Guy_Who_Fights

I agree, mai tai. Pros can be equally bad for dropping that hand.

OMG! Most of the people posting here have it so easy (financially) at their dojo! I am so glad to hear not every place is like my first dojo. I live in a small town so there is no choice of where to train, really. It was (in Canadian Dollars) $99/month to train, $40/grading (belt included, no charge for next grading if you fail), and $300, yes $300 for any black belt grading!!! This guy had so many students that he would have been making around $80 000 per year (I did the math)! This is before paying dojo fees like rent and utilities. Yet on top of making this much money, he somehow went bankrupt! A lot of students had just finished paying off higher monthly fees for the Black Belt Club (after paying off the full amount you don't pay again until after getting your black belt) when he took the money, declaired bankruptcy, and ran. Black Belt Club was something like $1 200 or $1 500, and some people paid it in full with cash the day before the sensei took off. Since he declaired bankruptcy, no one could sue to get their money back. For those wondering, yes, on top of all that money for Black Belt Club, members would still have to pay $300 for the actual grading.

If you really want to know what the testing at your school is like, I suggest (VERY politely) asking if you can quietly sit in on the next testing, just off in a corner or even watch from the "lounge" area by the dojo entrance. Some sensei are against this, but a lot believe that this will encourage or even inspire a new student. I was able to sit in on a few testings, and even did so when I was more advanced but not attending that particular testing. People learned that I liked to watch and study them and I consequently got invited to sit in on a few black belts tests. At one of the tests they were even short one person for a partner drill, so I was asked to participate for a short while. When my partner (partner A) wasn't the one attacking, they told me to go ahead and do the defenses and whatnot just like all of the other partner * were doing. Not many people get to participate in a black belt test before they are actually testing for the belt, but it never would have happened if I hadn't expressed interest way back when. I guess the point is be as polite as possible, and it doesn't hurt to ask.

I always found the biggest mistake beginners make - and the one they seem most reluctant to seriously train to fix - is that they always drop their guard when they strike. Most can get over the sloppy guard thing and learn to keep it up for the most part, but they always drop their guard hand while punching. I've spent entire rounds with beginners, only punching that opening when they drop their guard while punching, and saying, "don't drop that hand when you punch." For some reason they would never slow down for a second and focus on keeping that hand up while punching - they just focus on keeping it up while not punching, and then try to punch harder. PLEASE, give beginners a good name and just keep that guard hand up while punching. Hahaha. It's easy in shadow boxing and training against the air, but tougher when trying to punch hard, so practice it as much as you can against a heavy bag. Tape your hand to your head if you have to. Hm. Did I just rant on a pet-peeve...? Sorry guys.

SevenStar hit the nail on the head up there. More specifically than trauma to the brain, trauma to the brain stem leads to an immediate temporary loss of motor function. Trauma to different parts of the brain have different effects, like vision (seeing stars). A sharp twist of the neck is the best way to cause trauma to the brain stem. Since the chin sticks so far out from the neck, it provides the most leverage for twisting the head. The fact that it is a temporary loss of motor function makes it easy to understand why you may see fighters go down and get up before a 10 count, or get up after 10 but sometimes not seem all that hurt. Of course, if there is a lot more trauma than is needed to keep the fighter down for 10 seconds, they will stay down longer and seem much more dizzy when they get up.

Do you mean the belts to the left under everyone's name? They represent how many messages people have posted. They have nothing to do with what belt people have in real life. The only way you can change the colour of the belt here is to post more messages.

An extra note on headgear is that it really keeps the heat from your head in. If you are going to be in a competition or something where you have to wear it for the match, then you should train with it as much as possible, even on the heavy bag. All of the extra heat it keeps in makes you get hotter faster, and thus takes extra energy out of you. If you're doing some 3-point fight or one round then it doesn't really matter. But if the fight is going to last a while (more than three rounds or many multi-round fights in one day), then wearing head gear definately makes a difference. It's best to train with it so the extra heat isn't a shock that leads to early fatigue. I agree also that some good points have been made here as to why to avoid headgear. It really depends on how you train and what you are training for.

