escape is possible or advisable (and it's one of our first choices, really!). To truly apply the tactics and strategies of our art, frankly, you should be able to run away! And that isn't really given as an option in sparring.

Why? Because you haven't sparred that way? Dan Inosanto describes, in the early days of JKD, that they'd gear up and lay out markers to indicate the exit to a room. Then three guys (for example) would dogpile two others. The match ended when the two managed to get through the indicated escape route.

Now, I have no way of forcing you to regard that as sparring. But, frankly, people geared up in headgear, mouthpieces, and boxing gloves is sparring to me. No points, no ref, and a reasonable win condition.

So, uh, no. Sparring is not essential. Unless, of course, it is preparation for sparring-style application (such as sporting competition). But testing of applicability and skills under pressure in a variety of free-form scenario drills, if such applications are your aim, absolutely is.

Again, I'm not getting into a semantics argument Chris. You're a good writer. And between us, we could bury MartialTalk in verbiage. All the freeform scenario drill stuff, I'd describe as sparring. If you have a narrower definition of sparring, then of course we're going to disagree.

To me, sparring is a very versatile tool. It can be shaped in all sorts of ways to develop the skillsets and attributes that you, as an individual, determine you need. Looking at the sparring that somebody with different priorities does and then deciding to reject the whole notion is a very clear example of lobbing the baby with the bath water.

At the end of the day, I doubt we disagree beyond the superficial descriptors. If you want to be able to use something, your training needs to address the conditions under which you'd use it to whatever degree is reasonable. What each of us calls that is up to us as individuals.

In other words, respectfully, you're not wrong.



Stuart

 

[Langenschwert]

With swords????!!! Are you nuts????!!!!

Unabashedly.

We spar extensively every class. Now obviously we can't whack each other with steel blunts full force, so control is the name of the game. I routinely spar with steel wearing no protective gear other than gloves and a fencing mask. Beginners use nylon wasters since they're a little more accurate in response than wooden wasters.

Now, we realize it's an abstraction. The truth is, the opponent is trying NOT to kill you when you spar, which is the opposite of what we train for when you think about it. Fortunately, weapons are force multipliers. It takes very little effort to turn a tap to a vicious cut if you need to. Throws with steel are a different story... making someone land on their crossguard by accident can result in a serious injury.

My methodology was to give beginners a reasonable grounding in the techniques without sparring so their muscle memory is adequate. Then we do controlled sparring to make sure they don't wail away on each other with abandon and reduce their reaction time. After that, they're thrown in the deep end with everybody sparring everybody. The results have been quite encouraging. Senior practicioners alternatively will take it easy on beginners and then ramp it up and then become more passive to encourage the beginners to take the initiative. Sometimes they will give the juniors 100% to get them used to being calm when overwhelmed. It's working well so far. My prodest moments are when students start modifying techniques and use them in different situations on their own, often without realizing it themselves.

Besides, these practices are historical and were used to train people for encounters with sharps. It was called "Playing the Prize". To wit:

"this is the triall: they shall play with such weapons as they professe to teach withall, three bouts apeece with three of the best English Maisters of Defence, & three bouts apeece with three unskilful valiant men, and three bouts apeece with three resolute men half drunke. Then if they can defend themselves against these maisters of Defence, and hurt, and go free from the rest, then are they be honored, cherished, and allowed for perfect good teachers"

-George Silver, 1599

Best regards,

-Mark

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi Stuart,

Yeah, once again the main difference between our positions is that of definitions. Again, I'm taking mine from the "typical" form of sparring; two practitioners, most commonly of the same art, with similar styles, approaches, training, methods, techniques, skill sets etc, matching up against each other within those skill sets etc, meaning that it is a match between two skilled persons of similar backgrounds. This I take from, amongst other things, MJS's stating that, for this thread:

For the sake of discussion, I suppose we could define sparring as anything from the tappy-point sparring stuff we see at tournaments, all the way to MMA style. For any grapplers that care to chime in, we could define sparring as their 'free rolling' where they're pressure testing their material.

That, to me at least, removes such training drills as discussed.

That said, I think you and I are coming from a very similar place, and really are in agreement in pretty much all things, other than definitions. Always good matching positions with you!

 

[ap Oweyn]

You too, Chris.

 

[Flying Crane]

Firstly, as has been discussed, not all sparring is equal. Some kinds of sparring are good training, some kinds of sparring are worse than no training, for self defense.

If competition sparring is what you want to do, then you must practice competition sparring.

If self defense is what you want, then the right kind of sparring is useful, and the wrong kind of sparring is a liability to your training.

