Sparring with No Head Contact

[TrueJim]

Showing up for work with black eyes and facial bruising would probably be more of a problem for those in white collar professions.

Shhhhh. We don't talk about Fight Club.

 

[Manny]

I think a child, a teen or an adult can go for the head with kicks with two conditions: a) Use a full coverage helmet and b)using contoled kicks.

Manny

 

[Thousand Kicks]

I think the first thing we all have to admit is that regardless of the protection and control we use, it's a contact sport and things happen. It's just an inherent risk of practicing a martial art. How many times have we been a part of or seen a kick to the face or the groin and immediately heard an apology beacuse the person didn't know you were going to step a certain way or duck or whatever happened.

But, the answer can't be to eliminate head contact. How is anybody truly supposed to understand how to defend themselves unless they practice actually defending themselves?

If you want to punch and kick and not spar, just go do cardio kickboxing. As long as you are sparring with soembody the chances of injury are always present.

 

[Manny]

I think the first thing we all have to admit is that regardless of the protection and control we use, it's a contact sport and things happen. It's just an inherent risk of practicing a martial art. How many times have we been a part of or seen a kick to the face or the groin and immediately heard an apology beacuse the person didn't know you were going to step a certain way or duck or whatever happened.

But, the answer can't be to eliminate head contact. How is anybody truly supposed to understand how to defend themselves unless they practice actually defending themselves?

If you want to punch and kick and not spar, just go do cardio kickboxing. As long as you are sparring with soembody the chances of injury are always present.

Complety agree, however we don't need to kill or maim each other inside the dojang/dojo to have a very good sparr sesssion. I was in my life caught with three solid kicks to the head/face area during my TKD carrer, one was a a full knock out (jumping/spining hook kick), broken theets with a pining round house and a broken nose with a jumping spining hook kick, plus many times with groing kicks and sometimes with a solar plexus punch.

I can sai with pride that I was some of the old fa... who gave and got all inside TKD but now no one student wants to do full kyorugi without the safety gear!!!! and that's wrong in my humble opinion.

Manny

 

[Thousand Kicks]

Of course Manny, I never meant to come across like it's a free for all. We should always use control. I have never intentionally tried to hurt anybody while training, but it's happened. I don't think anybody has ever intentionally tried to hurt me while training, but it's happened. It's just the reality of what we're doing.

 

[TrueJim]

Here's an analogy I used over on the taekwondo subreddit:

Given the fact that children don't have the gross motor skills of an adult, nor the same structural strength as adults in their cranium, spine, and other bones, nor the same neurological development, I suggest that here's an approach we could use to simulate children sparring:

Have two adults spar...but each adult wears 2 kilogram ankle weights and drinks 4-5 beers first.

My other analogy is that we don't let children play full-contact rugby or American football for the same reason; (children normally play flag versions of both sports) -- children don't have the right physiology for full-contact tackles yet.

As an aside, this is the same reason why children shouldn't take up weight-lifting: when children lift, they're not lifting with muscles attached by ligaments to bones (as an adult would be), they're lifting with muscles attached by ligaments to cartilage. Structurally, kids can't lift weights without risking injury to the cartilage. Then as the child ages and the malformed cartilage ossifies, it ossifies into misshapen bone. Kids have to wait until adolescence before they can lift without risking later-in-life problems.

It's not about watering-down the martial art, or overly-pampering children, or not teaching them to defend themselves...it's more like asking two adults to spar when they're each already impaired by skeletal problems and neurological problems. Kids just don't have the same physiology as adults yet.

 

[Flatfish]

I signed up for my first tournament at the end of May. Colored belts no head kicks, black belts head kicks allowed. Since it's my first tournament and I can only kick at puppy height anyway, it suits me just fine. AFAIK there are no age restrictions though.

 

[TSDTexan]

Shhhhh. We don't talk about Fight Club.

Beat me to it.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I like kicking people in the head when sparring, I don't like getting kicked in the head though!

Low kicks are more useful for self defence so it's never wasted time training them.

High kicks to the head puts the kicker in danger. You have to really have a good kick in order to target the head without getting punched in the groin or being swept. My school thinks the same way. Low kicks are more useful for self defense. I think high kicks are a disadvantage to TKD because everyone just assumes a TKD fighter is going to eventually do one.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Coincidentally, this just appeared on Reddit...

Ban Kids Kicking To The Head taekwondo

Very sad. The problem isn't kicking to the head. The problem is not teaching TKD students to keep their hands up and how to use their guard to protect their head.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Showing up for work with black eyes and facial bruising would probably be more of a problem for those in white collar professions.

The most annoying thing about that would be having to explain it to people 20 times a day.

 

[drop bear]

My other analogy is that we don't let children play full-contact rugby or American football for the same reason; (children normally play flag versions of both sports) -- children don't have the right physiology for full-contact tackles yet.

Yes we do.

 

[drop bear]

The most annoying thing about that would be having to explain it to people 20 times a day.

Tell them you bruise like a peach. That is our standard.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Tell them you bruise like a peach. That is our standard.

One of these days I will get so annoyed when the 20th person asks something like; "what happened to your nose?" I will say "I bit it" and if they then ask; "How did you manage that?"and I will say; "I stood on a chair".

 

[skribs]

At our school, the rule is usually kids under 12 no headshot ever, black belts 12 & up or adult red belts headshot (light contact). The reason is that we don't want people to get uncontrolled headshots in class, which younger kids and lower belts are likely to do. Also, in some of our lower belt classes, we have some kids who can kick themselves in the face, but others who struggle to kick over their waist level, so it's not really fair for those who are not as flexible.

However, if someone has their arm too close to their body and takes a good hit to the arm, we call it a point. If you have a good guard up or you block the technique, we don't call it a point.