# How do JKD'rs Spar



## InvisibleFist (Mar 10, 2004)

Its my understanding that JKD:

1) Focuses on real world techniques.

2) Believes in doing a whole lot of sparring.  

I'm curious about how its possible to use street techniques in sparring. Do you guys use a ton of protective equipemnt or what?  WHat are the rules?  Is it jsut a NHB event in the dojo every night?  I'd think you'd go through students pretty quickly.


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## jkn75 (Mar 10, 2004)

From what I've seen of JKD sparring, there is a lot of speed and control. They don't blast into each other but they will throw a technique full speed but stop at the last second to tap the person. They also do a lot of drills in order to practice techniques full speed and with full power. For example, they will do kicking at a shield and the person holding the shield will move in certain ways so to simulate someone getting hit. They will do blocking drills where the blocker has to avoid getting hit but the attacker is swinging fast and with some power. 

Others may know differently, I just have observed a class a couple times so take this info with that caveat. If you are able to observe a class, that may help also because different JKD teachers teach things and run classes differently.


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## Black Bear (Mar 10, 2004)

Varies from one place to another. Much of their sparring is "isolation"--they'll spar "alive" with a limited selection of tools in order to sharpen them. e.g. grappling, jab sparring, pummeling, dumog, etc. 

They also do stuff that is "like" sparring but not: 
numerata: one side feeds lines (attacks) to the other, kind of mechanically, like a ball cannon, the other practices response. 
sumbrada: take turns feeding

One of my favourite paradigms at the moment is Straight Blast Gym. They teach in three stages. 
Introduce - Just learning a technique. Resistance is gradually increased. Say, a guard sweep. The opponent gradually adds more energy, and the player has to find the right moment to slip it in. 
Isolate - You work the guard position. You can kind of do whatever, and you work on pulling the sweep from there, creating the opportunity and exploiting it. But either of you can do other stuff too. 
Integrate - You might be free grappling or even starting from stand-up. It's true sparring. If the opportunity presents itself, you want to do that sweep. But don't fixate on it. 

Most use gear of some kind. Occasionally a FIST suit, but more often Thai pads (well for drills, not sparring--that would be in the "introduce" phase I suppose), focus pads, gloves of various kinds. 

As to the NHB thing, sure some places to NHB every night. NHB/MMA schools for instance. Some JKD places too. People who are used to working with dead patterns are surprised when they see for themselves that you can train alive without people frequently getting hurt. We do. If I got hurt a lot, I'd obviously want to quit pretty quickly. 

There are some branches of JKD where it all tends to be dead patterns, too. 

Still others go beyond sparring into scenario-based simulation, like RBSD.


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## FunSPE (Mar 10, 2004)

Like Black Bear said, it does vary from school to school.  At our school, we do a lot of isolation type sparring to work specific things.  For example: Jab only sparring, pummeling, pummeling with strikes, clinch sparring, boxing only, kickboxing only, etc.  It just depends what we are working on at the moment.  Sometimes we do situational stuff.  Not every night is NHB night.  In my opinion, sparring is supposed to develop and fine tune your skills.  Its purpose is not to have you get beaten down to a bloody pulp.  We can train smart and develop our skills without having to go very hard.   

Me personally, I hate wearing a lot of gear.  Its not that Im a tough guy and its not that I want to get injured, I just prefer to wear less gear.  Typically when we spar, we wear boxing gloves (minimum of 12-14 oz), mouth pieces, and boxing head gear.  Most people wear cups, and some wear shin guards.   

Though I do enjoy doing sumbrada, chi sao and hubud, I dont consider them to be anything like sparring.  For me, they are for attribute development only.  I use them as supplements to my training.  Let's say Ive sparred all week.  Well by friday I may not feel like sparring so doing a little chi sao isnt going to hurt me.  Its just something I'll do for fun.  

RDS


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## moving target (Mar 10, 2004)

my experience has been mostly all in sparring with 16oz gloves. Now I say all in but in reality not much happens on the ground because of the gloves. Also we don't want to hurt each other so we don't go beond certain points (unless it's specificly layed out that we are going all out or something) so like if I take someone down than mount them and control their head, I'm not gona start pounding them into unconiousness. We would just stop, stand up and go back at it. Only injuries I have seen are bloody noses, sprained ancles and sprained wrists. If we want to work more on ground fighting we would put out mats and go from stand up into ground or just start on the ground, and rules for strikes may be diffrent. In genneral in free sparring people do what they want with what rules they want.

There is also a lot of limited sparring, like one person trying to take down the other at all costs, the other trying to stay up. Or working on specific aspects of fighting like drawing a circle on the ground you can't step out of for forcing closer fighting or doing 2 on 1 or 3 on 2, etc..