I find most clubs get downright offended if you try to wear shoes into the training area. I've seen places that always have you wear shoes and their mats are still in perfect condition, so I don't know why so many clubs are so against street clothes. However, if your club is against it, you can always train in street clothes at home. You guys are right - it's a great idea and should be the norm. I do think that using street clothes every day if you do grappling or throwing might not be a good idea, since you'll quickly ruin all of your shirts thanks to the guys who can't seem to shake that grab-the-gi mentality. I find training in street clothes makes me more likely to train when I have a few spare minutes and am wearing normal clothes. The normal clothes start to carry that feeling of, "hey. I should be training right now." Like how you are more likely to throw some extra punches if you are wearing a gi for some reason around the house.

I think slapping the punches away can be very effective, but you have to keep the blocking movement as small as possible. As a few people alluded to here, if the block is the slightest bit exaggerated, the opponent is going to fake that straight punch and catch you in the opening with something else, like a hook punch. That been said, I definitely agree that getting out of the way (slipping) and striking at the same time is the best strategy. With the right instruction it can be a lot easier than it looks, but unfortunately very few instructors ever teach that strategy seriously and regularly. Even a lot of boxing gyms avoid it and expect you to learn it on your own. If you go to https://www.intellifight.com , there is an entire book there on slipping. It's not free, but you can cheat and look at the free sample pages. At the very least it'll give you some ideas to work with. As for blocking straight kicks, it can be risky to commit yourself so much as to grab the leg. An advanced opponent will exploit the opening you create by changing to a different kick. Of course, not all opponents are advanced, so grabbing the leg and sweeping still has its place. I know I've had a lot of success turning a front kick into a roundhouse kick (Savate) or a roundhouse kick into a hook kick. You have to be sure you can get away with high kicks against your opponent first though. Anyone else have success with this kind of strategy?

Why would I get nose to nose with him? One of the major points was that keeping my distance gave me a distinct advantage. I was stating my opinions of the pros and cons through the example of one particular fight experience I had. If you're going to rip me apart for using that method, don't forget to rip Jesus apart from teaching through parables, which is the exact same thing same thing. Also, I never said I was presenting a blanaced argument, I stated quite clearly that I was stating cons to balance out the thread, which was mainly pros. And again, we were not fighting by boxing rules. It was basically a street fight with no eye gouging (hence he was allowed to hit me in the throat). And if we got into a clinch, there was no referee to break us up - we kept fighting. So your last comment, is obviously true, but it does not apply to the match I spoke of in the slightest. Anyway, that's enough of this for me. Write whatever you want as a response, I am finished checking in on this thread, so I won't see it to defend it. This is becoming more like a senseless bickering session - something other forums have enough of. I think we can spare this one and keep it a good forum.

