"easing" people into sparring

something i see lots in martial arts, specifically arts that use rankings, is that they start out with light contact at lower belts, progressing to hard contact at black belt. this can take several years.

Now what ive always wondered about was the logic behind this. look at boxing- a month or so usually before they start sparring. they get it fairly easy to start with for a few weeks then are treated (more or less) like any other member of the gym. same with many arts, and it seems to produce guys who are pretty damn good at fighting.

Now what i wonder is how badly light contact sparring prepares you for harder contact, because it really is a different game. if someone spends a year or so doing light contact or even non contact, then progresses to medium, then finally hard contact at black belt level- how much is their "base" fighting style going to be affected by that? i mean if you spend a year doing light contact you are basicaly playing tag. what i see a lot and what i saw at my old kwoon which used this system was that while the level of contact went up the "game" didnt really change- harder contact sure but the jup in, kick, jump out mentality ingrained by light contact is still there.

I would like to hear peoples opinions on the pros and cons of each system. personally i think that a lot of clubs treat people like glass and spend far too long before they get them into REAL sparring, thus giving them bad habits that take a while (f ever since everyone else would be doing the same thing) to work out.

oh and if you do an art that doesnt involve sparring then please, you dont have to reply. resist the urge

 

Personally I think that 'full emersion' (right in at the deep end with full contact) can be rather scary for a newbie, ESPECIALLY if they haven't done martial arts before. I think you should move on when your ready to. At my club, we were doing full contact sparring after only a month or two because me and my friends who went there were really up for it. However for some other people, this was rather daunting so they prefered to go that bit lighter so they could walk before they ran.

 

I think you got a point.

I for one, when sparring with someone sometimes get frustrated by them not hitting me hard enough. I've even stopped it at times to call the instructor over to tell the opponent to hit me instead of pulling back.

I like hard contact, I'd rather have my ass handed to me in 20secs, than draw even over 10 mins and know he wasnt really trying.

 

I do both.

Hard contact is something that's necessary for fitness, for overcoming fatigue, conditioning your mind and body to being struck and because it's as close to actual combat as you can get.

Light contact has a major benefit in the fact that it requires no safety equipment like gumshields and gloves. You can just do it anytime, anywhere. I do it with my friend every saturday morning because it just wakes us both up and gives a great warm-up before training in hard contact. It gives you a chance to feel truly light on your feet and to drill your reflexes. It isn't close to combat, but it is a good way to train.

I think you need both. Which is why I'd never be part of a TKD school that consistently does light contact. Otherwise you're just learning to pull your hits.

 

Good post Ikken!

I'd go as far as to say light sparring often teaches you wrong sparring. Allowing you to fight in a way that will never work during hard sparring.

A lot of this can be blamed on the style itself which needs perfect blocking techniques to work, so forces you to fight in slow motion while you learn.

 

we went over why that is a very dangerous assumption to make in a thread on bullshido where a guy recieved a spinning kick to the face and got knocked out. he didnt have a mouthguard because it was "supposed" to be light contact. accidents happen. they say its the hit you dont expect that knocks you out- that applies even moreso when you arent expecting a hard hit AT ALL during a fight.

that isnt a reason though

and before this becomes an issue, and i get the feeling it might, i said HARD contact. hard contact IS NOT full contact. i seriously doubt anyone who says they train "full contact" after seeing how many guys at fight events end up being seen to by a doctor. THAT is full contact- sparring, unless you are at a gym run by a psychopath, is not. full contact implies you are trying to knock the other person out. hard contact implies that if they dont block they are gonna get a hurting- but you arent trying to kill the guy.

 

I think there are two main reasons:

1. The aims of the styles may be very different. Like it or not, boxing, to use your example, is a sport-oriented MA, and the goal of a boxer is to get in the ring,fight, and compete. Non-sport MAers have many reasons for signing on the dotted line, certainly not all of us do it to fight or compete. Because of the difference in goals, not everyone is well-suited to just being tossed in the deep end. They attract different people.

2. The mechanics of many systems are just plain odd. I'm on my second style of Kung Fu, and I have no problem saying that many of the techniques are counter-intuitive and take some time to adjust to, let alone apply. Or even something as simple as move-kick-move; it seems many folks take for granted the fact that they didn't do their first sparring session and not feel a bit overwhelmed... Light contact fighting gives the student the opportunity to learn how to apply techniques under pressure without being overwhelmed.

I think sparring is an important factor in training, but having trained at schools which tossed folks into the deep end with minimal training, I'm going on the side of "that's doing more harm than good". Many students need the time to gain the confidence to go full force, and most don't walk into the gym on the first day with it.

 

Its true, you can spar hard without going full contact, just by pulling punches.