[edit]
One thing I forgot to mention, JKD sparring isn't nessisaraly about training with the intensity that you would hae in a real fight or in that regard simulating a real fight. The sparring is a tool, an environment that you can practice in a relativly free form. This is reflected in how people spar by what they do (for example you may want to work on getting inside on people with long reach so you forgo outfighting, this doesn't mean you don't like outfighting just you are working on gettin inside and staying there) and their intensity (for example when I'm sparring, if I notice someone making an obvious mistake, I usualy point it out without taking advantage of it full on, so if someone is keeping their hand way to low because I'm throwing a lot of low kicks, I may throw a high kick to their head but only tap them or pull before I hit them regardless of contact level). Some new people don't realise this and they just think someone or other just isn't a good fighter, but that isn't nessisaraly the case. In my experience hard all in fights where you are fighting with the intent of "winning" don't take place all to often (maybe every other week or every month)
[/edit]


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## kroh (Apr 22, 2004)

Hey there...

Light contact to anywhere on the body.  Grappling style gloves worn to protect the hand (light contact is defined by you and your partner but if you have to go and get on gear to prevent welts then it isn't light.). You can target the head but not smack the head ...If you and your partner are into head smacking , gotta wear helmets.  Take downs are legal as long as you and your partner have trained takedowns and the proper way to fall.  Three seconds to make something happen in a clinch, and if not, break.  All in all the school where I train is very laid back and the sparring gets really fast and nasty the higher in the cirriculumn that you go.  At first it is light and fun.

The main thing is that we have a fast paced labratory to see if what we are training passes the test.  If you end up taking a billion shots and gotta wrap that jammed digit and pour on half a bottle of_ dit da jao..._ , then it is back to the drawing board.  Now if you'll scuse me...gonna go put on some of that ointment...

WalT


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## Flatlander (May 27, 2004)

I personally have only sparred a couple of times, both with particular rules (no kicks to groin, elbows to head, etc.) with grappling gloves.  Both times ended soon after beginning, as the instructor didn't want us getting too cranked up.  Awesome experience though.  Interesting to reflect on the adrenaline dump, and how it affected my awareness.  I became noticeably tunnell visioned.

Then we saw instructor spar with top student.  All out.  Wow.  Fast, powerful, and appeared to be painful.  Nobody got hurt.  I was suprised.  Its going to be a long time to get to that level, but that's why we must continue...


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## Troy Ostapiw/Canada (Aug 24, 2004)

I would have to say it depends where u go to train.  The idea is that the concepts should work in the real world, but a person also needs timing control, balance and distance to exacute a concept effectivley.

I have seen alot of JKDr's who experiment in MMA, as well as controlled sparing.
other schools like to practice role play and full contact, everything goes with very light gear, but leathal concepts are controlled (ie.  groing strikes, straight blast as well as eye gouges)  Some schools have an open mat policy.
A person needs to look around to find instructors that suit their needs.  Various types of sparing will help a person to relax in a real world setting. Focusing on just one type of sparing can be very limiting.  A person needs to develop a certain level of skill before they can go toe to toe with another student, and people also have to look at developing proper tactics, aside from fighting (Ie.)
positioning, verbal Judo and self-awareness ect.

Just One man's Opinion


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## ufsofpa (Feb 6, 2006)

well viewing what some people had to say, it does vary from school to school.With JKD saprring it depends on what you are working on. I personally dont use boxining gloves. I use the MMA gloves with no fingers so I can implement trapping. No mouth pieces and no cups, just the gloves. Generally what I do with my students is twice a month we spar at 50% or higher, depending on the individuals sparring. The othe 2 days it 30% or less, so we can drill techniques and correct our mistakes from the last session. We video tape our sessions and disect the footage.

If you ar working just the straight blast, then yes, head gear is important. JkD sparring is not MMA, it is a higher level. Remember, you have 4 ranges and 5 methods of attack to train. Thats why its called scientific streetfighting. You combine all 4 ranges and spar. Expiereminting with different things, refining "YOUR OWN JKD". The way Bruce intended it. Remember controlled enviromen and make it real, as much as you can. And not MMA. I recomend Paul Vunaks "Anatomy Of A Streetfight". Feel free to e-mail me at ufsofpa@yahoo.com


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## Blindside (Feb 6, 2006)

Why no mouth pieces and no cups?  You must have good dental insurance to cover a good uppercut....  If you are going that light, why don't you get rid of the gloves too?

Lamont


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## Gary Crawford (Feb 6, 2006)

Why no mouth peices or cups? Simple-JKD is about REAL combat. Not wearing protective equipment forces one to protect himself/herself much better. Why keep the gloves? Wearing gloves while sparring does not change how one strikes in a real fight without them. Gloves do not lesson the blows being recieved,they just prevent hand a wrist injuries of the wearer during sparring. I personaly wear them while hitting my heavy bag for that reason. A real fight only last a few seconds. Sparring or bag work lasts much longer so fatigue sometimes does effect how tightly one holds the fists and wrists. It also allows one to hit harder and longer without injury,thus making the practitioner used to hitting hard without worrying about injury.


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## traz (Feb 6, 2006)

We do different types...some days we'll do boxing type sparring, another day we might add kicks, another day we might do take downs and BJJ style...some days we'll do it all.


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