DWx

Welcome Dave

I would argue that that would compromise the integrity of the tournament. If someone is going to judge a division then they must judge the whole division to keep it fair to the competitors. Any particular bias they have, whether they demand from the competitors perfect stances in forms or maybe they want to see a certain technique done a certain way, it will apply to all the competitors in that division. Besides which, I was at the English ITF TKD champs last weekend and looking around I think it would be near impossible to have instructors step out due to integrity, as out of the 5 judges and 2 table refs, there was always at least one person related to the competitors in some way whether it was a direct student-instructor relationship or they were friends with the student's instructor etc.

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community. Sparring forms are an integral part of many martial arts. Whether they be continuous, point-stop, full contact, no contact, competitive or pure self defense, virtually all students will experience it regularly within their practice. When two students face off they are testing their proficiency and their physical abilities. In a way, it is the ultimate test of martial skill in the dojo as it is as close to a “real" situation a student can come. So, where do you start? The following method for teaching beginners to spar is what I believe to be effective and is a result of how I myself have been taught by various instructors and the methods I have used. Although the sport sparring rules I am writing for are those lain down by the ITF, this method could be applied to many other styles and other forms of sparring. 1. Acquiring the Techniques Before placing a beginner student in a free sparring environment, you have to first spend time equipping them with their techniques. In my own experience, I have found it best to take these techniques out of the sparring scenario completely and have the student practice them in lines and against a stationary target such as a pad. Facing off against an opponent initially can be a little bit overwhelming for some and the techniques themselves tend to suffer because the student has to think about other factors such as distancing and finding appropriate targets. Start with a few basic techniques, in general I would say no more than two or three so as not to cause confusion. My personal choice would be a straight jab (with either arm), front leg roundhouse and back leg roundhouse. In my opinion, these are the simplest and most common techniques used in sparring and with just these three, there are many different combinations which can be worked on later. (Front and side kicks are also an option. However, I've found that front kicks tend to promote a more forward facing stance which at this stage I personally want to discourage and side kicks can be a little difficult to get used to). At first, you want to just get the students familiar with these techniques and able to perform them with a reasonable proficiency. Don't worry about combinations or chaining the techniques together yet; just get them to a position where they can do singular techniques ready to practice against one another. Things that need to be stressed are a good guard and remaining in control after the attack. What I mean by this is not falling forward after a kick or punch and to work on retrieving the arm or leg ready to throw another attack if needed. 2. One-for-One Once your students have the techniques, it's time to put them into practice against a moving target. One-for-one sparring is invaluable in getting students used to facing off against a real moving opponent so this is the next step that I would introduce. For those of you that don't practice it, one-for-one is basically sparring but the fighters take it in turns to do one technique. Essentially in one-for-one at this level I don't care how slow they want to go. The idea is that they just learn to translate what they've been doing in line work and on the pads onto a human body. Your students should have been made aware of appropriate targets for each of their techniques, such as to the torso for roundhouses, and they should be aware of where they should not strike, i.e. the back of the head. Distancing is something the students should begin to pick up, as well as hopefully more control over their techniques. There shouldn't be a great deal of moving around in this setting but the students shouldn't be static either. One-for-one is great preparation for free sparring and is something I think even higher grades should return to frequently. At this point, it may be useful to introduce some higher grades into the class (if you haven't done so already) to pair up with the beginners. Their role is not only to show the beginners how it's done but to also offer feedback on the techniques and to suggest areas for improvement when necessary. The earlier points I stressed such as a good guard and retrieving the technique should be reiterated and the students should be encouraged to block or parry incoming techniques. A good intermediate exercise is to get the pairs to play a modified version of tag. They face off and the goal is to touch the opponent on the head or body. They are allowed to dodge, block and parry. This may be an opportunity to take some time out to introduce ways of dodging, blocking and parrying that leave you in a position to counter attack. 3. Development Once you are comfortable with the way your students are using their techniques in one-for-one, you have several options. You could introduce further techniques and repeat the process again. If you do choose this option the techniques you introduce should still be fairly simple. Maybe kicks such as the side kick, front kick, hook kicks, etc. and a greater range of hand techniques. However, do not introduce too many too soon. In general, I've found that it's best to introduce only a few and then stress the importance of building up combinations with a handful of techniques rather than having an arsenal of many more techniques but lacking in effective combinations and transitions between them. Instead of introducing more techniques, another option is to begin to work on footwork and positioning, incorporating the techniques you have already taught. One good drill that I like to use begins with students standing in a pair, just within range of each other so that they can just about touch if one of them reaches out. One person plays the role of the “attacker," who has to move forwards, backwards, left and right by shifting and stepping and can switch their stance so their opposite leg is forward. The “defender" has to mirror their movements to stay within range (or just out of it) depending on what the attacker does. Although it may not seem like much, this drill is an effective way of making sure that the students are consciously aware of their distance and it also gets them thinking of how they can cover ground and maneuver themselves into a more advantageous position. When combined with the tag drill from above, this effectively simulates sparring but without the techniques and is a great tool when you want your students to concentrate on the other aspects of the fight besides kicking and punching. 4. Semi-Free Sparring Next, my preferred option is to begin semi-free sparring. What I am referring to as semi-free sparring is a situation where each person takes turns performing combos while the other person defends and counters. At first, I think it's better to work a format where for each attack, a kick or punch, the attacker takes a step forward. This just gets the students used to moving forwards and backwards during a spar. It's also a good idea with beginners to agree on a set number of attacking techniques coming forward before a counter technique. This just makes sure the sparring flows a bit more as most beginners won't have an intuitive feel for when a combination has ended or when an opportunity for a counter has opened. Once they have a good feel for it, you can gradually relax the sparring until it resembles a free sparring situation. Begin by relaxing the number of techniques on both attack and counter attack. Then start to relax the rules on stepping so, for example, the student can choose to double step before a technique, shift, or even not step at all. At this point you are basically free sparring apart from that you are only moving forwards and backwards and not as circular as free sparring should be. At this point you can relax the rules completely and your beginner student should be ready to begin free sparring.

