last week i was so nervous cause i was self concious about being awkward in front of the blackbelts. This week I was more relaxed tonight and enjoyed it and did better. I even enjoyed it when my brownbelt opponent caught my leg in mid kick and I fell to the floor. Hee. My Nidan classmate, Dan Squared I call him cause he's a dan named Dan, gave me advice to do combinations in free sparring. So I was practicing that and kicks. Since I am learning it now, any more advice I should know about?
Take your time and ease yourself into it. What I do when I'm sparring sometimes is to take what I've most recently learned, and attempting to work into my sparring (unless it's not appropriate of course). Other times I just, well, spar. It's hard to explain, but I focus on keeping pressure up and working combinations, as well as paying attention to how my opponent moves and adapting to it. For example, during grappling in Jujutsu, I'm guaranteed to be out-pushed, as everyone there is stronger and heavier (except one guy) then me. Instead of relying on strength, I try and use the opponents force, shifting my position and weight here and there to try and get them off balance, or to avoid being thrown/taken down. There is a blue belt who is the lightest there, and he can take down some of the bigger guys with little strength, using technique with some redirection (not to say he isn't strong, his punches hurt like a female dog at times). I try and follow his example. Out of curiosity what ruleset do you spar under?
well....this is gonna make me sound stupid.....I don't know my association's rules. I never sparred in a tournament yet and am learning to sparr. so I do not know that yet.
A good way to catch people is to innitiate low and go high, and vice versa. Get them to react then work off the reaction. Try not to be too defensive yourself, as in waiting to react yourself. Dont bother with high round kicks for a while, a jab/reverse punch and front kick combo will very often have the front kick landing nicely. Timing your movements and learning to time/see the possible movements of your opponents is key to landing your shots. And most of all, take it easy. Just let it happen in its own time.
Osu, Very good, that's great! What did you learn so far? focus on well executed basics, distance and timing... that should keep you busy for quite a while. Work your combos in shadow sparring and on the bag; focus first on flow and timing, then on explosiveness. The fancy kicks is not work, it is play... do this on your own time! Osu!
Biggest bit of advice I can give is relax. Everybody when they start tense up, concentrate too hard, overthink the fact that they're going to get punched/kicked - it clouds your mind and makes you react in a non-helpful way. If you relax, it's easier to breathe, easier to go with the flow (in Shotokan this is very important, considering the block/evade, counter attack mantra) and to block. When you're tense you try to put everything in to a block, wasting far too much energy. You only need a half-inch of movement for a successful parry. The other thing I would say is that since you're at such an early stage with this, don't even begin to think about tactics. Don't try to get clever because I promise it will fail (not because you're not capable, but because your opponent would have seen it all before). Treat it a bit like one step sparring in that you're constantly looking for openings to attack/counter. So, as a summary: KEEP YOUR GUARD UP! Relax Don't get fancy Relax Look for openings Relax Get in and out Relax
I enjoy a good blitz! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcYHN-LvCII&feature=related"]Eric Hill - The Blitz - YouTube[/ame] Gary
I thought normally when people talked about "blitzing" they mean running at you flat-out while flailing punches. I used to hate it when people did that but once I realised that most of the time they'll happily run face-first onto your fist, I didn't mind it so much. Those just looked like distance closing techniques in the video. What would you define as "blitzing"? To Blade: I'm with Llama on this one. Relax and move. Most people start off by living up to the shotokan stereotype of being stiff and clunky and just standing still exchanging blows. If you move around a bit, you get to take control of the situation and work angles. If I'm sparring with someone of less experience, I can get through pretty much a whole "round" without taking a hit - not because I'm awesome (I'm definitely not) but because I'm not afraid of running away, circling and regrouping until I can take control of the exchange because I see an opening. In contrast, my instructor can happily give me a good battering because he won't allow me to back off or circle him - he'll keep the pressure on. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that controlling your movement and your opponent's is more important that the techniques you know. As long as you know a left punch and right punch, the rest is just movement. The other thing that I've noticed (and don't tell everyone ) is that most people are very poor at guarding the area of their gi where the club logo often lives (across the top of the chest). You can often whack them there and either get a bit of a psychological advantage by showing them how easily you hit them or, if you're doing sport sparring, maybe get a waza-ari, depending on the ref. It sounds like Blade does pretty a pretty similar karate syllabus to me, in which case it'll be light to medium contact, no leg kicks.
