I had seen one documentery which discovery channel had shown once and yes they use elbows, in that documentary one fighter had his temple cut badly by an elbow strike, note that MT fighters strike with their elbows so that it 'cuts' their target, also they allow knees......I think.......since I had seen only one match |Cain|
Hi We use knees at the same intensity as any other tool - accidents do happen though (Is CyclePath reading?) We "play" with elbows i.e. place them rather than hitting with them. The same goes for headbutts & eye gouges etc when we include those.
It is very rare that elbows are used in sparring in the UK, they are real dangerous and can cause cuts very easily. Also fighters tend to get carried away looking for elbow strikes all the time and ignoring the other techniques. However, I have used them on the run up to fights where elbows are used. Hands (Mat), Knees (kao) and Kicks (Dtae), plus clinch work should for part of everyday sparring for Muay Thai.
We also on occassion use elbows in our sparring. However this tends to be in low-intensity sparring where (as Yoda) the elbows are placed. Sparring doesn't have to be full blown anything goes and you shoudl see it as a tool for your own development and experimentation. If you're always looking to knock each other out not only will you have too many injuries to train often but you will find it hard to use new techniques or perfect the basics. Having said that there's nothing quite like a hard sparring session once in a while... obviously most important if you are fight training. Also the sparring pre-fight from what I've seen tends to depend on the rules of the governing body that you will be figting under (i.e. many do not include elbows but do use knees for instance). My Thai instructor uses a lot of technical sparring called Chung Chan (or is it Chan Chung - sorry I forget). Basically this is done in groups of three. The actual intensity of the sparring is quite low but the emphasis is on keeping the work rate high (i.e. lots of combos but little impact) and you use it to work specific tools i.e. hands only, defence, hands and knees, neck wrestling etc etc. The 3rd person is there to coach essentially and his job is to continually comment on the sparring - to keep the level right, encourage, advise etc etc its very useful. After numerous rounds we then generally up the intensity into normal sparring (again possibly working specific areas) and might finish with some hard sparring for a bit of fun. Which has also just reminded me that the use of groups of 3 in training is sometimes used in FMA training. My instructor, Terry Barnett's, has a maxim for his system: "Observe, receive, deliver". When you look at it simply in terms of the 3 man sparring you can see that the guy coaching/commetating is observing (and hoefully learning/thinking), one fo the sparrers is receiving (at any point in time) and one delivering (at any point in time). Experience from each perspective broadens your knowledge. But I digress from the topic...
mostly knees....elbows rarely but they are used with caution. We're seeking to train and learn not knock out the sparring partner.
yep same as everyone else, we use hands legs and knees pretty full on but elbows with caution. it is very easy to badly damage someone with an elbow.
we use knees, but we don't try to connect at 100%. and if we go for a knee to the head, we don't attempt any type of connection. in my gym we don't spar with elbows.
depends level of skill. If sparring for a match the elbows are slowed up, not actually landing. The knees are also taken lightly. Pads help but, have to have actually ring time with a opponent to practice them, unless using bags.