With all due respect tonydee I think the terminology you are using to differentiate the thrusting kick and the piercing kick are incorrect as far as ITF style is concerned. The difference between the piercing and thrusting variations of the side kick are that the thrusting kick uses the ball of the foot rather than the footsword and thrusts rather than pierces through the target. What I think you call a thrusting kick would actually be referred to use as a spinning side kick or 360 side kick.

Welcome Tony

Good post Tony, However please don't assume that we do the sine wave motion in isolation and that we only generate power from "bobbing up and down". This is not the case at all and hip twist is a very integral part of our movements. Everything is driven from the hip and the sine wave motion is to partly facilitate that. After all our origins are mainly Shotokan influenced and hip twist just makes sense because you are using the whole torso rather than just the arm to make the strike.

Good advice barefoot-kohai. I am a bit doubtful of this though. It is a strategy we also tell beginners but if you are fighting a competent fighter then circling to the back puts you at risk of any spinning type techniques off the the back leg, back kick, hook kick etc. You'd be moving into the line of power of those kicks as well as moving yourself away from the open side and the majority of targets. It is something to try but I'd be wary of how your opponent reacts to this because you could end up in a worse off position.

That's a pretty good analogy KarateOx. I may have to start using that one now

For all the tournaments I attend, if this happened they would be virtually impossible to run because you'd have no judges. Most of the larger schools will enter students into every category and this would mean their instructors couldn't judge in any of the categories.

He definitely didn't remember otherwise I would have been made to make breakfast for him. Instead he ended up being a parent taxi driver and had to do a 200 mile round trip .

I don't know what's worse, me forgetting about it or my Dad not even realising it was Father's day! So yeah we didn't do much in my house...

Welcome

My opinions have changed so much over the years and I expect they will keep changing. I'll admit that when I first joined this forum I was probably a little naive in my opinions, mainly because I was somewhat ignorant and hadn't given things a great deal of thought. Again like Tiger1962 said, I also tended to just go with what my teachers said just because it was my teachers that said them. Over the past couple of years I've read far more books, articles and websites than I did during my first 5 or so years in MA and they've helped shape a lot of my opinions and as I encounter more, what I think will be developed further. IMO I think it would be wrong if time and experience didn't have an impact on what you think (either reinforcing your current views or totally changing them) because it would mean that your not really taking anything onboard.

I personally wouldn't start a club myself... too much hassle when your trying to just be a student. I don't know how your american college system works but if I started a club at my uni over here in the UK I'd have to go through the uni's sports union & everything would get too bureaucratic for my liking. Plus you don't really want to tie yourself down too much (especially in the 1st year) & have people relying on you to turn up to each session without fail... 9am deadlines & nights out will guarentee you'll miss a few sessions a term!

His stuff is usually quite good. Isn't he LE too? Don't think he has anything specifically for bokken but he has quite a few other sword videos.

Totally agree with you on this WNM. To be honest though I would prefer it if I did get taught something instead of having to just go through my moves. I go to class to learn something and not practice on my own, I can do that in my own time. I think because it is mainly beginners/intermediate colour belts, it just gets assumed that I can already do the stuff so I sort of get ignored. Anyway twistkick kid, if there is a club, try it out and see how you like it. If you do then train there, if you don't just means you might have to look at a different style to continue your MA sudies.

I'm of two minds here. On the one hand I don't think its fair to fail someone on something you only ever do at testing. If you're going to include breaking in testing you should have at least done it in class a couple of times. So yeah weight it accordingly. But on the other hand if you know its going to be on the testing and you know what techniques and how much you should be breaking, its in your best interests to go away and practice in your own time. I appreciate that for some this will be harder because they don't have access to boards/holders but I would consider it maturity on the part of my students if a group that were testing got together to practice. I guess in a perfect world students would get sufficient time in class to practice and then there would be no problem at testings. I also agree with bushido_man96 in that good basics will translate to a good break. If you have good basics, then with a little bit of practice one board should not be a problem at all. We have under 10 yr old green belts who can go through 1/2" boards first time simply because of good basics and being able to translate it to a bit of wood.

