Sparing - hard to full contact

[quinteros1963]

Just curious. How hard do you go when sparring? Is it light or do you go all out to simulate real sitiuations? I personally prefer to ho hard from time to time to see how much i can take and give. We consider it a forge.

[tallgeese]

It's cyclic. I think sparring hard is important. I also think that unless your training to be a competitive fighter, it dosn't need to be everytime you go.

Usually we keep a pretty high intenstity level, this leads to a decent amount of contact during sparring regularly. However, real heavy contact in sparring we do maybe once every couple of weeks.

Now, heavy contact with full armor on for simulations, that can occur more often. Once the armor goes on, you can go much harder more frequnetly due to the added protection.

I think that any time you spar there should be contact of some sort that at least lets the other guy know you're there. Anything less is not conducice to what I'm trying to accomplish on the floor. That does not mean that there is no value in other methods, just that is not where my focus is.

So, always some form of contact. Regular heavy contact. Occassional full on contact.

[DWx]

Depends who I'm sparring. Beginners, unless they've had prior experience in MA, I take it light. Everything is little more than a tap so that they get used to moving and doing their techniques without being worried about getting hit. If its someone around my level or above, we go a lot harder.

[granitemiller]

Depends on the night and the people at class. More experienced = more rough, beginners we take it easy.

[bushido_man96]

Our contact level is pretty moderate when we spar. Its supposed to be body displacement at tournaments, so we make sure to make some level of contact on the chest protectors. We don't get into full-on, heavy contact.

[Truestar]

I personally go off from who I'm sparring.

For instance, we have a green belt that can spar hard, but a junior black who is still very timid and hasn't matured in the Martial Arts sense.

Generally when I have the opportunity to spar hard, I take it.

[joesteph]

Our contact level is pretty moderate when we spar. Its supposed to be body displacement at tournaments, so we make sure to make some level of contact on the chest protectors. We don't get into full-on, heavy contact.

Brian, since you mentioned the chest protectors, are there specific rules for sparring with females? I remember a past posting in which there was sparring between a male and female student, but the manner in which he sparred (he was the one who posted) was objected to. One of the responses was that he should have checked with his sensei if there were certain rules he was to follow.

When I took fencing, my female fencing partner wore a different protector than I did, so a rule wasn't needed.

[Tiger1962]

Our rules are non to very light - depending on the class & who is teaching it.

[The BB of C]

I prefer hard to full contact. In the Isshin-ryu class they spar with about medium contact.

[bushido_man96]

Our contact level is pretty moderate when we spar. Its supposed to be body displacement at tournaments, so we make sure to make some level of contact on the chest protectors. We don't get into full-on, heavy contact.

Brian, since you mentioned the chest protectors, are there specific rules for sparring with females? I remember a past posting in which there was sparring between a male and female student, but the manner in which he sparred (he was the one who posted) was objected to. One of the responses was that he should have checked with his sensei if there were certain rules he was to follow.

When I took fencing, my female fencing partner wore a different protector than I did, so a rule wasn't needed.

No, there aren't any rules differences. Same for all.