I do not believe that you can make a blanket statement and say that you must spar, in your martial arts training, for self defense. I believe that there are other training methods that are not sparring, that can lead to good, solid self defense training.

That's not to take away from what sparring also has to offer, if it's the right kind of sparring. Sure, it's also a good tool. But no, I do not believe it is a tool that everyone MUST have.

 

[dancingalone]

I believe that there are other training methods that are not sparring, that can lead to good, solid self defense training.

This would make an interesting post to read if you have the time to elaborate upon it. Hint, hint.

 

[Flying Crane]

This would make an interesting post to read if you have the time to elaborate upon it. Hint, hint.

alright, I'll give it a go...

when I think of sparring, I think of two people squaring off to fight, freestyle. Rules may vary. There may or may not be protective equipment worn. There may be many restrictions to targets and types of attacks, there may be few. Contact may be limited to none, to light, to medium, to heavy. There may be points awarded, or no points. The match may be continuous or not, throws and takedowns and wrassling on the ground may or may not be permitted.

The specific rules of the situation will dictate how gentle or abusive the faceoff will be.

But in the end, we are talking about two (or more) people squaring off to fight under an agreed set of rules.

I just want to lay that out there to outline what I understand to be "sparring", and how it can vary and be representative of different things. As I say, not all sparring is the same, and depending on what you want to get out of it, some types will be useful to you and other types will not.

Getting away from sparring, I believe it is possible to practice with what I would term, "self defense scenarios". It could be two people in the drill, or more than two, again the specifics can vary but the idea is the same. You have an attacker and a defender. The attacker gives a realistic attack, and the defender must defend realistically. The intensity of this engagement can increase as students progress in ability. But the drill is to ultimately get the students to respond spontaneously and effectively to whatever kind of attack comes in. In the beginning, there can be more control in the drill, and the types of attacks more limited. As skill improves, the attacks become more and more intense, and the variety and unpredictability of the attacks can increase until it becomes quite intense. We're talking about punches, or grabs, bearhugs, strangle holds, kicks, whatever kind of attacks you want to work into it, whatever you think some thug might try to do to you someday. But the student uses this drill to experience the attack and develop the skills to respond to it effectively.

I don't see this as sparring, because there is a designated attacker and defender, to act out the situation. It is not two people facing off to fight, tho any scenario could organically fall into that happening as part of the drill, tho that isn't the goal of the drill. You don't WANT to turn the attack into a sparring match. Instead, you want to quickly neutralize the attack and end the situation.

Other ideas are drills like wing chun's chi sao. This isn't fighting, it isn't sparring. But it's a hands-on drill to develop sensitivity and learning to manipulate and control the opponent's movements and work technique off of what he is doing. Drills of this nature are very useful and give you a lot of "contact" experience with a training partner/opponent. The skills you develop from this kind of training are a bit more abstract than the Self Defense drills, but they give you very useful skills that can be brought into play and make your Self Defense abilities better.

In my White Crane, I simply take movements from the forms and drill them with my training partners. Throw that punch at me and I'll work this movement as a defense. And the way we smash down your punch hurts like a *****. It's just a drill in application, we can be as fast or slow, as hard or soft as we want, but we get accustomed to making that heavy contact and using our technique to hit the targets we want.

In short, you can get creative and use a wide variety of hands-on drills where you are working with partners to develop your use with techniques, and you can apply as much or as little pressure as is appropriate, depending on the skill level of those engaged in the exercise.

I don't believe self defense necessarily means some guy is going to come up and make you face off with him and fight. I think it's more likely to be a straight up attack, when you aren't looking for it, or it might explode after a short and heated build-up. Training to face off and spar doesn't really prepare you for this kind of attack, in my opinion. But using drills that teach you to react and hit decisively, with committment to end the situation, is a better bet, in my book.

 

[Hudson69]

Sparring is, in my own opinion, a necessity since that might be the closest one ever comes to being in a physical encounter ...right up until they find themselves in a physical encounter.

Having said that there are different levels to sparring and, based on my military and police background, and my actual experience(s) the more realistic you can make it the better off people will tend to be when they find themselves in a bad situation. Getting out of the situation and avoiding confrontation is almost always going to be the best thing you can do but sometimes you cannot do this (LEO's encounter this many times over the course of their careers).

This training doesn't mean no holds barred or bare knuckle brawling (all the time) but I believe that you have to know what it feels like to hit/kick/strike/choke/lock someone and to feel the same to really be able to use it as a form of defense/offense whatever the case may be. At the same time to make if more realistic then turn it into a scenario; LEO agencies and the Military have been using role-player based training for a long time.