*sigh* pvwingchun, your's is exactly the kind of post I was hoping to avoid. Allow me to address your points one at a time. 1. It was not a burn post. I kept mentioning that because it is only text, not me speaking. Therefore it is very easy to misread a post and see it as an immature attack (a criticism that we all, as martial artists, have encountered at one time or another in real life). 2. I did not offer only cons, I did obviously (at least I thought it was obvious) give my opponent credit for certain things such as his skill when we were at close range. However I did focus mainly on the cons because everyone else seemed to be focusing on the many pros. I am aware of the pros in Wing Chun, but felt that the thread needed to be balanced out a little. I kept mentioning that it was not a burn post in hopes that it would be understood that balance was the reason for mentioning cons. 3. Why would you insult an opponent you have never seen? Indirectly this comment on my opponent not being any good is an attack on my personal skill. Since mine and my opponent's skill are nothing I can prove here, I don't particularly mind the attack and shrug it off. However, please try not to insult people here in the future, this is a friendly forum. 4. I pointed out that he was muscular, young, and in good shape to wipe away any possible assumptions that this man was A) a teenager or younger, or B) a father who only participates in classes when he has time apart from work and his family. I was trying to get the point across that he trains for strong strikes and trains daily in his techniques - not once or twice per week with no weight training. Also, being able to end a fight in 10 seconds is great, but I tried to very clearly point out that, having a personal style of fighting that gave his Wing Chun strategies and principles some adversity, he was unable to end the fight so quickly. Since I was able to dictate how long the fight lasted, I was able to let the fight last until he became tired and I thus gained a good advantage. Even Bruce Lee wrote extensively about the unrealistic ideas inherent in the martial art community about how short a fight is. His crippling back injury came during one of his intensive workout routines to improve his strength and endurance. He developed these new routines after his legendary fight to earn himself the right to teach whites and blacks - he found himself exhausted after a fight that lasted 2-5 minutes (this is the range of the different accounts of how long the fight lasted). 5. Some people can't make it work, but then some people can. So why again accuse someone you don't know of being a poor fighter? I was merely trying to illustrate the amount of time and effort he had put into Wing Chun, as well as his skill. This was all to eliminate any assumptions that this was someone who had only been training for a few months. 6. He was obviously more than willing to let me into his most effective range, but I stayed out of that range. And that was a big problem for him. That was the point I was making. If my effective range is greater than his, and he stays out of my range, how on Earth is he going to hit me? (let alone defeat me within 10 seconds) I mentioned that he continually tried to get in close - to his most effective range - but it was very easy to keep him at bay with the lengthy boxing jab. He obviously didn't just stand there for 9 minutes while we pumbled each other, we all know this is not what a fight between two skilled fighters is like. We stayed out of one another's range until he decided to attack me or I decided to attack him. The point was I was able to attack him while staying out or almost entirely out of his most effective range, and when he attacked me I was able to easily keep him out of his most effective range. 7. When I said we 'traded blows' I meant that I was able to hit him while in close, but he was also able to hit me. He indeed tried manipulations and such while I was in close, and did not simply let his hands fly while taking an equal amount of punches squarely on the jaw. I was giving him and his style credit, illustrating that my boxing did not have the advantage inside that it did at long range. Also, the only techniques we ruled out were eye gouges. He had gloves that did not hinder his techniques the way boxing gloves would have done to him. We were fighting at high-contact, so any techniques that would hurt on the streets hurt when he landed them. In fact I took a good punch to the throat during a mid-range exchange with him. 8. This is exactly the way someone throwing a feign hopes their opponent will react. When he tried to deal with the false attack as though it were real, I changed the attack into another that exploited the opening created by his attempted defense. A jab lasts only a fraction of a second, and a feigned jab lasts for only half of that time because only half of the technique is thrown. A feigned low jab followed by a real high jab keeps the centre-line occupied, not giving him a chance to move in and break my structure. It is a very fast combination and stops an opponent in their tracks (or else snaps their head back) if they try to rush in in an attempt to deal with the low jab as a real attack. Further discussion on how dealing with a feign as a real attack is the very essence of a feign's goal , as well as all of the possible effective feigning combinations would take up an entire book, so we'll leave it at that. (and again with the personal attack on my opponent's skill as well as my own indirectly...just don't do this so much to others on this forum, please.) 9. Stating that it is not a burn post makes it sound like a burn post? If I introduce my self to someone by saying, "my name is Bob," does that make it automatically seem like my name isn't Bob? I have no reason to lie here. Plus, keep in mind that this thread is about the pros and cons of Wing Chun. It is asking for examples of the pros and cons. Most offered pros, so I had no reason to repeat those things. Therefore I offered some cons. I am sorry if my examples seemed "weak" to you, but I am sure you can understand why I did not elaborate, just by looking at the length of my original post. Thanks to Drunken Monkey who has offered both pros and cons in this thread, and accepted my examples graciously and open-mindedly. I always look forward to reading your posts. Keep up the good work.

