tallgeese

First up, welcome to KF! Glad to have you here and we're looking forward to seeing where you go on this journey. Here's my abbreviated two cents on the matter. There has been a lot of good advice and solid posts on the matter. From my stand point, sparring is important for just about every reason that everyone has pointed out. I will not belabor them. Even if a school is 100 percent self defense oriented and focuses on scenario based training (a great thing by the way) they should still be doing sparring. As mentioned, attribute development, spontaneity training, ect. All are important reasons to be doing it. How you do it depends largely on what you're doing it for to start with (tool development, movement focus, structure work, ect) and this is often driven by what you're in martial arts for to begin with. A self defense school will have a different take on sparring than a point sport school or a specialized rule set school. I used to be harsh on different schools of thought with this. But with age (and hopefully wisdom) and a good does of exposure to martial thought in places such as this (thank you KF) I've really backed off that. Martial arts is big and has plenty of room for just about any goal. what you have to do is make sure that the sparring you're school is doing is leading you in the direction you want to go. Additionally, sparring shouldn't always be the same. The point was made that even full contact fighters don't train full contact everyday. This is true and it's true for a reason. I'm a "contact is key" kind of guy. There always needs to be some just to make sure that you're body mechanics are right. That said, I might spar very minimal contact if I'm focusing on working the structure of my attacks. Or might be very hard if I'm pressure testing tactics that I've been working on for some time. Or will be somewhere in between for developing new movements into my plan. So you can see, it's not a simple answer. Hopefully, this gives you some thoughts to chew on as you dissect schools. Lastly, go and check out potential schools. Actually set thru classes and see what they do and the methods they use. Then, match your pick to what interests you the most. Keep us posted on what you find and where you end up. Good luck.

Like bushido man, I too had to take a look at the thread after you mentioned it. Great discussion and lots of points of view. I've never had the opportunity to interact with you on the forums but I think it would be a great experience based on that link. Very nice work, especially given your age at the time. Good luck as you move forward and I hope you find a school to get back into it at. Lastly, thanks for a peek at the early days of KF (well before my time). Always interesting to see the evolution of the forum from someone that was here before it became what I've always known it to be.

Good ideas presented so far. For me, in teaching rolls I start on the knees and work with the forward roll for a time. I actually have fresh new people put their arm that they are going to roll over between their legs. I then have them put that ear to the mag. Then I have them place that shoulder on the floor. I explain that they should feel the mat run from that shoulder to the opposite hip. Then I have them push themselves over. It' will get botched a bit for a time, but the slower pace and step by step seems to build pretty quickly to a fluid motion.

Thanks for sharing, Harkon. It's been great seeing you move into a staff role!

Thanks for sharing your interview with us, Wastelander. You have an excellent perspective on things and it's always interesting to see things from your angle.

This is one of those things I love about this site, and by extension the people who post here, we can disagree over aspects of the arts but we can do so in an adult, respectful manner. And I agree, even when we don't see I to eye I can appreciate what others are saying and learn from them. It's always a pleasure to be on an active thread with you ShoriKid.

As MP said, he and I have been friends for many years outside the site, and he's harder to put in an armbar than he would let on. It's been great seeing your insights and humor here, MP, especially since we're not able to train on the same mats regularly anymore. I have to agree, take the winter easy and chill here a bit more

Danielle, you truly are a professional when it comes to your work here, both as a member and staff. Thank you for helping to keep this site what it is and thanks for sharing in your interview.

Your commitment here is amazing, Heidi! The honor is certainly well deserved. Congratulations.

Congrats!

11/1 15 min of skill specific warm up. Takedowns, passing guard, maintaining guard. Drilled north/south shin control from top side moving thru arm lock series. 30 min free roll.

Just out of curiosity, had you ever heard of this kind of thing before during your 4 year association with them? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that just starts to occur for no reason. Regardless, moving on seems to be a good idea as others have said.

I get where you're coming from with the Doctor Who reference! I have been a fan of the show since I was 8 years old watching reruns on PBS here in the States. Huge fan of the classic era and the new material. Glad to see I'm not the only one who appreciates the show here on the Forums.

Welcome to KF and welcome back to the arts!

10/29 60 min free roll.

