Self defense with a MA partner

[bushido_man96]

Besides practicing with your martial arts partner you could have a willing friend or family member pretend that they were going to attack you or mug you - think up of a few real life scenarios and what you would do if "such and such" situation occurred. You do have to take into consideration that your partner doesn't know martial arts and that you could seriously hurt them if for example you got them into a wrist lock or something else. In real life, that is what you want to do to protect yourself but when you're practicing with a "good guy" you gotta also be careful.

I think that this is a good idea. When we do takedowns, wrist locks, holds, throws, etc. in class all the time, we are spoiled with a partner who knows what's coming, and how to fall and roll so as not to hurt themselves, and knows when to tap when things tighten up. We should work some of this stuff on the layperson partner from time to time, so that we get a better feeling for controlling the situation on locks, and on how they will hit the ground when they fall.

[USCMAAI]

I was practicing with my sister and it occurred to me that although I could probably block a TKD or MA attack, blocking a general attack from an aggressor would be completely different. Its not that I don't know how necessarily, but the only people I ever practice self defense against is other MAists. You tell them to throw a punch at you and they still throw it in a MA way. To some extent there are nearly always features of the "proper" punch and even though you ask them to just randomnly attack you any kick or strike or takedown will be done in an MA fashion.

So how effective is it to learn self defense when practising against a martial artist?

I have virtually no real self defense experience and it concerns me that I have no idea how I am going to react to an unwieldly fist that could seem to be thrown almost erratically. Through my training I am fairly good at recognising the signals of an attack but these are signals from an MAist and you kinda know the path their fist or foot will travel.

One of the advantages of working with people of various styles is that not every system practices their techniques the same. Try building training partnerships with people who are boxers, wrestlers, Judo stylist, Kung fu practioners, etc. These stylist probably train much differently than you and can give you something new to deal with each time you sparr. You can also have members of your own school use "wild" or "flailing" attacks. You are correct it is very different dealing with a "john wayne" type of punch (looping roundhouse or hooking punch" than dealing with a karate type punch, but some arts have these type of attacks in their aresanal as well. Kung fu style tend to be more cirrcular in motion and have several arching hand techniques. Try working with some of those for more variety in your training