This is not meant to be an aggressive "burn" post, saying that Wing Chun is useless or anything like that. This is only an account of my experience sparring against Wing Chun practitioners. E.g. Recently I sparred with a man in excellent physical shape with over 8 years of Wing Chun experience (and you could tell, watching him warm up. His techniques were very crisp). He used Wing Chun and I used boxing. We went for three 3-minute rounds. I used boxing gloves and he used small, open-finger gloves. Since Wing Chun is not a long range striking style like boxing can be, but more of a medium/close range style, it was surprisingly easy to keep out of his range while continually hitting him with good boxing punches. (Please don't post a bunch of denfeces about how Wing Chun can be a long range style is you know what you are doing and truly understand the techniques and blah blah blah - this is not a burn post. This is just my experiences with these fighters. Also, be honest with ourselves here, we know that the main focus of Wing Chun techniques is at medium or close range compared to this distance many boxers can effectively fight from. Again, please don't bother with the defensive posts). So since his techniques focused on a range that I was able to effectively avoid, I ended up watching a lot of techniques being attempted in the air as I used the good footwork developed of hours and hours of sparring to hit at will, then move out of the way and any counters. The techinques I was faced with were somewhat unorthadox compared to the very basic boxing repetoir I was used to facing, but they just weren't able to land once I had devised a solid strategy to keep him away from me (our reaches and heights were very close to identicle). When I opted to go in close now and then, we did end up both trading blows and he managed to get a number of shots in (for obvious reasons). One thing that became prominant in the fight was that he had not experienced the feigns and deceptive techniques that boxing entails. Thus the use of feigns successfully lead to a lot of openings. Granted feigns are something I hone a lot more than the next guy, but they worked particularily well compared to usual. This may be because he sparred primarily against people within his own style, and thus hadn't encountered feigning as much as boxers tend to (I honestly do not know how much feigning is taught in Wing Chun classes, and am sure it depends entirely upon the teacher), or it could have been that Wing Chun does not stress blocking with minimal movement to prevent these openings as much as it could (this is not to say that it ws horrendous and any feign would have worked until the end of time, just that there was definately room for improvement). Another very likely possibility is that the Wing Chun principle of manipulating whatever tool is presented to you in order to create openings, though good against a real attack, definately has the weakness of being succeptable to feigns. The last important factor in the fight was that, though muscular, young, and in good shape, he just wasn't used to fighting for as long as boxers are. By the end of the fight he was exhausted while my boxing conditioning had me still a fresh fighter. So perhaps Wing Chun practioners who are training as more than just a recreational activity can improve their endurance training a bit to avoid this. I can see many people already, all wanting to argue that a real fight wouldn't have lasted that long and he wouldn't have needed that conditioning. We were fighting at high contact and I was in control to the point where I could have made the fight last an hour had I wanted to. So even though he had 8+ years of training (much more than the amount of boxing training I have), he truly needed that extra conditioning. Now, this is not a huge post about how greate boxing is; boxing has a lot of downfalls that we are all aware of. Again, this is not a burn post about how bad Wing Chun is and how greate boxing is, so please don't go nuts with counters to everything I have said here. I train in much more than boxing for the very reason that I am always the first to admit that it is not perfect. This thread, however, is about the pros and cons of Wing Chun, and I noticed a lack of cons (and all styles have cons...). All of this is an account of a particular high-contact match I had against a very good Wing Chun practioner whom I respect very much. Thank you all for reading this with an open and mature mind.