There's lots of ways to do this across just about any type of training you can take part in. It's a building process from learning the raw movements, to fluid application, to linking movements to deal with surprise in spontanoeous attack/ defend drills, to adding resistance and contact, and finally to scenario based training. Within those concepts, you can construct all sorts of drills. For instance, if one's working on grappling, add strikes, then when people are occupied throw a training blade on the floor somewhere. Or a second attacker. Or a firearm simulator. Utilize armor and and work spontaneous response, not from a sparring standpoint but actually mimic an ambushing attack. Then do the same sorts of things. When you're working these things, never "do knife defense" or "gun defense" keep random variability going so that the person doing the stress inoculation training isn't pre-loading a response. So, it can be done. Very easily and well, in fact. But one has to take time to structure drills to capitalize on the "randomness" of combat. It's important to note, you can't train this way all the time. 1) you'll probably get hurt- this sort of thing tends to be higher intensity. 2) you'll never get any better technically- you need time to sharpen tools, not just test them. That said, some sort of stress inoculation should be a part of any training dedicated to self defense.

That is absolutely amazing that it's reached to so many countries!

I am also awesome at never knowing specific names for things . From your description though, I've also called that choke a paper cutter choke, I've heard the modified adjective on there as well. At the risk of showing just how informal the group I roll with can be, we often refer to it as a peanut butter choke. Yeah, I know. Absolutely ridiculous . . But there it is. It's a convoluted story as to how that morphed into being. That said, it's a great choke and an absolutely great way to control from that position and mount an attack.

CredoTe, thanks for the kind words. I have to say that you're experience shows in your posts. Your level of knowledge is obvious. It's great to have you aboard and we too look forward to your outlook.

I will defiantly keep it in mind. That would be excellent. Likewise, if you're ever in the Chicago-land let me know. I agree a big meet-up would be a great idea. And it seems like a lot of us that reside in the States are in the central part of the country. Surprising that its not the coasts. But that might actually make what you're talking about a bit easier.

There's defiantly danger if the choke is applied improperly. By working the front of the throat instead of the blood flow you can damage the soft tissue structure there. Properly applied, most choking techniques attack the vascular structures along the sides of the neck. This means that even though unconsciousness results you're not damaging the next long term. Now, if you're partner decides to hold on till oxygen deprivation starts killing brain cells then you've got a real problem that can get fatal. It's also murder, not a fault of the tactic. There's a really good lit review from a department in Colorado, Colorado Springs I think, that details several studies about damage incurred by the use of lateral vascular neck restraints (cop speak for chokes) on combative suspects. This found extensive evidence that no long term damage occurred when the tactic was applied properly. The review cited several studies done in LE departments AND judo circles for about 100 years. A really well controlled use of force review was conducted by Canada's National Police concerning its efficiency and potential to injure suspects. Again, this really well controlled and peer reviewed study points to a distinct LACK of injury to suspects when used properly. It's worth checking out. Again, the catch phrase here is properly executed. However, I'll point out that we're talking about cops doing these tactics not trained martial artists. Unfortunatly, cops don't get nearly the training you'd think in these matters. PPCT, one of the big prepackaged programs out there, has a requirement of around 100 repetitions to initial training and somewhere around 40 yearly to re-cert. LVNR (the registered company) runs slightly higher reps but not substantially more. The point being that if cops are doing this well enough with minimal injury, a trained martial artist should be able to utilize it without injury. The bigger issue would be you tube ninjas trying to emulate what they see. Then I can see real problems.

10/26 30 min free roll. Worked on the last couple weeks of material and taking back. 5, 3 min rounds of sparring. Focused on stance and movement structure as well as trapping application at speed.

Your veteran status here is definatly apparent, ninjanurse! Your posts always present insight into your subject matter and your judgment and activity as a moderator is excellent. Thanks for sharing your background with us in the interview.

Ditto this. I think it's something we can all appreciate. It's amazing to read your story and hear how KF has a part in your life there.

It's humbling to mentioned in your post, pitbull. Especially in such a manner. I've always been impressed with you're insights as well. I really respect the Ryu Kyu lineage you come out of and what you've had to deal with to get there. I hope we get to log some mat time togehter at some point.