sparring

[brianhunter]

Hey John!?!? What happened to the avatar doing the Pee Pee dance???? This guy is cool but doesnt force you to stare at him forever :toilclaw:

Originally posted by Brother John
Although I do think that sparring is greatly overemphasized in most schools, and (stickin my neck out) by my brother's here in this very thread...
it is A feature of a school.
ASK your instructor why it's not present, YET. There may be a very good explanation.
It does boil down to this though: if your school/instructor doesn't give you what you are looking for....
go elsewhere.

Your Brother
John

 

[Cthulhu]

Another thing sparring does is let you try techniques you were taught, to see if they'll work in a dynamic, evolving situation rather than the static situations most techniques are taught in. If you can't get something to work, it's a bad technique or you're just doing it wrong

Cthulhu

 

[Brother John]

Hey John!?!? What happened to the avatar doing the Pee Pee dance????

He finally made it to the toilet!
Your Brother (who always puts the lid back down)
John
:flushed:

 

[rmcrobertson]

As somebody who's sparred with Clyde the Evil One over the years and lived, without even getting anything broken--dented is another issue--I'd argue that a) sparring is essential, b) sparring is sometimes overemphasized, c) sparring is neither fighting nor self-defense, d) it's absurd for a teacher to be saying something that boils down to, "I can't have sparring, because I can't control my students and their classes."

Are you sure, Rachel, that that's what's up? It is possible that this particular instructor has a particular group that needs to go forward very carefully...and will be bangin' away later...but that description of, "a low horse stance for twenty minutes," as part of a test, and those accounts of doing techniques ("so we get the idea") don't sound so good to me. Among other things, if you don't get hit a bit, even at white and yellow belt, you are NOT getting "the idea," and if you don't hit the other guy you are NOT learning control. By the way, it's a bit dangerous for your back to lower the dummy gently to the floor.

It's possible to run structured sparring drills. In my school (Larry Tatum's, actually), they're on the backs of the technique/belt requirement cards: if you find stuff that's labeled, "B1a, B1b....KB1a, etc." that's what that is. These take a lot of the guesswork and flailing out of sparring---and still allow you to work on range, keeping your guard up, watching stancework and foot maneuvers, dealing with the fear of getting hit, and so forth. In fact, I should start working them from blue belt up again...hm.

Anyway, I dunno. It's hard to be a beginning student: you can't just be skeptical, because you don't have much to be skeptical with and your mind will play tricks on you to get you to quit; you can't be gullible, because there are fakes and fools out there teaching...

 

[GouRonin]

I think sparring is essential. That said I would not tell you to stay or leave your school. That is your choice and people have different needs and wants.
:iws:
Yes everyone. It was me who said that!

 

[Robbo]

but we drop each other gently so no one gets hurt

How do you learn how to fall properly? Some of the takedowns and throws are designed to make your opponent fall in an awkward way, but most can be done with full speed and controlled power if your partner knows how to fall (breakfalls).

Rather that 'trying' not to hurt anybody this should be treated as an oppourtunity for the attacker to practise their falling while the defender practises their defense(s).

If you do learn falling and rolling, you should be able to apply it here. Heck you should be able to apply it in a sparring situation the odd time

Rob

 

[Jill666]

I agree sparring is essential to MA study. You don't need to learn tournament-quality point sparring if you don't want, but many men and women haven't been hit. Ever. The experience of having a hand in your face, a foot in your groin, even without the pain is something that we all must get used to. Also, we all tend to have blind spots or ineffective reactions to certain strikes, and won't know it until we get hit. How can you develop an effective defense without the experience?

As for contact, well, that's been well-covered here.

You should also be swept, dropped, and thrown so you learn how not to break something falling. Have fun!

 

[Old Warrior]

The MOST important role of sparring is learning the ability to control fright and the flight reflex. Learning to remain calm while faced with the threat of imminent physical harm is a lesson that cannot be learned in prearranged practice of any kind.

 

[Klondike93]

Sparring is a very important part of your training. One must spar to get used to being hit at partial to full power

Don't tell this to the Russians

The kenpo school I go to doesn't spar either, but I have been told if I or others want to, then go ahead and have fun. After being in systema for a year now, I've changed my opinion on how important point or continous sparring is in training. The self defense techniques are done with moderate contact and sometimes someone gets hurt but not bad. I think this is where the instructor feels one should learn to deal with the fight or flight reflex.


:asian:

 

[rmcrobertson]

I agree. Technique lines are a lot scarier, in many ways, than sparring. And I darn sure know that I'm going to get hit harder, in a tech line, than I am in sparring...

While I agree that sparring is essential, I don't agree with the philosophy of throw the beginner in there and wail away. A few will learn...most will quit, if they've a grain of sense.

 

[Kirk]

I've been told that if you have a good partner to work flow drills
on, the correct way, then you can build up speeds that
will make a punch look slow. As if you were being attacked by
a snail.

 

[Blindside]

I've been told that if you have a good partner to work flow drills on, the correct way, then you can build up speeds that
will make a punch look slow. As if you were being attacked by
a snail.

I'd like to hear about these flow drills.... hell, I'd like to hear about anything that makes a punch seem slow, besides an adrenaline dump that is.

I fall into the "sparring is essential" club, though in some ways I think our studio has too much of a focus on it.

On Tuesday we had a local TKD club come watch our Tues night sparring sessions, they apparently don't spar much and they were watching us because they are going to join the sparring class in the near future. I think we scared them, well at least the students, we know the instructor pretty well. And we weren't trying to, we were on our best sparring behavior, no takedowns, no ground 'n pound, just nice controlled continuous sparring. My instructor was showing the TKD club how we ramp up our sparring levels depending on the level of our opponents. That the point isn't for a black belt to obliterate a white belt, but just to push them a little and to teach them to be better. I was the lucky example for blackbelt on blackbelt sparring. Apparently, it is perfectly acceptable for one blackbelt to obliterate another.



Not that I expected anything less, he usually pushes me to the point where I would be lucky to KO a fly. I think that is his subtle way of saying "hey dumb@ss your conditioning sucks!"

The really dumb thing is that I generally enjoy Tuesday nights....

Lamont

 

[Kirk]

Well it definitely won't replace the conditioning. The flow drills
are filipino flow drills, like Hubud. Also Zach Whitson's
counterpoint video has some great flow drills in it. Supposedly
once you get to the point that you can do them with a partner
full speed, you're seeing a full speed strike coming at you.

 

[Blindside]

Oh, OK, I think what they are referring to is sensing when the punch is coming at you, not actually a slowing of perception. One WC instructor I knew tried to explain to me how sensory perception through touch are transmitted and processed faster than those of sight. He cited a bunch of scientific studies to explain this, but even my relatively brief exposure seems to agree with it. Often people will tense before throwing a shot or other move, and you can sense this change in energy if you are in contact with them.

The WC, Tai-Chi, and FMA systems live off this theory. But we have trained this from the clinch and certainly most grappling systems work the same way.

Lamont

 

[jfarnsworth]

Originally posted by Kirk
Well it definitely won't replace the conditioning. The flow drills
are filipino flow drills, like Hubud. Also Zach Whitson's
counterpoint video has some great flow drills in it. Supposedly
once you get to the point that you can do them with a partner
full speed, you're seeing a full speed strike coming at you.

Did you find a partner to practice this stuff with you yet? It has to be way too hard to do in the air by yourself.