Go to a good book store and look in the Language section. Look for a box set that will have a red top to the box and ther rest of the box will be white. It says "Living Language" in big letters at the top, then something like "Japanese Complete Course" or whatever the language you want it. It comes with a course book, 40 lessons, two 90 minute cassettes (which you can transfer to minidisc or mp3 or CD or whatever...), and a Japanese-English,/English-Japanese dictionary. This is better than any internet source you will find (trust me, I've tried relentlessly). These are great products and I get one whenever I plan on going to a country that speaks a differen language. If you want a better dictionary than the box set supplies, I highly recommend a good Random House dictionary. Also, the best way I have found for learning little things like the names of objects is to label every object in your bedroom in Japanese only. So every time you see your chair, you think "isu", and it reall sticks. I currently have over 100 labels up for colours, objects, emotions (labelled magazine clippings of anime characters), surfaces, directions, body parts, etc. I found this combination to be the most effective way of learning a language. You have to be passionate about learning that language though - you will learn twice as fast if you are. (Obviously being in Japan will help you to learn Japanese faster, but this isn't always an option...) Good luck! Oh. And the box set is approximately $30 Canadian and $23 US.

There you go! In my opinion that was much more informative than your previous post. It offered a much clearer opinion and a wealth of information. When you addressed 1ONEfighting and then continued to use the term "you" for the remainder of the post, it read as though you were putting him down throughout the post. Thanks for clearing it all up. Reguardless, your second post cleared away the vagueness of your previous one and offered a greater amount of beneficial information.

JerryLove, 1ONEfighting gave absolutely no indication that he does not understand how padding takes away a bit of the realism of being hit and can potentially lead to a false sense of security. Consequently your entire post seems more like a direct insult than anything. If you had left him out of it and focused on your actual point, you may have come up with a better final point than 'make sure to realize how padding up while training is different than a real fight, and how that may affect your real life performance.' Please try to focus on your point next time and save the personal attacks for ICQ.

Wow. You guys are lucky. Here in Canada there are next to no tournaments. Maybe 5 mediu-large size tournaments in the entire country throughout the year. Now and then there are smaller ones but they are always inter-dojo tournaments which you cannot enter unless you are a member of an invited dojo and that dojo selects you to participate. Unless you belong to one of those dojo you will likely never even know the tournament was taking place. In Canada you pretty much don't get to fight unless you sign up to compete in amature boxing or kickboxing and belong to a club that will find sanctioned fights for you.

"Training specificity" is a clinacally proven fact. The basics of it are this: If you want to develop muscles that are great for moving heavy loads of weight, slowly, then train by lifting heavy weights slowly (you will have to lift them slowly because they are so heavy). A heavy weight is defined as from 60% to 100% of the maximum amount of weight you can lift. If you want to develop muscles that are fast at moving light loads, exercise with light weights quickly. A light weight is defined as 30% or less of the maximum amount of weight that you can lift. As you may have guessed, to develop muscles for both areas, use medium speed contractions of weight between 30% and 60% of your maximum lifting ability. Of course, this will result in slower results in both areas than if you just trained on area specifically. What does all this mean? Work on a heavy bag with weights in your hands and heavy-hands around your ankles. Bruce Lee use to throw 100 punches with 3 lbs weights, then 100 with 5, 7, 8, and finally 10 lbs. Then he would work his way back down. Be really careful to keep good back position so as not to damage your back. And be careful not to injur your knees with the weights on them. To start out, just try doing one 2-3 minute round with weights in your hands, then a few seconds rest before doing another round with no weights, then go back to the weights. Do 3 rounds of each to start. Do the same with your feet only, maybe the next day. I do this and get a lot of comments on my speed. Be SURE to warm up and stretch before this and between rounds, if you're going to hurt yourself punching, it's going to be while doing this. Don't get freaked out though, I've been doing this for years with no injuries whatsoever, just be careful and smart about it.

