Sparring

[JoeW]

I was just wondering what kind of sparring your dojo does. Is it point? full contact? continuous?

 

[MarkC]

In my old school back in NC, we never really practiced for point tournaments, though many of us did enter them and fared okay.
We always sparred continuosly, and from about green belt up, the contact was fairly heavy. Brown and black belts usually hit each other pretty hard, as long as neither party objected.

 

[JoeW]

What about face contact?

 

[jlhummel]

We are a Modern Farang Mu Sul club and we do continous 3 minute Sparring with light contact and then follow that up with 3 minute ground "sparring" starting on your feet for take downs working for submissions.

 

[MarkC]

What about face contact?

Accidents happened, but we generally tried to avoid direct hard contact to the face.

 

[jlhummel]

With any sparring u can get hit accidently, it will happen so expect it as part of the price for sparring. For us at least it really doesnt happen all that often. We dont allow any kicks to the head for contact. You are exspected to show control and "miss". But we also wear all needed equipment as well. Mouth guards, head gear, everything but chest unless u want to wear it.

 

[JoeW]

I am torn on sparring on one hand you don't want anyone to get hurt but how can practice for a fight without taking some good shots? I am a fan of how Kyokushin Karate spars.

 

[MarkC]

From what I've seen, wearing headgear tends to encourage people to forget about blocking, parrying, slipping, protecting their head. And it also tends to encourage them to hit each other harder.

 

[girlbug2]

From what I've seen, wearing headgear tends to encourage people to forget about blocking, parrying, slipping, protecting their head. And it also tends to encourage them to hit each other harder.

Hmmm, I don't think I like that, OTOH, hitting harder is kind of the point, no? Headgear, a mixed blessing :shrug:.

 

[bowser666]

My school does continuous sparring. point sparring is a waste of time in my opinion. It eliminates all elements of realism. Unless of course you train at a school that is primarily focused on tournament sparring only. In that case you train for what your goals are. Just don't try point sparring outside of school or outside of tournaments, because there are no judges that are going to split ya up

 

[Kacey]

My school does continuous sparring. point sparring is a waste of time in my opinion. It eliminates all elements of realism. Unless of course you train at a school that is primarily focused on tournament sparring only. In that case you train for what your goals are. Just don't try point sparring outside of school or outside of tournaments, because there are no judges that are going to split ya up

We do primarily continuous sparring - but every so often I'll run a few rounds of point sparring, as a training exercise; I have several students who are very skilled, but they are counter-fighters - they only counter attack, never (or rarely) attack first. Point sparring forces you to be the first attacker; it also fosters a mind-set of single-strike techniques - both of these are useful, IMHO, as training exercises. So while I don't do it very often, I don't see point sparring as totally useless, either.

 

[JoeW]

I agree continuous is the way to go just more realism.