Light is for technique only, but still must be careful not to gain false confidence.

Hard is the only way to learn to fight.

 

Fair point. But I train so regularly with the same guy that when we light contact spar we're so in tune with each other that we never get hurt. We actually purposefully spar our way over to where females are sat in the courtyards and then start throwing spinning and flying kicks.

I don't trust anyone other than him and certain blackbelts that they can control themselves.

Misunderstanding. Yes I do of course mean hard contact when I say 'full'.

 

Hi All,

I am going to open a side-issue - not how hard but why at all?

I enjoy sparring occasionally but because I like to consider that what I am doing is mainly training in martial arts for Self Defence purposes then sparring is a BAD THING.

Why?

Because Sparring by it's intent, design, nature, whatever - is teaching two people to go at it together - mano-e-mano - face-to-face - toe-to-toe - YES all the things that you want to AVOID in self defence.

Let's look at a boxing example...

A punches with a BIG round punch - a hay-maker - B ducks under punch and as A starts to recover B hits him with a left cross onto the side of the jaw...

Same thing self defence...

A punches with a BIG round punch - a hay-maker - B ducks under punch and steps off around to the back of B

As A starts to recover B hits him FROM BEHIND!!!!

See the difference - what may work very nicely in self defence breaks the flow of sparring...

So I'd say spar at whatever level you like but always remember that sparring is a game and part of sports martial arts.

All the best.

Robert.

 

I can tell you that my instructor told me that I won't fight until one month, but he actually let me fight after two weeks... at my gym we spar a lot (every lesson, just boxing gloves and teeth protectors). When we train we usually go pretty light, and when we spar in front of the class it usually starts light and then goes full-speed. AFAIK, a lot of TMAs don't have sparring at all or very little sparring, but for instance at 2 trial lessons I was in a JJ class, we sparred full contact except for the head. I think it changes your understand of fighting and your fighting style a lot, you really start to see how everything goes in a fight, you start throwing away what's not good very quickly so you have more time to work on your good stuff and tweak them for a fight. I can tell you that I would do a lot of stupid <stuff> in a fight if we wouldn't spar as heavily as we do.

 

Not sure what you're getting at there? In your self defence situation the attacker wins?

My theory is you get good at sparring and become capable of making the SD situations work.

 

Agree with your post, and agree that not just the techniques themselves but the applications of them can seem counter-intuitive, i.e. standing face-on to your opponent when you'ld love to turn to one side and minimise your exposure to them, or moving in with your feet rather than over-reaching with your hands when you get an opening (whether these are the correct things to do or not is probably for a different discussion).

However this;

is a very good point, and something I hadn't really thought about before. The assumption is that as you get better, so do your peers within the club and so the level of sparring gets better - but what if you're all getting drawn into the same rudimentary mistake, like a light-contact mentality?

I guess it makes a good case for getting out of your own gym/club sometimes and sparring some different guys with different styles and training methods.

 

I make that three reasons, and I agree with all of them.

The other day I was thinking along similar lines to Ikken's original question, and came to the conclusion that while in our system we start off by doing 'light and controlled sparring', by the time that we have reached the level of sparring hard-contact, the vast majority of senior belts are pretty formidable at sparring. So something is working!

 

Then your instructor should be correcting you!

I think this would be a great thing for everyone! Sadly, it isn't something that most of us get a chance to do.

 

SORRY got 'B' and 'A' mixed up - defender sneaks around back and thumps attacker

(I'll edit the original post as well)

All the best.

Robert.

 

Unless attacker has done some good sparring, and uses footwork to keep the range at their advantage

 

I think that light contact sparring is an excellent training tool that can teach you strategy, range, footwork, and how to best react to a variety of stimuli. However, I see it as JUST THAT. A training technique.

When you start sparring, it should be with intent and with the knowledge that what you throw will hurt, and vice versa.

 

So do you think that it's a good idea to start with light contact sparring before progressing to hard contact?

 

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that Ikken specifically asked people not to bring this issue up in this thread.

By your logic, you shouldn't practice martial arts at all. Everything we do contains some things you want to avoid in self-defense. Forms are prearranged, not random like real fights. Drills have rules and common understandings. Freestyle "self-defense" has limits on the level of contact. And the guys on the sidelines don't jump in and stomp you when you're down.

So why single out sparring as being unrealistic?

The fact is that NOTHING we do is real. All we can do is train different things at different times and hope that, taken as a whole, we've covered most of our bases sufficiently. But even then, the map isn't the territory. Real life is still a completely different beast.

That said, remove sparring and you're far less prepared than you would have been otherwise. Even if all you take from sparring is the chance to cope with the adrenaline rush of facing someone who genuinely wants to get the better of you, that's something more than you'd have otherwise.


Stuart