What's wrong with his kicking skill?

[Dirty Dog]

So sparring is a sport after all.

Not necessarily. Sport is focused on winning. Sparring can be sport, but it needn't be. If it's focus is on learning, not necessarily winning.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

So sparring is a sport after all.

Call it however you choose. I don’t compete, I practice. No trophies or certificates or belts or kudos. I don’t have anything against that, my students are welcome to compete or not.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Not necessarily. Sport is focused on winning. Sparring can be sport, but it needn't be. If its focus is on learning, not necessarily winning.

That is exactly on point. I don’t care about a sparring win, I only care to practice and learn. It’s not sport to me, but again, nothing wrong with sport or sparring or competition.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Not necessarily. Sport is focused on winning. Sparring can be sport, but it needn't be. If it's focus is on learning, not necessarily winning.

In sparring, if you intentionally to let your opponent's kick/punch to land on your body, that's called "partner drill".

In sparring, you try to land your kick/punch on your opponent's body. You also try not to let your opponent's kick/punch to land on you. You have a goal, and you want to achieve your goal. When you try to achieve your goal, and your opponent also tries to achieve his goal, does that fit the definition of "competition"?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

In sparring, if you intentionally to let your opponent's kick/punch to land on your body, that's called "partner drill".

In sparring, you try to land your kick/punch on your opponent's body. You also try not to let your opponent's kick/punch to land on you. You have a goal, and you want to achieve your goal. When you try to achieve your goal, and your opponent also tries to achieve his goal, does that fit the definition of "competition"?

No. If I am competing I will try to win using the most expedient means I have available. If I am sparring, I will try to learn something new or work on something specific but in both cases I will resist my partners attempts. In no case do I let someone land punches and kicks on me. Partner drill means we are helping each other to learn a technique correctly so we don’t learn a sloppy version and we don’t injure one another. I feel like you know exactly what I mean here so I won’t belabor the point. Again, nomenclature is not important since I just defined it for you, but you may call a snake a noodle for all I care.

 

[Fungus]

When you try to achieve your goal, and your opponent also tries to achieve his goal, does that fit the definition of "competition"?

How about this psychological reflection?

In sports the goal is to win and get and "external reward/confirmation"- a medal and glory; which you often want to show off and confirmation from others.

In sparring the goal is to learn and get an "internal reward/confirmation" - deeper insights/skills and confidence; this is confirming yourself from the inside.

An interesting research question would be to see if the bias towards one or the other correlate to personality traits, but I think that is likely a complex topic. I myself am more on the introvert side, I think knowing what I know and can myself, is much more important than what other people think of me. I always care more about learning deep and well, than earning grades. I know many do the opposite, even in academia. Those people are very different.