To add to Moosey adding to me: Throw some hard chudan kicks. Who cares if they make contact and hurt? A) that's the point b) you're going to hit arm 90% of the time - but if they feel it (and if they're not our level where you kind of block out pain there, I have another story about that...!) they'll think twice about bullying you in kumite. But the most important point, one I didn't stress in my last post, is this: In kumite (when you start at least) you have three techniques that you'll use - a block, a punch and a kick. That's it. Your block will almost always be a Soto Uke, maybe with a bit of an age uke thrown in, maybe a slight gedan barai sometimes. Your punches may be kizami zuki or gyaku zuki, but you won't realise which one you're throwing in the heat of the moment. And you'll sometimes kick. Depending on your preference, it will almost always be the same kick. My stock kick is a mawashi. Sometimes front leg, mostly back leg. Almost always right leg. I sometimes throw a ushiro geri, and will only throw ura mawashi geris against opponents who are smaller, slower or not as good as me (big bit of perspective here!!) When you get more advanced, and depending on your ruleset (Moosey's sounds like mine in the respect that we're not tied down to strict rules with judges - it's more about surviving/being technical etc - am I right Mooseman?) you might start doing different things - so for example, my favourite/go to hand technique (behind a straight punch) is probably an uraken because it works fantastically with a bit of tai sabaki. People literally run in to it. Sometimes I might elbow, but only when someone is trying to use trapping on me or if they have cornered me etc (I ruddy love elbowing people for the sheer power). One of my all time favourite techniques has to be a knee strike though. If you pull that off properly (closeish range, both of you moving in, you get a clean hit) you're close to game over. Poetry. But when I was starting everything was a blur. And looking back on it, it was a (not very good) flurry of straight punches, mae geris and mawashi geris. That was it. Shotokan comes in handy here. Use those techniques you've drilled hundreds or thousands of times until you're comfortable. The only reason I can diversify a bit now is because when I see someone coming at me it doesn't put me off. So therefore I have an extra split second or so to think (subconsciously) about what I might do. You don't have that at the beginning because it's not ingrained. JWT, Moosey, GaryWado (and KG etc if you're reading this! EDIT: and, actually, anyone else...) - agree/disagree? Would be interesting to see where we converge/diverge
GO BLADE! Sparring is such fun On guarding. Often I will go into a round with a good guard up, come into thier range and just take my opponents attacks, slipping in the odd counter. If you can get used to someone trying to punch and kick you, knowing that your guard is strong, I find it lot easier to relax into the session For me the hardest part of learning to spar was the novelty, and fear of being hit and kicked. The only way to get used to it is to get hit and kicked a lot. IMHO In kickboxing I was taught a strong guard as follows. Gloves on the temples, elbows touching forming a triangle around the head. You will know that a triangle is a very strong shape. From this triangle it is easy enough to drop your elbow to catch any low shots PS lol @ Dan sqared
Haha nice work blade, keep it up girl! Do you have the same problem i have where you forget most of the stuff you learned as soon as you start sparring? That happened to me ALOT in Tangsoodo, although i got very very little sparring in Tangsoodo, the bits where i did get sparring, i would always resort to doing Roundhouse kicks or side kicks, but nothing else like the hook kicks or the punches. In Judo i remember more stuff but still, its annoying because i do the sparring match, then as soon as it ends i remember that move i wanted to do and then im like damit, i want to spar again so i can use it this time!!!
I WILL REPLY, DAMNIT! That's half the point. That's why you do, and should, stick to the basics you have drilled many many times.
well i learned some distance, some combinations, to relax yes, and to turn a little bit 45 degree angle not facing them straight on. as for being clever, well i try some clever things so I can learn. With the knowledge they will fail yes because of what you've said. The high belts have seen it before. But I dont worry about failing. I try them because I will learn something from it. Thanks I didnt realize about the circling and looking for opening and getting them to react first. Iloved all of what you guys said here. Its awesome. I was a little worried about having my leg trapped and falling, but since it happened once and I had fun, maybe i wont be so worried about it from now on. Btw moose and llama I'm starting to think of you two as twins - brothers from another mother (and father.) I laughed at people running into the uraken.
Haha, thats why you should have waited till i edited XD. I think it was cause of a lack of sparring, since over the 6 months i only got to spar about 4 - 5 times, each time was about 5 minutes or so. And back then i would drill these techniques in every day for about an hour session, but also when i was bored i would do 10 of each kick XD I never got to the point where i learned the more complex kicks. Obviously they showed me those spinning jumping crecent kicks but i never got the hang of those. Now for judo i just do shadow throws, i dunno what difference it is making, but i just stick to the ones i was taught
Blade - there's one lesson for Shotokan - Counter. Honestly, everything comes from that one epiphany. We can tell you but it means nothing. You have to learn/feel it for yourself. That even goes for the pre-emptive strike, as that is a reaction to telegraphy. Honestly blade, when you're learning don't try to be fancy. It's not like soccer etc - being fancy will give you no glory but many bruises, bleeds, broken bones etc.
pkh - here is where one learns about the difference between competition and life/street/RBSD/punching a random person/whatever. You can have decades of sparring experience and freeze in a real situation. You could be a world champ and be the same. Shotokan, at least, gives you the opportunity to test yourself without serious (face) injury (most of the time). I honestly feel that if some random started on me in the street (or pub or w/e) I'd at least stand a chance. That doesn't mean I think I'm a legend or I'd always win - shotokan has a lot of flaws! The basic rules of sparring (I'd argue in any system) are these: Guard up (regardless of what style of guard you use - you know how to use it) Don't attack when you know it's pointless Look for weaknesses Look for openings In Shotokan, openings come directly after the attacks... I could go on, but I feel you know what I'm getting at. Blade - Listen to me (and people like Moosey and JWT and Gary Wado - not to discount everyone else, these are just the people I feel I know When you fight, simplicity is key. Even when you're first/second/third dan the rule is still the same, even if simplicity changes slightly.( E.G. I ruddy love yahara and KWF, but I train in a more Enoeda-influenced association) so even when you know lots, or many variations of techniques, you should still fall back on the ones you are certain you can pull off. Competition in Shotokan is like formal training in karate - a late edition to make it easier to teach and learn. You are leaning to hurt someone - that is the bottom line. Remember that.
Thing is i'm not doing it for the self defense aspect, i do it because i just love sparring, and i love the contact in judo, and also hope to get into judo competitions in future but i get where your going, and obviously i wouldn't be such an idiot as to go for complex attack. I would probably run away at first, if not possible just use what i know, and what i can to leave the situation ASAP
