full contact training bad for technique?

[Orca]

Hi all,

I want to share something with the list and get opinions on the subject. I'm a Nidan in shotokan from a very traditional, basics, bunkai, and kumite-oriented dojo. Our kumite was strong, controlled, combination-oriented (not points), but by no means full-contact, although the mroe advanced one gets the heavier the contact gets. When I lived near my dojo and trained there consistenly, we would sometimes arrange workouts with other dojos, mostly goju-ryu, shorin-ryu, kyokushin, and once in while jiujitsu dojos. We all got along pretty well and visited each others' clasess. (ah, the friendly martial arts community of the early 1990's!)

My experience was this: the more full-contact the dojos did on a consistent basis -that is, the more violent their training, the more conditioning, but less technique the students (even advanced ones, balck blets, etc) had. When we did full-contact kumite (usually with finger gloves and hand techniques to face allowed) between advanced students, actually, the knockdown dojos did not do that well against us! Our emphasis on footwork and strategy generally overcame their conditioning and agressiveness.

anyone out ther who ahs ahd different (or similar) experiences?.

Osu!

[UseoForce]

This is one of those cases where MMA teaches us everything we need to know about the question. Ask yourself: How do the best fighters train? It's a mix of full contact, low contact, and various equipment drills, plus tons of good conditioning. That's it, nothing more.

[bushido_man96]

This is an interesting observation. Maybe it is because the full contact guys are so earnest in hitting, that the technique starts to slip. If this is the way they train from day one, then they will do the techniques as fast as they can, failing to learn the proper technique first. By learning proper technique first, and then focusing on building speed and power, you should be able to overcome those who take the other approach. However, better technique does not necessarily make the better fighter; strategy and tactics come into play then.

[Anbu Alex]

full contact is important because in a real situation you want to physically and mentally ready to go at it for real u need a mix slow to train it into your body and full contact in order to apply the technique and mentally be ready and technique usally makes things hurt more

[jaymac]

This is a good question. I don' t really know if I have ever noticed a difference. Maybe it was just the individual you trained with. I do want to make a comment about realistic fighting though. I do not believe you have to be involved in a full contact sparring match everynight in order to prepare yourself for a real situation. Your constant training will allow you to adequately defend yourself in a situation. (Unfortunately) we have had people in our school who needed to defend themselves against would be muggers and they did so quite wonderfully, in fact one indivdual was able to keep his attacker held to the pavement until police arrived (of course, he was in enough pain that he didn't fight to get up very hard.) We do not practice full on contact.

[bushido_man96]

Although I don't think that full contact is necessary for good training, I do believe that you have to make some more "earnest" contact from time to time in training. It is a good thing to get in some smacks every now and then, so we know what it will feel like.

Just putting a little more 'emphasis,' shall we say, on a technique from time to time. Sometimes you block differently when the techniques aren't coming so hard.

[juey palancu]

I have noticed the same thing as Orca, and agree with jaymac and Bushido.

Time is better spent working on technique and strategy, although like Bushido says it's good to make "earnest"(i like that adjective!) contact from time to time to build up self-confidence.

I used to box recreationally before I did karate and even with the pros in my gym, full-contact sparring was very very rare. They tended to work a lot on technique, do light contact sparring with head gear, and generally to save their brain cells for the matches themselves. That approach didnt hinder their performance come match time at all. By the way there were several contenders and two world champions in the gym I trained in.

best,

Gero

[cathal]

IMHO the full contact vs. no/light contact debate has almost been done to death on this website.

For what it's worth I feel that one should not completely discount the other point of view on this topic because there are many pros and cons to this.

[bushido_man96]

IMHO the full contact vs. no/light contact debate has almost been done to death on this website.

For what it's worth I feel that one should not completely discount the other point of view on this topic because there are many pros and cons to this.

You are right, Cathal, this is a common topic of discussion for the MA's. However, what we could talk about is how we could use lighter contact to help us with hard contact situations. Do you think that they both benefit from each other?

[cathal]

In fact I do. For example the people who work in pit crews for race cars have it down correctly. They work so very fast because they practice extremely slowly. Almost painfully so. That way when the moment comes, they have speed and get the job done. Such is the way with Martial arts, I find.

We practice in no many ways: power and speed, no power and no speed, no power with speed, etc. After practice you have the movement down pat, the muscle memory, and the power to back it up. Then you move on to the heavy bag and get the proper feel for resistance.

As you can see, this in of itself is not a different philosophy or training methodology from full contact. It's simply the same training, just different application. In many respects a bag is going to have the same resistance a human body is going to have, especially if it's coming at you in a fight.

Full contact training is merely the reverse...training against a bag or human body with full speed and power. That is how they learn their techniques.

It is up to yourself to decide if one method is better than another, but I say that - just like in many respects in martial arts - it all boils down to the individual.