Skipping will also work you shoulders a bit because the idea is to move your arms as little as possible (shoulders will be what steadies your arms). I rocommend getting a speed rope (made of leather or rubber), that's what boxers use. As you get more used to the rope just keep doing standard skipping with absolutely nothing fancy or different until you can skip comfortably at a height of about 2 cm (a little less than 1 inch) off the ground. I.e. your feet should only be coming 2 cm off the ground. Once you can do this well without getting caught up in the rope, then start adding the fancy stuff and variations. If you are not cheating by stopping constantly, 20 minutes of skipping will be very difficult. I do a straight 10 minutes when I skip and boxers still say I'm insane to do it. The suggestion above of breaking it up into rounds is a very good idea. It won't hurt your training terribly to stop skipping and look at your watch now and then to see how much time is left in the round. Skipping is great for cardio and I find the biggest difference is my legs never feel heavy now. You know what I mean, after a few rounds they just don't have the spring in them anymore? I find that now I can bounce around as much as I want and after a full hour they are still "fresh". Every time I go to a dojo and spar with people they comment that I am going to run out of energy really quickly, and after they are all drenched in sweat, sitting down having water and saying they are done for the class, I am still fresh-legged and shadow boxing. That's what skipping will do for you. Just don't give up on it after a couple of weeks, and try to combine it with a lot of heavy bag work. A good way would be to do 3 minutes on a heavy bag, 30 seconds rest, 3 minutes skipping, 30 seconds rest, back to the bag, etc. Happy training!

haha. I probably have more fast music than is healthy. Rather than name the hundreds of dance tracks on my list, I'll mainly just name groups. Scooter - extremely popular dance group in Europe. Anything by them will be good for you, especially Fire. Dune - I found their stuff actually too fast for performing but you may like it. Anything from them. Bomfunk MCs - cool fast break dancing feel - try Uprockin Beats to get a feel for their stuff. Initial D - a Japanese group who's songs are all in English. All of their stuff is good. Try Knights of Fire. Two-Mix - very similar to Initial D. Also Japanese. E-Type - another European group. Their stuff is definately a bit slower than everyone else listed here. Kodo - traditional Japanese battle drums. Sometimes you fan find dance mix versions of the stuff too. Not all that fast but powerful and cultural. Taiko - same as Kodo. Tatu - you know, those gay Russian girls. Most of their faster stuff you will find on Kazaa under "Taty" - their Russian name, not "Tatu" As a single song, search for "trance +mega man" and you should find a really good track. The guy will be saying "I am the Creator" throughout the song, that's how to tell if you've downloaded the right one. All of the groups mentioned have a variety of different speeds and feels to their songs, so try a couple of tracks by a group before giving up on them and moving to the next group. I forget the names of the tracks from The Matrix Reloaded but you could find out easily enough. The freeway chase had excellent music. Oh, and Keep Hope Alive by The Crystal Method is a classic (see opening sequence from The Replacement Killers with Chow Yun-Fat) If you still don't find anything, post another message being more specific about the kind of music you are looking for. I am positive I will have something suitable to recommend......so much dance music. This can't be healthy.

My favourite takedown is very simple and raw. There is always a point in a fight where the fighters get close enough for this, and good movement and slipping skills can more than easily get you into the right position. This is best done anywhere from slightly to the side of your opponent to directly behind them: I simple lower myself until their hips are at the height of my lower-middle rib area, wrap my arms around their waist, hold them tight, and wrench them up off the ground and onto the back of their head. This technique is really easy to perform and control, and has a very high success rate.

I am surprised at the amount of praise traditional blocks are receiving here, because I would be very impressed if all of the people who have posted here use crisp, textbook Karate blocks in sparring. Unless you block every punch and kick in sparring with traditional Karate blocks (chambering the block, pulling hand to hip, etc.) and never take a hit because they are so effective, perhaps you should rethink the amount of praise you give those blocks. I have faught countless Karate and Tae Kwon Do practitioners and cannot recall a single one of them actually using a traditional block against any of my attacks. This post is not meant as a real attack on everyone here, but do think about it please. Long ago I too supported the traditional blocks.

smr, Just keep training and your wrists will get strong enough. I'm pretty much the same size and weight as you and my wrists would roll sometimes when I first started, but now I can easily go full force on a hard punching bag with no gloves or wraps. It is mainly a matter of technique - making sure not to hit the bag in a way that will cause your wrists to roll. Doing some wrist exercises wouldn't hurt though.

