BallistikMike said:
Sparring is nothing but a drill...
...Flat out when you create drills, to enahce a drill, to become a champion that HURTS self-defense.
Mr. Mike and Doc: I must, to some extent, respectfully disagree.
The kenpo community at large is already full of guys who have great forms, extensive vocabularies, but don't spar, and therefore have never put their kenpo in motion against resistance. Note: That is NOT to say that all kenpoists that spar can fight, or that all who don't cannot.
It IS to say that the experience in gauging depth, timing, etc., that one gains from sparring cannot truly be gained in any other arena than to trade blows with someone who is trying to spin your melon during a 2-hour sparring class. Will it reinforce bad habits? Surely...but I have seen many kenpoistas with bad habits anyways, who don't spar, and consequently lack the practical skills around keeping their hands up and responding to blitzes.
I've seen guys from schools with spot-on form and lots of fancy EPAK words; pop them in the nuts with a sneaky lead-leg roundhouse, and thier supreme technical prowess drops just in time to check off their lead hand and clang them in the head with a solid rear hand/sweep/downward punch combination. Press the blitz, and you can see otherwise skilled practitioners fold under the pressure of an ongoing attack. Does it mean, all at once, that kenpo doesn't work? Of course not. What it does mean is that this particular practitioner lacks the mental wherewithall to apply their kenpo to resisting an ongoing attack. (Oops...I didn't throw the punch, then freeze in time to let them finish thier self-defense techniques).
Now, Doc and I have gone over this before. He has some very cool training models that provide depth response training and reactive patterning without having to glove up and bang around. Having said that, there's, like, 6 to 12 guys that show up on a regular basis, out of how many millions of kenpo practitioners worldwide?
Out of a deep desire not to get tooled the next time I show up at Docs, I'll grant that his guys have reached a level of coordination and responsiveness that negates a NEED for sparring. Now, just to play devils advocate, what if we took his small clan of technically profound kenpoists, and had them spar, paying attention to not violating the sound anatomical principles of SL-4? Are there lessons under the mits that they haven't gleaned yet, because they haven't gone there?
Who knows for sure. I, personally, believe that the only way to learn to swim is to jump in the water and get wet. And while continuous sparring may not be a perfect model for practicing perfect kenpo perfectly, it is the closest we can get thus far to getting knocked around; learning how NOT to get knocked around; all while managing to knock the other guy around...who, coincidently, is also trying to accomplish the same thing.
Sparring hurts self-defense? I'm not on board for that one. I'm thinking that sparring helps defense for MOST of the people, MOST of the time, becaue it's the only training modality that provides live karate-in-motion-with-follow-through training, without risks of much more serious injury.
Will stances suffer? Heck yeah. Most folks (myself included) have crappy stancework anyway. Why not at least be able to throw down on someone while they are thrownig down on you? Will clean blocks that injure an opponent and misalign him be replaced by less efficient positioned checks? Sure...most of kenpo is already there, mainly because very few in life have the patience to put into developing real skill out of basics, or are learning from instructors who don't posses it themselves.
But to pronounce sparring as the antithesis of defense? A bit much for me. I would rather FIGHT the average kenpoist than the average boxer, because the average kenpoist will not have sufficient command of their basics to hit me hard enough to really injure me. The average boxer, on the other hand, has 3 to 4 good punches he's worked ad nauseum, and has worked out throwing them, hard, while someone else is throwing them at him. He CAN hurt me, and he CAN continue to think on his feet while I hurt him...an ability I think the average kenpoists loses right after they get their melon rung for the first time in a fight. Especially guys who have never sparred.
Finally, fighting takes wind. Mine sucks so bad right now, that just the shouting match leading up to the brawl (if I'm lucky enough to get one) would have me huffing and puffing for air. To date, one of the most intense cardio workouts I've ever had is sparring....pulse rockets from rest to bounding in the first 20 seconds of heated exchange. Parker mentions in one of the II books that, all other things being equal (skill, size, speed, etc.), victory will go to the better-conditioned athlete. Sparrnig is, essentially, wind-sprints with bruising. You bounce for a couple seconds, then burst in offense, defense, or counters, then go back to bouncing. What an awesome aerobic session! And you get the added bonus of some mook trying to shove his glove forcefully into your face, gut, kidneys, or groin! After a couple hundred hours of that, Joe Blow off the street throwing a wild haymaker right is laughable. Yes, form and basics will suck, but his blood on the ground instead of yours can help the guilt around that vanish rather quickly.
Now, if all y'all will excuse me, I have to go stuff a pillow down the back of my gi pants to cushion the whoopin' I got coming.
Best Regards,
Dave
