Yeah, I know what you mean. I've seen other groups claim that in their drills, attacks are done at random and have no set pattern (implying that any kind of attack is possible), when in actuality the attacks they feed are done in a prescribed manner (uniform strength, speed, range), with only randomized angles (within their own set of XX basic strikes). I guess they think of drills and sparring in a different way? And I agree with your definitions of drilling and sparring. Though some drills and sparring formats do tend to overlap depending on what is done and how. I agree. When we do drills in fact, we intentionally blur the line between the two. When it comes to the point where the students can demonstrate the technique cleanly and at full speed on static opponents, we do a sort of "sparring drill", as you say, where for example the opponents feed the initial attack, and when the students start to apply the prescribed counter the opponents will attempt to resist and counter themselves, with increasing intensity as the repetitions continue. We still call this sort of training "drilling" though.
it was vince lombardi who said 'practice does not make perfect. perfect practice makes perfect'. not saying this is how drills and sparring needs to be done. just how our school does things. drills and sparring are very different there. with drills there is less resistance and more opprotunity to explore concepts. also sessions for drills teach basics. while still talking about drills the correct footwork and learning both proper timing and distance can be accomplished. with sparring comes the practice against realism part. what might look effective during those drills might not fare so well in the latter. personally i like our drills better than sparring base sessions. the former method develops proper technique while the latter becomes a technical nightmare. maybe theres a problem with how we do the drilling/sparring base sessions?
have you read any of the other posts by me in the fma based thread? what about in the jkd forum? for that matter everyone has a profile here on this site. did i claim to be a student of fma in any of those posts or in the profile section? from the very beginning i made it very clear about not being a student that represents any fma style. not to mention also said that my knowledge and experience is limited to what has been covered in my jkd classes. for that matter i have a wide range of intrests not entirely based on fma. does that mean that people that do not represent fma have no place for posting on this forum? do only fma students drill/spar with sticks? maybe there is some criticism on your part about how we train. and you very well may be right. perhaps if you explained how the drilling and sparring with sticks is done in your class i could better understand the similarities and differences between them. maybe i could even learn something valuable about training with sticks that could prove benifitial in the future. far too often i have seen large differences in the technical finess between drills and sparring. how does your school manage to keep the correct footwork and technique in place during sparring? again i never claimed to be a fma stylist. just someone that attempts to learn aspects of stickfighting.
If there is a large disparity between the way drills and sparring is done, then of course there will be a similar difference between what and how techniques will be manifested in a sparring versus drilling environment. Like what I and ap Oweyn have said, at some point down the line you should "blur the lines" between your drills and your sparring. The level of intensity and resistance from the drilling partner should gradually increase toward the level of sparring. I guess we need to look at what we mean by "perfect practice". Is perfect practice being able to perform a certain string of movements in the smoothest and fastest manner possible, or being able to perform those movements in the proper time and in the proper manner (not necessarily has to be really fast or really smooth) against an opponent?
We have an interesting saying: 'Make the pattern, break the pattern.' This is very important when using drills to teach 'fighting application'. One thing to remember about drills though, is that they create conditioned responses. You should look at your drills really carefully to ensure that you are truely installing the responses that you want.