Anything less is just exercise and there is nothing wrong with that either. The MA's provide a lot of benefits to those who want nothing to do with using their MA as a form of defense; balance & coordination, aerobics, flexibility and more but to never have sparring of any kind and list your system(s) as self defense sounds like asking for trouble.

Again, my opinion only

 

[Big Don]

The way my Sifu, puts it, and I agree, "Sparring isn't about learning to throw a punch or a kick, sparring is about learning to TAKE a punch or a kick."
If you've never been hit, what happens when you're in the dark alley of fame and legend and someone strikes you?
Besides, sparring is a lot of fun.

 

[MJS]

Didn't mean to neglect my thread folks...been a bit busy. Great replies, thanks! Before I get to the 2 posts below, I'll give my thoughts on sparring.

IMO, I think that its important to do. I view it as just one piece of the puzzle. Big Don made a great point with his last post. Granted, we have rules, restrictions, etc., but when it comes down to it, if ya can't take those hits during training, you may not be able to take them outside the dojo either.

I incorporate sparring into my training. After years of the point sparring stuff, I've drifted away from that, focusing more on boxing principles, different footwork, harder contact and at times, more MMA type sparring. When we spar, there are many things that we can be focusing on. You can gear up and trade punches and kicks. You can spar and work on ground technique. You can pick and empty hand technique, have your partner resist and counter.

Sorry; way too broad to answer the question of whether or not sparring is necessary. Unrealistic sparring is inferior to no sparring.

If you are practicing for tournaments and the tournament rules specify tippy-tappy-tag, then congratulations: you're playing a game and not practicing a martial art.

Or the tournament rules specify kicks only, no punches, strategically placed padding a time limit, and no sweeps or grapples, with the victor simply dishing out more hits than received, then congratulations: you're playing a game and not practicing a martial art.

If you are practicing for a tournament where you charge in and the first person to land a solid blow is given a point, with the victor simply dishing out more hits than received, then congratulations: you're playing a game and not practicing a martial art.

If you are practicing for a tournament where two people roll around on the ground and try to submit or pin eachother with striking of any sort prohibited, then congratulations: you're playing a game and not practicing a martial art.

If you are practicing a set of movements in the studio, park, or your back yard with no knowledge of the application of those movements, but are deriving fitness benefits from the execution of said set of movements, then congratulations: you are participating in an exercise program and not practicing a martial art.

I did not include MMA in any of my above commentary. Primarily because MMA really is not an 'art'; it is a rule set that allows techniques from many arts to compete in an open tournament setting. There is no rank advancement: only competition record. MMA is a sport that, to my knowledge, doesn't claim to be a martial art. Competitors consider themselves athletes and are not hung up on whether or not their sport is 'traditional' or not. As there is no rank advancement via the kyu/dan system or any variation thereof, MMA really is outside of the scope of this discussion. Same goes for boxing and sport fencing, which like MMA, have no mechanism for advancement independent of competition.

Nothing wrong with games: football is a game and it is a very tough game to play. Games are fun and there are many valuable lessons to be learned, both in the playing of them and in preparing to play them. But games (and all sports are games) are not martial arts. I'm not holding them up as inferior to martial arts: some games are certainly more challenging than some martial arts.

Nothing wrong with fitness programs either, be they MA derived or not. Fitness programs do what they are intended to do more effectively than a martial art.

Given what I have said above, I suppose then that the question of what constitutes a martial art then comes up. Many do not consider fencing, boxing and wrestling to be martial arts, but kendo, judo and BJJ magically qualify.

At least with kendo, the argument can be made that it contains kata, is trained in the traditional way, blah blah blah. But in the end, the bulk of kendo is essentially striking with a bamboo jo to designated areas using designated techniques. While the school where I train and teach does practice kata, I have heard that kata in kendo has been minimized to a great degree in many schools (no hard facts on that; only hearsay).

If sparring and competition are a core part of the art, as in BJJ and Judo, then no, there should be no advancement without it. If the art does not include a sparring element, for whatever reason (no sparring in kyudo, for example), then sparring should not be considered a qualification for rank advancement.

If you are practicing unrealistic sparring with no venue for competition in a setting where only members of your own school will fall for your techniques and you and your fellow practitioners dress up in costumes and claim to actually be or in the process of becoming a *insert name of ancient warrior*, then congratulations: you're not practicing a martial art or playing a game; you're larping.

Daniel

Points taken. Perhaps I was a bit vauge with the definition. So, if I'm reading your post correctly here, you consider the above mentioned things as unrealistic? In your opinion, what is more realistic sparring?