I trained for some time in Aikido myself, and am very pleased to see the true weaknesses kindly brought up here (fast boxing-type punches, low kicks). These are weaknesses in Aikido because Aikido is geared at stopping a conflict before it gets to the point where those types of techniques are thrown. All styles that utilize standing joint locks like those of Aikido are at their absolute best just before a fight breaks out, when the other person is trying to provoke you. Personally, I love boxing and high contact striking, and practice it every chance I get, but I train just as much in joint locks because I know that the joint locks will be useful in my life ten times as much the striking. When someone is looking to fight, they almost always make some kind of physical contact before strikingm such as pushing, grabbing, walking stiffly into a person to push them with their bodies, or even pointing and constantly getting in a person's face. This is when the person is onthe edge and looking for a reason to justify hitting you. This is the stage where Aikido and similar styles are great - they can stop the fight at this point. However, once this stage has passed and a full-fledged fight has begun, Aikido becomes much less effective, unless the person gets carried away / over anxious and chrges in a little with their strike (the other situation Aikido is geared toward). It is much more "police friendly" for your sake to end the conflict before striking ensues. Also, styles like Aikido can be utilized against people who will never actually strike you (making it justifiable to defend yourself with striking), but rather constantly push and shove and otherwise provoke and annoy you - cocky family members often do this, but we all know the consequences of jabbing a family member in the nose - interfamily chaos. The above two reasons are why I say that the standing joint locks will be used ten times more than my striking skills in my life - it is more often justified to use the joint locks than the strikes to end an annoyingly aggressive or potentially dangerous situation. Aikido is very weak against striking in a fight, but it is not designed to allow a fight to ensue.

BeikokuBushido, it is easy to tell by reading your words that you desire to train yourself to preserve what your Sensei taught you, and are only looking for approval from strangers. All of my philosophies on "preserving styles" aside, I feel very strongly that you should train yourself even harder than you trained when your Sensei was alive. When you do get a chance such as a free week to go visit the headmaster, they will be very honoured at your dedication and loyalty. Since you have obviously trained in the style for some time already, it should be easy for you to get the basics with some advanced priciples to really improve, and the headmaster will be able to correct you on areas that need correcting. This is more beneficial than spending the short time you may have with the headmaster trying to memorize the movements of kata and such. Instead you will already know all of the movements and the headmaster can take the time to focus on teaching you all of the things you don't know - extra insight into the movements. You have obviously already made your choice and just need some encouragement. So, follow your heart.

Like all of you, I could go on forever on this topic. I'll keep it very short and just point out one thing that I find to be a great benefit of sparring with medium, medium-high, and full contact. I do a lot of boxing and my defense relies heavily on boxing principles such as bobbing, weaving, slipping punches and kicks, etc. The thing is, these strategies don't work with light or no contact. It is pretty much impossible to slip a punch that stops and pulls back before it even gets to you. And this is the very reason you never see people bobing and weaving in schools that spar with no contact. There are many defensive and offensive principles that cannot work without at least medium contact, so when I spar without contact against someone, they always think they are scoring points when really I was only waiting for their punch to get as close as possible before I slipped it and struck them. But they are already pulling their punch back when I am just starting to slip, so they, and whoever is watching, assume that the punch is a point because my defense for it did not involve a big movement that began when their punch began. Just as it is difficult to use these strategies in non-contact sparring, it is more difficult to find openings to strike. If I do manage to slip one of these non-contact sparring punches and go for a cross to the body, I have a lot less of an opening to work with because my opponent was not trying to hit me and thus their punch never went by me. Since they pulled their punch before it even got to me, their elbow is there to block my cross almost twice as fast as it would be had it been a full contact match. So sparring with no or light contact results in the more advanced strategies being next to impossible to use, and gives the illusion of much less openings to strike. Less openings on my opponent is not the biggest concern here, it is the less openings on myself. If I am going to leave myself open in a certain area in a real fight, I want to know! In training, it is more in my interest than my opponent's to find my openings and weaknesses.