The Art of Sparring & Its Many Forms

[CB Jones]

Not sure how to answer this exactly, because what I do is so basic that it can be found in a lot of different styles. For example, a roundhouse kick (in my style this is called a hook kick) is basically the same in every style. This isn't true when we're training and doing drills, but it's always true when sparring. I'll try to clarify this. For example, in Wumingquan we train ambidexterity but we favor a southpaw stance with our power hand in front, whereas in a lot of the other styles I see (with the exception of JKD) also train ambidexterity but they favor an orthodox stance with their power hand in back. Most of them do frontleg roundhouses and rearleg roundhouses just like we do. In training, Wumingquan favors the frontleg whereas other styles favor the backleg. Wumingquan aims for precision and timing, whereas other styles favor the raw power of the rearleg. However, whenever it comes to sparring, I find that these minor differences in style no longer really matter. At that point, the only thing really different is our fighting stance. Everything else is really the same or quite similar. The real difference then is not in the delivery of techniques, but the exchange of knowledge and philosophy behind each technique. So I guess the best answer I can give you is "both." I was learning and teaching at the same time. Hope that helps.

Ok sounds like just a little cross training together between Martial artists.

Calling it a seminar was just a little confusing.

 

[Mou Meng Gung Fu]

Ok sounds like just a little cross training together between Martial artists.

Calling it a seminar was just a little confusing.

Okay then we won't call it that. We will call it cross-training, that makes more sense. Thank you.

But let me clarify something, because I feel like that too could be misleading. I mentioned earlier that these were very small sparring sessions. To me, cross-training takes years. But here we only trained for maybe 1 or 2 hours. The reason being is because all of the people I train with are my regular training partners. Also, cross-training involves some exchange of different styles. But here, we are not exchanging styles. We are merely exchanging a slight difference in our techniques. The style itself is irrelevant. I just felt the need to clarify this. Hope that makes sense.

 

[JP3]

I take it your current student group is still mostly beginners? How long have you been running the school? Do you expect to make some significant changes once your student base matures?

I was thinking about useful sparring formats for Aikido which could focus on developing of core principles but still allow more genuine testing and resistance. I came up with the following idea and was wondering what you would think of it:

Based on the theory that much of the "grab my wrist" setups in Aikido go back to the idea of ambush attacks where the attacker would restrain the defender from drawing his sword before the attacker could deploy his own weapon, the drill would go like this...

Partners start out relatively close, in grabbing range. Defender starts with a sheathed training weapon. (Sword if you want to be traditional, gun or knife is you want to inject more of a modern feel.) Attacker wins if he can prevent the defender from drawing his weapon (for a specified length of time? until he can land 3 clean punches? until he can deploy his own sheathed weapon? - you can experiment to see what produces the best results) Defender wins if he can disengage and draw his weapon or if he can use the attacker's commitment to hanging on to execute an Aikido lock or throw.

This format could hopefully avoid both the issue of uke delivering overcommitted attacks just because they are expected to enable tori to execute a technique and also the issue of a boxing style sparring partner hanging back and feeding only quick, balanced, deceptive attacks which give no opportunity for applying aiki. The need to prevent the defender from drawing his weapon gives the attacker a legitimate reason to commit to the attack and also a legitimate reason to hang on longer than you would normally expect a skilled grappler to do if the grip starts being used against him.

Obviously this only addresses certain elements of the Aikido curriculum, but it seems like it might be useful. What do you think?

I like it, and if I'm understanding the picture you're painting here, I think it is very much akin (the concept behind your example) to something I picked up from Bob Rea, probably the very best judo player I've ever personally laid hands on, great teacher too. I've no idea if I've got the word, or the spelling right, I "think" he was saying staekeku... but...

The concept is that both parties are agreed to engage in a near ful power instant of technique "beginning," with both knowing initially where tori/nage is going to be trying to move/effect uke/opponent. It's a bit artificial, but if uke can ... this is weird to write down... remember that he's forgotten what tori/nage is going to do (??) then it can be a very helpful learning tool.

Another "randori" thing I came up with I call "ATM drill."

You put a student into a corner of the training hall (core concept behind aikido is being able to move, and to use said movement against uke, right...) then put up a crash pad on their other side so you are building those neat-O telephone-booth size things we voluntarily step into so that we can withdraw our cash money and then (like a duck hunter watching out of a blind) the mugger steps up out of the dark and oh so gently asks for the green stuff (well, in the US it's green). Sometimes we do the big guy intimidation approach, with the hand on the shoulder, sometimes we push them up into the wall, sometimes we act as if we're going to stab 'em or cut 'em up with a training knife, sometimnes we play act the complete psycho who is just coming to deliver mayhem with ahnd or weapon and has no interest in the money.