Hi Stuart,

Yeah, once again the main difference between our positions is that of definitions. Again, I'm taking mine from the "typical" form of sparring; two practitioners, most commonly of the same art, with similar styles, approaches, training, methods, techniques, skill sets etc, matching up against each other within those skill sets etc, meaning that it is a match between two skilled persons of similar backgrounds. This I take from, amongst other things, MJS's stating that, for this thread:



That, to me at least, removes such training drills as discussed.

That said, I think you and I are coming from a very similar place, and really are in agreement in pretty much all things, other than definitions. Always good matching positions with you!

Hi Chris,

I may've quoted the wrong post here, but for the sake of discussion (this being one that you and I have had in the past ) as I've said, I view it as 1 piece, 1 area to train. Is it the end all be all? IMO, no. I do feel though, that its drilling certain things that can't be addressed in other areas of training.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Points taken. Perhaps I was a bit vauge with the definition. So, if I'm reading your post correctly here, you consider the above mentioned things as unrealistic? In your opinion, what is more realistic sparring?

Not so much unrealistic, as there is a difference between sparring in a sport setting versus a martial art setting, and each has a different value and aim. Your definition of sparring included things that we all consider sparring, but the question is sparring in preparation for what?

If you are training for stop-point karate, WTF Taekwondo, or BJJ tournaments, then sparring in those idioms is entirely realistic: you are preparing to fight under a specific set of conditions, and to train differently would be counterproductive. I do, however, consider such tournaments and the preparation that goes into them to be firmly in the territory of games/sports.

Nothing wrong with them, and certainly, there is enough crossover with actual fighting that a person who is extremely competent in any of the three will certainly not be bereft of tools in the even of a violent encounter.

Same holds true for boxing, but boxers don't make a stink about whether or not boxing is an MA the way that sport taekwondoists do regarding the WTF tournament style taekwondo. Maybe because no belts are involved?

There needs to be some element of aliveness and randomness at some point in training, regardless of what you want to call it, and that element needs to be, within the bounds of reason, not artificial in its design.

WTF sparring is an artificial type of fighting in that it artificially makes high kicks predominant and eliminates all of the real world consequences of using high kicks.

Point-stop karate is less artificial in that it allows greater use of hand technique, but is highly artificial because it presupposes that you've killed your opponent with a punch or a kick and thus you stop fighing after scoring a point. And of course, it lacks grappling.

Boxing is less artificial. Yes, it focuses on hands, but that is what most people are going to naturally use predominantly anyway, and boxing is continuous, but boxing eliminates kicks and grapples entirely.

BJJ, judo, and other forms of wrestling are artificial in that they eliminate all strikes.

MMA is the least artificial in that it allows the greatest breadth of techniques, but it is still artificial in that it is set up in such a way that a grappler will have certain advantages.

Finally, all of them share the element that you are in a one on one, controled physical contest with another individual and the element of escaping is entirely eliminated.

Now, I am not disrespecting these sports. And yes, they are sports. They're hard, and if I jumped into the ring in any of those sports, I would probably be just as out of my element as if a WTF fighter jumped in to the shaijo to fight against me in a kendo match. And yes, I realize that kendo, karate, taekwondo, judo and BJJ are all considered martial arts. But the tournament fighting that these arts are associated with are sports. Plain and simple. Nothing wrong with that, but people do not like to admit it.

I suppose then that what constitutes a martial art and where the line is between sport and MA needs to be considered, but that is a different discussion that I will not get into in this thread.

I'm also not going to get into the whole 'they'd die on the deadly street' because I have yet to hear a convincing arguement that TKD/Karate/BJJ/Judo/Wrestling/Boxing/MMA athletes would indeed suddenly become incapable outside of the ring. I think that all of them have the advantage of regular training with resisting opponents, something that most people do not have. But their training is very specialized in a way that it would not be if you were preparing soley to defend one's self in a non competition environment.

Anyway, the only two scenarios that I felt were completely unrealistic were the fitness oriented class and the 'larping', though MA based fitness programs do not masquerade as self defense, while the last example that I gave (larping disguised as MA) does. The fact of the matter is that if your techniques only work when your partner allows them to or on your own students (no touch KO's anyone?) and you never train with a partner who offers any real resistance, then that is unrealistic and amounts to larping.

Hope that makes sense, as I kind of felt like I was rambling a bit.

Daniel

 

[dancingalone]

alright, I'll give it a go...

when I think of sparring, I think of two people squaring off to fight, freestyle. Rules may vary. There may or may not be protective equipment worn. There may be many restrictions to targets and types of attacks, there may be few. Contact may be limited to none, to light, to medium, to heavy. There may be points awarded, or no points. The match may be continuous or not, throws and takedowns and wrassling on the ground may or may not be permitted.