I'm not trying to point any fingers or make an example out of anyone, so please don't take this as a personal affront, DWx. It is far from that. But, quoting DWx's situation above, I think this kind of thing tends to happen quite a bit when searching out the next school of your style. What happens is that it isn't like the one that you had, and so instead of doing something similar, yet a bit different, you end up searching out something totally different, anyways. We had a gal show up that was on the Texas A&M TKD team who was on a few weeks break at our TKD school one night. I asked her a little about what her school consisted of, etc, when we had a break after doing basics. She wasn't very comfortable with our school's set-up, and although she was polite, and worked hard, she didn't come back to anymore classes. She was used to a lot more sparring-oriented classes. I get what you saying bushido_man96. I think that is maybe part of the problem for me and the classes here at uni. Because I've only ever trained with one group/style, I think the uni club kinda didn't meet my expectations and was a little too different but the same for my liking (if that makes sense). Its not the only reason though.. I have some issues with how things are done (I find some of the teaching methods a little too archaic) and to be honest, most of the time I would be just left to my own devices because the instructor didn't want to interfere with how I'd been taught before so he very rarely would offer corrections / criticisms. I didn't exactly learn much so it was just practice time for me.

Welcome Suzy

You situation is pretty much the same as mine. I'm finishing up my first year of uni now. I am also eligible (time wise) to do my 3rd dan when I want but I held off because I don't think that in my current situation I would be able to fully learn everything and I would rather be a good 2nd dan than a sub-par 3rd dan. But that's my decision, its up to you with what you want. Definitely check out what the college and local area has to offer. At my uni there is a TKD club but unfortunately its not really what I am looking for. I still go to class occaisonally but next year I will probably look into something else. Great thing about college is you are exposed to loads of different styles which you can go try out and get to meet people. Classes are usually cheap too which is great if you're on a student budget and if you don't like something there aren't any contracts or anything to make you stay. What may be slightly different about my situation is I commute home most weekends (for various reasons) but my home TKD club is very good in that I can surprise them and just turn up when I want to train so I'll usually spend the entire weekend at the dojang. If you are desperately wanting TKD maybe you could do the same but to be honest holiday training might be enough.

See I have to disagree here. Unless you have a suitable replacement for everything it demonstrates, it should be a part of testing and training in striking styles. Breaking demonstrates loads of things: - accuracy. You have hit in the right place to get the material to break. No good trying to punch somebody in the temple, swinging and missing. - conditioning.. to break you have to have conditioned your body so it can withstand the impact as a technique connects, again in SD you don't want to punch somebody but end up incapacitating your hand because you haven't built up anything on your knuckles and don't know how to hold your fist for impact. - good technique. I can't stress enough how board breaking demonstrates this. To go through the boards you have to know exactly what you are hitting with and where the line if power is and follow through the technique from start to finish. I've seen loads of people try to kick, get to the "chamber" position and then hesitate.. results in them just stabbing the board rather than piercing through it becuase the momentum has been lost. - its quantitative assesment of how much power you can generate. The majority of us do not do full contact, anything goes fighting. How then, can you really assess how much power is generated? You can sort of tell by eye what someone is doing or on pads you can sort of guess but boards, particularly the manufactured plastic type, give you a real indication of what you can do. I know myself that I can generate 150lbs + with a knifehand.. from doing it on boards. That makes me a lot more confident in that if someone comes at me, I have 150lbs+ of pressure to slam into their neck. Breaking is something I really am for so I could probably bore you all day with why everyone should do it but for me these are the main reasons..

The reverse direction as you describe isn't counter-productive. As the block has caused you to go to, for example, the right. The punch is being helped by your hip rotation as you come back from the right into center of your target. Hips are vital and the sooner martial artists understand hip movements and the like, the better martial artists they will be. You must stop the force of one technique before the next technique can begin! That is exactly the reason why our school would do it this way. Blocking with one arm, countering with the other is als othe method thats taught to beginners because it gets you used to that hip twist motion. Later on you'd get taught to use the same arm for both bits of the combo (so maybe a block and then a backfist off of your right arm) but if you teach it this way straight off you tend to find that they don't use the upper body so much and just rely on the arm movement alone. This is more along the lines of what we would do. Unless you are striking with the block, the motion continues through so that the attacking arm is moved and the body is opened up.

Congrats

To be honest I wouldn't worry so much about weighing less but being in better shape. Good diet, hydration and a decent amount of exercise will help shift the fat but more than likely you will gain muscle so don't be too obsessive about getting the scales to read less because you may find that the numbers aren't going down as fast as you'd like even though you are getting fitter and in better shape.

Good Luck