its good to see that you are having a scrimmage. philippine martial artist who call himself a "fighter" is only fooling himself if he does not engage in matches. when he uses classroom sparring or sparring with his friends for expereince he is also fooling himself. with your friends and classmate, you are to comfortable and there is not enough aggression there for you to get a good fight.
by fighting with people you dont know them, you dont know their style or habits, and you dont care about each others. so the benefit here is that you get more of a stronger, meaner, and intimidating fight.
eskrima and arnis fighters today are to soft. his feelings get hurt to easy and he is scared to let somebody test him out. he hide behind sayings like "competition is not the street" and "i only fight for the death, like my guro". yeah right.
the reason arnisadors dont get the respect of a true fighter is because he gets his knowledge to easy. he can go to a couple seminars for a few times, and in less than 2 years he is a teacher already. then when his test comes up, only people from his organization are there. now, what kind of test is this when the candidate knows all the people he is about to fight against? using the scrimmage is the second best way to test your boys ability. if you dont bring them people to fight, he will grow up to a be a man who is driving with bad brakes, accept he doesnt know it yet.