Is offense the best defense in sparring?

[Hawkeye]

Hi, Everyone.

 

I have recently discovered this forum and have been consistently impressed with the ideas and experiences that are shared. I am curious to read peoples' opinions on this. I have recently earned my orange belt in Karate and have limited experience in point sparring. In the small amount of sparring experiences I have had, I have found that going on the offensive early on in the bout reaps greater rewards than slipping into a defensive mode and relying on my ability (of which I apparently have very little) to anticipate, block and counter. Do others notice this as well or is this a common observation of someone who is still in the early days of their training.

 

Thank you in advance for your comments.

[gojuchad]

sometimes you can slow or stop someone from attacking by attacking them but dont rely on it. you should never have the mind set of ok now im going to attack or now im going to block, this is a very hard concept to put into action but just react. Try NOT to anticipate because this will slow you down. try to just use your centrifical vision to see your opponents whole body and just go for it. practice make perfect and getting hit while sparring is not a bad thing, learning how to take a punch is as important as giving one. good luck.

[ncole_91]

I have not sparred yet, but i rememer when I was younger at my cottage we used to play with those water noodles, they are foam and a couple inches think and 6 feet long and we would fight with them. I always went all out in the begging, by being offense and i usually won. I dont know if it is the same for MA sparring, prob not, byt yeah

[Killer Miller]

gojuchad makes a good point. It goes back to the Japanese saying of "Mizu No Kokoro" (Mind Like Water). You have to maintain a calm readiness when sparring. You don't necessarily plan what you do in sparring, you react to what your oponent is doing. If you see an opening early on, then react to it and attack. However, if both persons are reading each other's body and breathing timing very well, then you might want to create an opening by drawing your oponent to you, then attacking or block-attacking as your naturally trained reaction.

 

To think what you are going to do brings emotion in to your mind for sparring. This causes you to tense up and restrict blood flow to your body and brain. This minimizes natural reactive body action. For example: You say to yourself "I'm going to attack you first!" You have not properly read or felt your oponent's body or breathing timing, you have already pre-determined what action you are going to take. Your oponent has read your body breathing timing by your tensing or change in breathing and by the time you are thinking about attacking, he reacts and blasts you without hesitation.

 

There are many concepts in Japanese Karate such as Sen, Sen-no-sen, Sen-go-no-sen, Kake-waza, Sasoi-waza (sp?), etc. that are used to develop this calm readiness and breathing timing concepts. If you are not reactive in your sparring, you have not learned the art yet. Being a lower belt, or beginner of the arts, it would not be expected that you understand these concepts yet. But just give it time, you'll come around.

 

- Killer -

[gojuchad]

yes killermiller I think stated that very well the Japanese spen time teaching these philosophies and they certinally work to calm the body. It is very difficult to explain I believe that it is like being totally limp and tight at the same time. you should be totally loose but like a cocked gun ready to go off at any time.

[isshinryuka]

Hawkeye,

 

I understand what you mean about offense vs. defense. I am a kyu also and I think there are issues with kyus sparring:

 

1. Judges don't want us to hurt each other so they call points fast.

 

2. Judges don't expect us to have much control so they call points even when our techniques are 6 inches away from the target. This definitely helps the attacker in kyu sparring.

 

3. Our blocks aren't as good as we think. I noticed recently that my guard became very close to my body during kumite. So even if I blocked a technique, the judges scored it for my opponent because it was close.

 

The points the other posters are making are very advanced. Something we should definitely practice toward. Because as we advance in rank, the judges are going to expect better technique and the points being awarded to your opponent now will not be awarded later.

 

And as we advance, our opponents will be good at countering, blocking, moving to the side, timing, guarding and general sneakiness. So the kamikaze techiques that work for us as beginners will lose effectiveness as our opponents mature.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Really, what everyone is talking about is simple task-saturation. That means that the faster and more attacks are brought to bear upon you, the less time you have to react or even think about each one. That isn't unique to fighting. Just think about having someone asking you simple multiplication math problems while you are juggling bowling pins and playing hopskotch.

 

Isshinryuka brings up a good point. Simply going all out will lose its effectiveness the more experience your opponent is.

 

The key for you later on is to have a good offense, but not at the expense of your defense. Nothing is wrong with attacking someone full force, but if you leave yourself wide open, it is then that there is something wrong.

 

[insert standard "your offense is your defense, your defense is your offense" quote here.]

[G95champ]

I have found if I have a size advantage that yes offense is better you get the small guy on the ropes and running. However I guess a good counter fighter can work off that. I am prob. more a counter or reaction fighter myself but I do like to go on offense and take the fight to a person. However even when I do this Im really reacting. Because the offense is just me moving forward not really me attacking.