I got my schnozz busted once when one of my brown belt girls freaked and did... something and she was suddenly ... not there ... and I got caught and face planted the wall. The wall right ther ehad a metal stud, too. More's the pity for me. That left a mark.

Long story longer, I've done something like that with some deputy officers who came by, the thing about the attacking the drawing hand to forestall the draw while the other hand delivers some sort of hurt. It is a good problem to have a solution for in your bag.

 

[JP3]

I take it your current student group is still mostly beginners? How long have you been running the school? Do you expect to make some significant changes once your student base matures?[/QUOTE
]
Tony, I neglected to respond to the first part of your post earlier.

I've been running Wasabi (condiment name intentionally tongue-in-cheek for a reason which is its own story to be told later. maybe. It's stupid.) since 2010, when Ray, my first adult aikido instructor needed to retire from active teaching for a variety of family based reasons. Our old Clear Lake/NASA Aikido & Judo School ended up dying, as nobody had the force of spirit to keep it going at that location without Ray. Too many chiefs, to many changes too quick, and people fell away. So, I rescued the sprung floor, and ended up installing it about 4 months later on at a different place (a BJJ school as it happens( about 20 miles closer to my house.

Initially pretty small at... I think we were 20'x23' or so, we still got to going OK as we were pulling in family members and walk-by traffic of folks who were kicking the tires on BJJ, and when they saw how hard those guys were working, took a pass. Or, when hubbie is in there grunting and rolling around and losing about 10 pounds of water weight each day (BJJ is a good time, but man you Sweat during class!) wifey would come train with us, or the older people or whatever.

I ended up with a core group of about 8, ranging from 19 to 65, with the 65 year old Easily the one in the best shape of everyone but me, and I was only keeping up with the elliptical-crushing 65 year old because of the cross-training in BJJ I was doing to keep my conditioning up. The 65 y/o was a dual 3rd dan in TKD and Tangsoodo (TSD) which as he explained it was sort of a variant style of TKD with more meanness, sort of like Hapkido but without the HKD joint manipulations. Other than he & I, nobody else had any experience at all. Scroll forward 6 years, and the 65 y/o moved to Connecticut to make submarines, I'd worked with a pair of sisters and one of their husbands and got the ladies up to shodan, and one of their husbands upto ikkyu (last brown before shodan), and then the hubbie did what hubbies do to wifeys and she got pregnant and all 3 of them went off to raise the baby. They threaten to come back when "things settle down with the little one," but having done that with my own 24 y/o I know that's not going to happen. The settling down, I mean. So, in one fell swoop I lost all, well Fred (65 y/o) left a bit after) so more like two swell foops I lost my entire nascent yudansha.

Which puts me back with a budding group of mid-kyu grades, a guy from my old school who is a 6'8" yondan (he's the one I've mentioned who is the TKD green belt), and another guy who was with our Tomiki organization up to shodan in Oklahoma at OSU, who I promoted to Nidan when we got him ready for that about a year and a half ago. So, my regular class attendees at this time are: husband & wife team, husband now a brown belt (recent) and wife a white belt still as she misses a lot of class. A husband and wife team with a 18 y/o daughter, the parents are both up to green, daughter is 2nd brown (natural talent, but at this age she's predictably difficult to keep focused on the training so I'm very likely to lose her as college arrives). A brown belt young woman (I say she's young, I think she's probably 31, 33?), and another brown belt older guy, who I just found out last month has taken over my 65 y/o "age spot."

We just had a couple guys come by, one in his 50s and another in his 30s, who watched class, but I was off that night with my wife doing something she wanted to do which could not be scheduled for any other night, ah well, so I didn't get to talk to them personally. And, we had another dad and his 18 y/o son come in who was a vet of our system, looking for aplace to put his son in before he went off to France to do the international scholar thing.

So, as with any school, it's in flux. People come in,and people leave as life effects them, or they lose interest, or they hit a goal and think they've learned enough (always makes me cringe as that thought is so alien to me). The sister of the girl who became pregnant (their little girl is hilarious AND cute, which does not always happen) got her shodan and slowly withdrew from sclass, and showed up after being gone for about 3 months, and when I asked her how she was, how the other two and the baby was, etc... then asked her what had been going on etc she confessed she started in a krav maga school. I'm totally OK witht aht, but she said this, "Well, I learned the aikido, so now I want to learn something else." Ouch.... ouchouchouch. Man, I must suck at teaching if she got that idea. Ugh. She asked me if I'd like to see some of her new stuff, to which I of course said sure as that's what we do. It was fine. It didn't work, but she'd only been doing it for 3 months so that's to be expected. I blunted her chagrin with, "Remember, it's not my first class." We lose them, and we get them. It is a thing.

So, right now I've got a yondan, a nidan, 4 brown belts, two green belts, and one to 3 white belts actively going to class, witht he potential that the other 3 stated interested folks might start up. Or, I may never see or hear from them again.