The specific rules of the situation will dictate how gentle or abusive the faceoff will be.

But in the end, we are talking about two (or more) people squaring off to fight under an agreed set of rules.

I just want to lay that out there to outline what I understand to be "sparring", and how it can vary and be representative of different things. As I say, not all sparring is the same, and depending on what you want to get out of it, some types will be useful to you and other types will not.

Getting away from sparring, I believe it is possible to practice with what I would term, "self defense scenarios". It could be two people in the drill, or more than two, again the specifics can vary but the idea is the same. You have an attacker and a defender. The attacker gives a realistic attack, and the defender must defend realistically. The intensity of this engagement can increase as students progress in ability. But the drill is to ultimately get the students to respond spontaneously and effectively to whatever kind of attack comes in. In the beginning, there can be more control in the drill, and the types of attacks more limited. As skill improves, the attacks become more and more intense, and the variety and unpredictability of the attacks can increase until it becomes quite intense. We're talking about punches, or grabs, bearhugs, strangle holds, kicks, whatever kind of attacks you want to work into it, whatever you think some thug might try to do to you someday. But the student uses this drill to experience the attack and develop the skills to respond to it effectively.

I don't see this as sparring, because there is a designated attacker and defender, to act out the situation. It is not two people facing off to fight, tho any scenario could organically fall into that happening as part of the drill, tho that isn't the goal of the drill. You don't WANT to turn the attack into a sparring match. Instead, you want to quickly neutralize the attack and end the situation.

Other ideas are drills like wing chun's chi sao. This isn't fighting, it isn't sparring. But it's a hands-on drill to develop sensitivity and learning to manipulate and control the opponent's movements and work technique off of what he is doing. Drills of this nature are very useful and give you a lot of "contact" experience with a training partner/opponent. The skills you develop from this kind of training are a bit more abstract than the Self Defense drills, but they give you very useful skills that can be brought into play and make your Self Defense abilities better.

In my White Crane, I simply take movements from the forms and drill them with my training partners. Throw that punch at me and I'll work this movement as a defense. And the way we smash down your punch hurts like a *****. It's just a drill in application, we can be as fast or slow, as hard or soft as we want, but we get accustomed to making that heavy contact and using our technique to hit the targets we want.

In short, you can get creative and use a wide variety of hands-on drills where you are working with partners to develop your use with techniques, and you can apply as much or as little pressure as is appropriate, depending on the skill level of those engaged in the exercise.

I don't believe self defense necessarily means some guy is going to come up and make you face off with him and fight. I think it's more likely to be a straight up attack, when you aren't looking for it, or it might explode after a short and heated build-up. Training to face off and spar doesn't really prepare you for this kind of attack, in my opinion. But using drills that teach you to react and hit decisively, with committment to end the situation, is a better bet, in my book.

It's really starting to sound like most everyone agrees on the merit of resistant and spontaneous partner exercises, regardless of whether we choose to call them drills or bunkai or sparring.

Thanks for taking the time to explain!

 

[Flying Crane]

It's really starting to sound like most everyone agrees on the merit of resistant and spontaneous partner exercises, regardless of whether we choose to call them drills or bunkai or sparring.

Thanks for taking the time to explain!

Yes, I agree that hands-on training, with resistance is important. I just do not agree that it must be sparring.

 

[KenpoVzla]

What I've found is that usually the martial artists that think that it's not important are not that good in sparring! or they have a really difficult time with free-style techniques.

Coincidence? Maybe, but the opposite is also true, the ones that are good, also believe that it's important.

 

[Flying Crane]

What I've found is that usually the martial artists that think that it's not important are not that good in sparring! or they have a really difficult time with free-style techniques.

Coincidence? Maybe, but the opposite is also true, the ones that are good, also believe that it's important.

As someone who says it's not as critical or important as a lot of people believe it is, I'll say that I'm not good at sparring. I don't do it.

 

[Cirdan]

Exchange of techniques.

I could narrow it down with a hundered definitions, but that would be playing the word-nazi game again. (Warrior, Martial Art, etc)

Yes we do spar, in several different ways. To quote Ohtsuka; "Martial Arts progress from Kata to Kumite to Combat"

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I consider unchoreographed pressure testing of your techniques in a random setting to be important. Call it by whatever name you like; sparring is a perfectly acceptable term, though some of you have put forth other equally acceptable terms.

If your art involves a sportive element, sparring is an integral part of that art.

Daniel