Sparring and My Difficulty Against Kicks

[Buka]

I'm curious, anybody ever been kicked with the opposite leg after catching a kick?

 

[Dirty Dog]

I'm curious, anybody ever been kicked with the opposite leg after catching a kick?

When I was much (much much...) younger, I tried that a couple times. It did twist my caught leg out of their hand(s), but I can't recall that the opposite leg kick ever actually landed.

 

[pdg]

When I was much (much much...) younger, I tried that a couple times. It did twist my caught leg out of their hand(s), but I can't recall that the opposite leg kick ever actually landed.

Didn't land at all?

I didn't connect with anything close to meaningful power, but enough for a tag point - which is all I was aiming to do.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Didn't land at all?

I didn't connect with anything close to meaningful power, but enough for a tag point - which is all I was aiming to do.

Didn't land in any way I'd consider (even then) as effective. I do not now, nor can I remember ever, care if it scores a point. If it's not effective, it's not worth doing.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I'm curious, anybody ever been kicked with the opposite leg after catching a kick?

Sort of. when I was in the 5th grade and I had a fight with my best friend (a real fight) It was more of a fake kick to my right and I put my hands out with the expectation that I would be able to catch the kick. However the kick stopped half way and before I knew it, I was kicked in the face. I never forgotten about that. Lesson learned about "chasing hands." If you have reach for it or chase it then it's best not to try and grab what you are reaching for or what your hands are chasing.

I had a student try it and the other guy just let go of the leg when the kick started and the student hit the ground like a bag of rocks. Lesson: Don't do any technique that relies on your opponent to hold you up.

 

[pdg]

Didn't land in any way I'd consider (even then) as effective. I do not now, nor can I remember ever, care if it scores a point. If it's not effective, it's not worth doing.

If you're playing for points and it scores a point, it's situationally effective.

 

[Buka]

I had a student try it and the other guy just let go of the leg when the kick started and the student hit the ground like a bag of rocks. Lesson: Don't do any technique that relies on your opponent to hold you up.

Yes. That is the exact counter to it. I was known for kicking with the opposite leg when a kick of mine was caught. Probably scored with it fifty times in competition. But, man, there ain't nothing in the Arts, at least that I've seen, that crashes you to the ground in an uncontrolled way like when they let go of your leg in mid kick.

And you can't really break-fall properly when it happens. You get screwed into the ground ugly.

 

[Dirty Dog]

If you're playing for points and it scores a point, it's situationally effective.

If you're playing for points... you're confused about the purpose of sparring. The purpose of sparring is to practice fighting skills. You're not alone in losing sight of this, sadly.

 

[pdg]

If you're playing for points... you're confused about the purpose of sparring. The purpose of sparring is to practice fighting skills. You're not alone in losing sight of this, sadly.

No, that's your purpose for sparring.

My purpose for sparring is sparring, probably working toward point based competition matches.

I didn't take up TKD (or kickboxing) with the intention of becoming a fighter - I wasn't even slightly interested in sparring at all initially. I have developed an interest in the competition aspect of sparring, but I'm still not in it to go out looking for fights. In fact, I'm not even interested in full contact competition.

One could draw a parallel to target shooting only ever being practice for killing things...

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yes. That is the exact counter to it. I was known for kicking with the opposite leg when a kick of mine was caught. Probably scored with it fifty times in competition. But, man, there ain't nothing in the Arts, at least that I've seen, that crashes you to the ground in an uncontrolled way like when they let go of your leg in mid kick.

And you can't really break-fall properly when it happens. You get screwed into the ground ugly.

You'll have to pardon me for how much I enjoyed the image of you crashing on that, Buka. Good kickers scare me, so a fair amount of schadenfreude involved here.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If you're playing for points... you're confused about the purpose of sparring. The purpose of sparring is to practice fighting skills. You're not alone in losing sight of this, sadly.

Not everyone is training for that purpose DD. Some are doing it just for the fun/sport of it. For those folks, points are useful.

 

[JowGaWolf]

but I'm still not in it to go out looking for fights.

I don't know why so many people think that knowing how to fight = going out to start fights? This is the same logic that people in China have. Some of the nicest people I've met are the ones who have incredible fighting skills and are the last ones that you would ever see or hear about being in a real fight.

One could draw a parallel to target shooting only ever being practice for killing things...

Yeah, not sure you understand what Dirty Dog is talking about.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Not everyone is training for that purpose DD. Some are doing it just for the fun/sport of it. For those folks, points are useful.

I don't understand the usage of "points". You either knock your opponent down, or you take your opponent down. You can't "points" your opponent down.

As long as your opponent is still standing, your task has not completed yet. The only good striker is a striker that is on the ground.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I don't understand the usage of "points". You either knock your opponent down, or you take your opponent down. You can't "points" your opponent down.

As long as your opponent is still standing, your task has not completed yet. The only good striker is a striker that is on the ground.

That's not true if someone is only training for the sport of point fighting. In that case, you can win entirely on points - no knocking down needed.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Good kickers scare me, so a fair amount of schadenfreude involved here.

Just remember these 5 important things.
1. ummm
2. I think....
3. Not sure...
4. Can't remember...
5. Always where your mouth piece lol

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

That's not true if someone is only training for the sport of point fighting. In that case, you can win entirely on points - no knocking down needed.

The point fighting can be used as a beginner level training. It's not proper to be used for advance level training.

Your point fighting experience will not be able to help you in these situations.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Not everyone is training for that purpose DD. Some are doing it just for the fun/sport of it. For those folks, points are useful.

I read it as that he means. The techniques that are done in TKD are Fighting Techniques. Sparring is where you get an opportunity to learn how to correctly apply those techniques. Point sparring should be done with the actual techniques that you train from the forms and sparring. This is is rarely the case simply because people don't practice their techniques in sparring. The reason they don't practice is because they are too focused on winning or scoring, and it's this focus that prevents them from doing what's needed to learn which is to get things wrong and learn from it.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The point fighting can be used as a beginner level training. It's not proper to be used for advance level training.

Your point fighting experience will not be able to help you in these situations.

If you're training FOR point fighting, then point fighting is the advanced training. Olympic archers train to shoot Olympic target. That's as advanced as it gets. If someone is training for hunting deer, target shooting is probably beginner level.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I read it as that he means. The techniques that are done in TKD are Fighting Techniques. Sparring is where you get an opportunity to learn how to correctly apply those techniques. Point sparring should be done with the actual techniques that you train from the forms and sparring. This is is rarely the case simply because people don't practice their techniques in sparring. The reason they don't practice is because they are too focused on winning or scoring, and it's this focus that prevents them from doing what's needed to learn which is to get things wrong and learn from it.

And that's all perfectly valid if the point is to learn TKD for something other than point fighting. If the entire point is just fun and point fighting, then anything technically "wrong" that doesn't affect those pursuits doesn't really matter.

 

[JowGaWolf]

And that's all perfectly valid if the point is to learn TKD for something other than point fighting.

If you can't do TKD technique applications in point sparring then are you really doing TKD or learning TKD?