But, yes, when I had the two ladies and the hubbie at right below shodan, we were changing things up, ramping them up, getting up to real speds, working against knives and not just stylized stabbing actions, but dealing with cutting/slashing attacks, cross training some clinch stuff, some defensive ground work for survival downt here especially for the ladies, etc. Hope I voered what you were interested in...

 

[Buka]

How many of us out there practice sparring? What does it mean to practice sparring? How is sparring different from other types of training? What techniques, forms or drills do you practice to compliment your sparring? What weapons or gear do you use? What ways of sparring do you practice and what are some different ways to practice sparring? How has sparring effected you as a martial artist? I'm interested in what you have to say about the Art of Sparring, if anyone wants to share.

Sparring is the most fun you can have with your gi on.
To each his own, but I don't care for non contact sparring. I find it detrimental to advancement. I believe contact sparring can be just as safe for any and all students.

How is sparring different from other types of training?
It's unscripted.


How has sparring effected you as a martial artist?
Taught me to keep my hands up when fighting.

Another thing I think, if you train hard, drill hard - sparring is the easiest thing you can do. It's easy to pace yourself. Easy to control the flow.

 

[Mou Meng Gung Fu]

Sparring is the most fun you can have with your gi on.
To each his own, but I don't care for non contact sparring. I find it detrimental to advancement. I believe contact sparring can be just as safe for any and all students.

How is sparring different from other types of training?
It's unscripted.


How has sparring effected you as a martial artist?
Taught me to keep my hands up when fighting.

Another thing I think, if you train hard, drill hard - sparring is the easiest thing you can do. It's easy to pace yourself. Easy to control the flow.

Thank you Buka.

I agree that there are many ways to practice "contact" sparring safely without getting injured. I like to train in 2-man sticking/sensitivity drills with very light contact or semi-contact freestyle sparring (pulling fingerjabs, elbows, knees or kicks to the groin). I also like freestyle sparring with soft contact involving safer techniques. I sometimes wear protective gear and practice heavier sparring. Sometimes I take my shoes off and wrestle (we play tapout). Sometimes I do timed sparring sessions with gear and heavier blows. Although injuries can happen in any form of strenous exercise, they do not occur often when you train correctly with the right equipment.

 

[JP3]

How has sparring effected you as a martial artist?
Taught me to keep my hands up when fighting

Ditto.

Nothing quite like being told you've got your hands too low and then having the teacher just "show" you.

 

[Danny T]

Okay then we won't call it that. We will call it cross-training, that makes more sense. Thank you.

But let me clarify something, because I feel like that too could be misleading. I mentioned earlier that these were very small sparring sessions. To me, cross-training takes years. But here we only trained for maybe 1 or 2 hours. The reason being is because all of the people I train with are my regular training partners. Also, cross-training involves some exchange of different styles. But here, we are not exchanging styles. We are merely exchanging a slight difference in our techniques. The style itself is irrelevant. I just felt the need to clarify this. Hope that makes sense.

Sound like what we call Workshops.
Seminars tend to be more of a one or two instructors teaching a lot of information in a relative short period of time. Tends to be an overload of information. The instructor presents information and techniques; participants practice those actions for a few minutes and then the instructor presents more.

Workshops tend to be greater participant involved with more of an exchange of perspectives from the participants and my even include several different applications of the same techniques. There may also have more countering/re-countering and sharing of methods.

 

[JP3]

A good seminar could have both the "drinking from a firehose" info-dumping effect, as well as some good "Let's try to work through part of this" aspect. Not easy, but do-able.

 

[Mou Meng Gung Fu]

Sound like what we call Workshops.
Seminars tend to be more of a one or two instructors teaching a lot of information in a relative short period of time. Tends to be an overload of information. The instructor presents information and techniques; participants practice those actions for a few minutes and then the instructor presents more.

Workshops tend to be greater participant involved with more of an exchange of perspectives from the participants and my even include several different applications of the same techniques. There may also have more countering/re-countering and sharing of methods.

Countering and re-countering in my style involves getting smacked in the stomach by your brothers and sisters when you're not expecting it (good for practicing "touching" or lightly poking vital targets without much pain or injury, and for countering those same techniques). But other countering/re-countering methods include sticking/sensitivity drills in a 1, a 1-2, or 1-2-3 set fashion with one partner attacking while the other is blocking or parrying and evading simultaneously.

Wumingquan seminars will have 1-2 seniors teaching a handful of juniors in a 4 hour class involving 30 minutes of form and stance training, 2 hours of information overload, plus 1 hour of drills and equipment training (including hanging bags, focus pads, sticks or weapons) ended with 30 minutes of sparring. At the end, every student gets a pamphlet (this is Wumingquan's version of a video) which re-covers everything taught during that particular 4 hour class. Techniques will be modified to the individual, with a heavy emphasis on footwork (as opposed to kicking).