Full Contact - Light Contact - No Contact

[1ONEfighting]

"I think full contact without padding is dangerous.

 

The way my instructors did sparring was based on the simple fact that Karate strikes aim to disable or even kill and are delivered to specific areas of the body.

 

(eyes, throat, solar plexus, groin, knee being the most obvious)

 

practising such moves at full power and speed without padding could not be justified by them."

 

Not sparring with heavy contact is the precise reason so many arts view their strikes as deadly, when it simply isn't so. It gives a false sense of security, which can lead to disaster in a real fight.

[hajime]

"I think full contact without padding is dangerous.

 

The way my instructors did sparring was based on the simple fact that Karate strikes aim to disable or even kill and are delivered to specific areas of the body.

 

(eyes, throat, solar plexus, groin, knee being the most obvious)

 

practising such moves at full power and speed without padding could not be justified by them."

 

Not sparring with heavy contact is the precise reason so many arts view their strikes as deadly, when it simply isn't so. It gives a false sense of security, which can lead to disaster in a real fight.

 

Surely you can understand learners of martial arts would actually don't want to get broken noses, knocked out teeth, bruised ribs, dislocated shoulders etc?

 

If people want to fight full contact without pads that's their decision.

 

I've watched full contact fights with guys being punched in the body and just laughing.

 

In the style of karate I learnt most blows were aimed at the face/throat/ groin.

 

they are the kind of moves that when carried out with great force and perfect placement would not be at all pleasant to experience

[JerryLove]

Not sparring with heavy contact is the precise reason so many arts view their strikes as deadly, when it simply isn't so. It gives a false sense of security, which can lead to disaster in a real fight.

Same problem occurs with "full contact" sparring. You are, neccessairily, not dealing with many basic scenerios that way (ever do full-contact with knives? I didn't think so).

 

practice makes permenant, and all that.

[1ONEfighting]

I do full contact and full speed with FAKE knives. I train as many scenarios with the highest degree of realism possible, against real, resisting opponents. You would be shocked how many "sure-fire" techniques you throw away.

 

And as far as precision strikes go, no two people have the same reaction as far as flinching and body mechanics. You can aim for the throat, but you won't always hit it. And when you do hit it, you might be shocked when your opponent keeps coming after you. If you train "one shot, one kill" KOs, you better have a plan B.

 

You don't have to go full force every time you train, but you have to work it into the curriculum at least once or twice a month. Just know your limits, and keep the lines of communication open. Take a knee if you get rocked, tap early, etc.

 

Too many martial artists out there that freeze up when they need their skills the most.

[JerryLove]

do full contact and full speed with FAKE knives.

Really? I played with little rolled-up booklets as "fake knives" and everyone came out black and blue. Rubber knives can most certainly cut, and yet aren't rigid enough to be realistic.

 

How do you avoid damage when your fake knives hit eyes, throats, ears, noses, etc?

 

Or maybe you and I view "full" differently?

You can aim for the throat, but you won't always hit it. And when you do hit it, you might be shocked when your opponent keeps coming after you.

 

Only if you are an idiot who believes what they see in movies.

You don't have to go full force every time you train, but you have to work it into the curriculum at least once or twice a month. Just know your limits, and keep the lines of communication open. Take a knee if you get rocked, tap early, etc.

And when you do get that knee that breaks your nose, that "fake knife" in your eye, that bite (you do bite, right?) or that successful break (or do you guys just try for a hold instead of a hyperextension?) faster than you can ssay "oh, this will hurt, I'd better tap"... then what?

[Guy_Who_Fights]

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.

[1ONEfighting]

J-Lo, when we knife-spar, we gear up. Helmets with faceshields. Yes, we get bruised up, but we can spar with FULL contact and rarely have a serious injury. The worst injury any of us have incurred is a swollen sack from not cupping up.

 

As far as "successful" breaks, you can grapple at full speed and power, and still control your submission techniques.

 

My nose has been broken three times. Stuff happens.

 

I train full contact because I fight full contact, and you fight how you train.

[JerryLove]

And now that you are in armor which obstructs vision, removes te feedback of real hits, moves the targets out, etc... how realistic is it. What about the hits to your throat? Didn't they do at least as much as the ones to your groin (you do wear a cup al the time right? I'd hate to think that you were practicing unrealistically as you didn't need to defend your groin in sparring but did on the street.)

 

When you raise realisim in speed and power, you lower it in technique or target. If you are at full speed, and power, and technique then you are fighting... and if that doesn't do grave damage, then your art doesn't do grave damage.

 

Presuming your art does do grave damage, and presuming you are not doing grave damage to your sparring partners, then sparring must be unrealistic in one manner or another. The trick is realizing how it is and how that will affect you in a real fight.

[Guy_Who_Fights]

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.

[JerryLove]

I suppose that the hypocracy of a personal attack telling me to avoid personal attacks eludes you

 

Conversely, my attack was not personal, as every "your" in my post could simply be substituted with "ones" and the post stands. As to my position, it is enumerated on post 2 on page 1 where I specifically address the various sparring options.

 

In the hope of putting some of *this* post on topic; I'll reiterate in asertive rather than responsive terms my position:

 

Sparring must, neccessairily, be unrealistic. If it were realistic, it would be fighting. In the interest of not killing your opponent, you must, neccessairily behave differently than you would in a fight.

 

The goal then must be two-fold. The first goal is to instill the skills in sparring which you would choose to have for a real fight. The second goal is to not instill bad habits from sparring which you wish to avoid in a real fight. The problem I have with most variations on full contact is the latter issue.

 

Not having seen the poster here's sparring (and not wishing to come across as picking on an individual) let's take an extreme but easily accessable example with the "Dog Brothers". On the one hand, their padded-up high-contact stick sparring gives them a great deal of practical experience wieldinga stick against a resisting opponent, and I'm sure they will do well with one in a fight. On the other side, however, the use of facical, hand, and elbow badding has removed all the primary targets for strikes to do real damage. In short, they have crippled the stick as a weapon... they therefore do little in the way of hitting with it or defending with it and what typically happens is a few whacks followed by grappling.

 

The problem with this, looking at any accounts I can find of actual stickfights in areas where they are a common weapon (SE Asia) is that most stick fights are won quickly from a blow to the head; and this is not an option in Dog Brother's sparring.