Your Sparring Rules

[ps1]

I'm curious to hear about the sparring rules used at other schools and how they relate to the doctrine of self defense in the school.

For example: I used to go to a school where they trained us that high kicks were not good for self defense and a kick shouldn't go above the belly button area. But in sparring they would award more points for a kick to the head and disallowed kicks to low targets like the thigh and leg checks.

[Fast-K]

Well our sparring rules are WKF international sparring rules, not specifically the club's. I expect this to be true of most schools, although not necessarily WKF.

First post

[The BB of C]

When I was in Kuk Sool Won, we had very light contact point sparring. It sucked.

In Isshin-Ryu, we have semi contact with much less armor and much harder contact allowed. No shots below the belt or to the back and no throwing.

Independantly, I use freestyle rules. Pretty much anything goes except shots to the nose, eyes, jaw (when there's no mouthgard), temples, front of the neck, back of the head, back of the neck, middle of the spine, and groin. Other than that. It's as hard and fast as you want to go, hit wherever you want, throws of all kinds allowed. Fights can go to the ground but not taken to the ground. Example being if someone tries a throw and both people fall, it can become a wrestling match for dominence. In that case, submissions are allowed.

[pittbullJudoka]

Basically we use a full range of strikes with the exception of groin, throat, and directlly to the knees. We allow throws, ground work for a short time all subs are allowed. We're very careful with knees to the head and elbow strikes most of the time for obviouse reasons. Our therory is a fight will transition most of the time and we want to be confortable no matter were the fight is to take place.

[cross]

I'm curious to hear about the sparring rules used at other schools and how they relate to the doctrine of self defense in the school.

We separate our training into 2 seperate aspects.. sport, and self defense.

Within the sport component of our training the sparring rules depend on what skill we are trying to develop and range from hands only, all the way through to all out mma style sparring.

Within the self defense component we dont do sparring, but rather scenario replication.

[bushido_man96]

Our school uses chest protectors and pads, with a 'trembling shock' requirement for points. In class, the contact is pretty well controlled. Targets are body for hands and kicks, kicks to the head, nothing to the back or below the belt. No takedowns or throws.

[ps1]

Well our sparring rules are WKF international sparring rules, not specifically the club's. I expect this to be true of most schools, although not necessarily WKF.

First post

Welcome to the forums!!! Always great to hear from new people.

I'm not entirely familiar with WKF rules. Are you able to specify some of the rules. And do they relate well to the way you train for self defense?

[tallgeese]

Depends on what we're working on that day. For MMA nights, standard amature rules apply. If grapping, NAGA rules apply. To work on stand up alone, some form of kickboxing rules are used.

Now for self defese kind of stuff. We don't really keep a point count.We use kempo gloves, knee, elbow, shin pads, and groin cup. Heavy nights add a cage face headgear (ligher nights may only be the gloves and cup and loads more control). Pretty much everything is on, including groing kick with control, same for knees/elbos to more vunerable area ie. back of neck and throat. Work on the ground is allowed, including submisions. If the headgear is on at th is time, it can get ripped off, but contact has to be controlled.

We usually make ceratin that one man is out to keep an eye on everything going on. His job is to make certain no on is getting carried away with contact to vunerable or delicate areas. He's also good for keeping people out of walls and on mats and such.

It's great training, but it takes a toll. By no means are we hitting like that every time we train. It's to physically demaning on the body. You can still work aspect of it, what we call "limited engagement" sparring. Say desiganting one attacker and haveing a sparring approach to entry and control, stopping before anyone hits the ground or at a joint lock application. Or engaing with the idea of working stop hits alone or any number of other art specific skills.

I think sparring should be a way to train you self defense skills, not a seperate funciton of the art. Just my two cents, milage may very.

[st0ut]

My first post to this forum. My dojo sparring for the adult classes is light contact freestyle.

Sometimes we get in injured I have and soo have me fellow students and Sensei's However from reading the post here I am luckey as no one in our dojo would intentionally hurt someone.

[ninjanurse]

We basically use Olympic rules for sparring however the contact in class is kept in check-especially for the beginners. "Trembling shock" scores points-2 for the face/head, 1 for the body, hands to head/face are not allowed. Rounds are continuous unlike point sparring.