Credibility of instruction

[Rateh]

I know that sparring has always been a struggle for me. As an instructor though, I use that to better teach my students. Basically I approach sparring in a way I wish that it had been introduced to me. I'm still not great, but I have seen success with my students.

[bushido_man96]

Lots of good points, ShoriKid. I have never been all that great at sparring, but I do feel like I have the ability to teach and explain things that can make my students better at sparring than I was.

It is an issue. If your throwing light, first touch ends contact, your not learning a lot of things that will change as th contact goes up. As GZK said, you can get by with a lot of bad habits at light contact that won't fly when you crank things up. You don't have to protect your body as much, carry yourself ready to be hit, which is different than not worrying about getting hit with any force. You need a better stance for balance to generate power from and absorb shock. When your point fighting it's to the first hit. Then stop action. No real need for combinations that mechanically work together to generate power. No worry about good defense. Techniques that touch don't always have enough reach left to generate any real damage.

I concur with you here as well, and it was one of the problems I always had with sparring in the ATA. It seemed like it didn't matter if you kept your hands up in a good guard or not, because if something just slipped through and knicked you, they got the point. I much prefer to be able to spar continuously, even though I tend to run out of gas fairly quick, because it allows me to stand in there and instead of blocking everything that come at me, I can worry more about knocking things a bit off-line so that it isn't as direct a hit.

I try to do the same thing, Rateh. I try to make it as positive an experience as possible, by introducing strategies and drills that can transfer to the sparring ring, and give them a good amount of reps so that they feel more comfortable in a sparring environment.

[ironsifu]

i dont want to quote, because i dont want anyone to feel pointed out. but i like to answer a few things i read:

i am a person who did both point and full contact. the best fighters i know, and i know real fighters, not just guys sitting in the audience, can do both very well. when martial artists talk about point fighters who hit like women, or just because you can throw a fast punch or kick you cant hit hard, this tells me you havent sparred that many point fighters. while i agree that there are some point fighters who cannot hit hard, this is a very small number, and most of those fighters are not very good at point. it is very easy to sit in the stands and say, if he fought me, i'd do this or that. this is something the martial artist does too much of, which is to guess and use theory, instead of testing out what they believe.

like i said, the fighters who did point and then switch to full contact that i know, most of them, had no problem making that switch. i never met one who couldnt do it, if they were good point fighters. you need a good set of solid skills if you want to be a good fighter in point, its not just about "tag". Tag, is what the guys who dont know what they are looking at call point fighting. its like all these karate guys who look at boxing and think they can take a boxer. if you ever stepped in the ring with a real boxer, your talk would be much different.

it is the same with olympic tae kwon do fighters.

it is the same with muay thai, but the other way around, guys look at somebody with muay thai shorts and think, this guy can throw down. not always, but if you spend all your time looking at youtube clips or watching matches from the bleachers, you will always have misconceptions, because you dont get the experience. last month, i had a guy from my gym, enter rey navarros full contact kickboxing tournament, and he won his fights with SIDE kicks. now, some of my friends who go to the ISKA matches (but never actually FIGHT, even tho one is a muay thai), told me a few months ago, side kicks won't work against muay thai. oh yeah? look up my guy, his name is darrell spann, he won first place, and won 3 of 4 mix weight class matches. btw, my guys fight muay thai, tkd, kenpo, bjj, mma all the time, even my kung fu students can throw down.

you see, i am speaking from experience on the floor, not the bleachers and watching youtube videoes.

my advice, is that if you want to prove that point fighters dont know how to fight, enter a tournament that has "continuous point", basically, semi contact division, where you can fight point fighters, who are allowed to hit hard (they hit hard in point matches, by the way, at the BLACK BELter LEVEL) and they dont stop the action to call points. you will see it aint all that hard.

i am trying to save some of you from embarassment if you ever end up actualling fighting one. in my fight nights, i had a tae kwon do black belter from a chain school knock out a bjj fighter cold. bjj/muay thai dont always = good fighters. just like point fighter dont always = sucker. i am not known for my point fighting, but i can do it and i respect it. i am not known as a boxer, but i can do it. i am not known for my olympic style TKD, but i can do it. if anyone can put those things down, i earn the right to do it.

so somebody says winning point dont mean you can win full contact. of course, i aint stupid. but winning full contact also dont mean you can win a streetfight, they are very different. but every style of fighting gets you a little bit closer to complete fighting skill, and if you ignore something, it will slow your ability to improve.

if you want to put down point fighters, then beat them at their game, or beat them at their game, using your style. hey , a hit is a hit right? so either you can land a shot first or you cant. boxers understand this, and sparring in a boxing workout is very similar to point fighting btw, its not always full contact. i did 2 years of "international rule" training in the philippines, which is what we call muay thai, and we did a version of slow sparring sometimes, and point fighting sometimes. this teaches strategy and timing.

btw, point fighting is more about timing and reading movement, than it is about speed. a full contact fighter with bad timing and no speed is a punching bag with feet.

i hope i was able to make my point with this post.

[bushido_man96]

I think that there are some practitioners out there that can compete in both point and full-contact fighting. I also think that these practitioners tailor their training so that the strategies and tactics that they use are good for both. There are some strategies and techniques that can be good for both. But, I've seen some point fighters that like to use a lot of repeat kicking in point fights, and I have not ever seen kicks like that work well in full-contact. So, someone training for both probably won't use that kind of technique.

Now, referencing a medium-contact, continuous fight. I think that this kind of fight is like a bridge between the two extremes. A good fighter in this category can probably work his strategies into either, because he'll be aclimated to some levels of contact, and will also be used to going without stopping.

I think that fighting is about timing, and speed, both to an extent. But, I think other things, like a fighter's toughness, is something that is more apparent in full-contact, rather than point.