Ive thought aboat this from the ppint of view of my own class, which varies from extremly gentle to very alive dependent on who there and who your drilling with, the largest % of students object if you throw full speed punches off target, any meaning full attack which hurts, even if the hurt comes from a succesful block, causes them to become distressed and not come back. hit a focus pad hard and they go home with a sore wrist, Which has lead to the instructer having a word about terrorising his charges.
This isnt the fault of the class or the style, its just that most of the people who have decided to learn karate as an adult are physically abd mentally weak. Which is probebly why they want to lear karrate,
This will ultimately lead to them progressing througj a good fdw belts whilst never picking up the conditioning and reactions to ever make use of it.
There was a Big Guy who was up for LIVE drilling with real attacks till hE missed a block ( i punched with a left, right when we weree drilking right left )and i knocked him over, now he doesnt want to play any more. Which only leaves big Floyd and he doesnts come every week, t
Fliping milennials, they have no back bone
Like I tell the newbies who ask about which dojo to join, part of my rant is who you’re training alongside is more important than the style itself.
If there’s no one that’s willing to mix it up a bit, I’m going to get bored. I’m not there to play patty-cakes. I’m not there to go full out day in and day out either though. Been there, done that.
And the level of contact and speed absolutely depends on who’s in front of you. There’s some people who I always hold back with; either they’ve got nagging injuries, not ready for that, or similar. I know who I’m going to go hard with and who I’m not. Good thing I’ve got enough people to do both with, typically in the same session.
But if people complained about holding or hitting focus mitts being too painful, they wouldn’t
I noticed a lot of this when I was watching Marvel's Iron Fist. The hanging of a punch so someone could do something with it.
So at what point do you take the prearranged drill and either start experimenting with different things you can do, or else have the attacker vary the attack and expect the defender to deal with that new complication? (i.e. instead of a single reverse punch, defend against a combo).
The resistance increases when the attacker feels you’re ready, in a sense. Usually the teacher will set that tone. Everyone’s different and there’s no set rank for that. And it depends on the drill.
We have “basic self defenses” that are taught to 10th kyu to 6th kyu. They stop going going easy on you around 5th kyu when you’ve had enough time to get them all down. Then there’s “intermediate self defenses” from 5th-2nd kyu. By 2nd kyu, no one’s giving you anything easily, so to speak.
No one’s throwing counter punches at you during this time, but you’re definitely blocking and moving. You’re definitely on target with your counters. You’re definitely not taking your seeet time. If you mess up, you’ll they’ll do something to surprise you and make sure you’re doing things right. The intermediate ones all involve a sweep. After you’ve got them down enough, people will stand there and not move when you’re trying to sweep them. It’ll be “try again” “try again” now actually sweep me.” Once you can actually sweep them, they’ll try to avoid it. Obviously they’ll play along a little bit, as it’s way to easy to avoid something you know for certain is coming. If you don’t have your distance, timing, angle, etc. right, no one’s going to fall. If you take too long, no one’s going to give you anything. There’s a fine line between not allowing it and allowing the defender to do his thing. Most of the upper ranks have a good grasp of that line.
We also have prearranged sparring sequences taught between about 8th kyu-2nd kyu. There’s no holding anything out and letting them counter; it’s a constant back and forth. The nature of them doesn’t allow many mistakes. If your hands are down, you’re going to get hit. If you don’t block, you’re getting hit. Wrong move, you’re getting hit. If your distance and timing aren’t right, you’re either getting hit or not connecting. At first the higher ranks will work with you to make sure you’re doing them right. Then the speed will increase. Then the power will increase. When done right by two people who know what they’re doing, it looks like an all out sparring match if you don’t know it’s choreographed. When not done well, it looks like people who just don’t know how to fight.
