Open Sparring Event

[Wastelander]

Hello everyone,

Last Saturday my dojo hosted an open sparring event and invited people from martial arts schools and gyms in the area to come in and get some contact (not full contact, but not tippy-tappy either) sparring in with people of different styles. This is the first event of its kind that we have done and turnout was somewhat small but still enough to have a good time and learn a few things! In attendance, along with myself (Shorin-Ryu, Shuri-Ryu and Judo), were my Sensei (Shorin-Ryu and eclectic Jujutsu), his girlfriend (Kensho-Do), Jason (one of our white belts who is a powerlifter and has boxing experience), Steven (one of our black belts who also has experience with Aikido, Judo, TKD and Muay Thai), Danny (one of our black belts), Shihan Allred (a Godan in Shorin-Ryu who goes to all kinds of seminars for all kinds of styles), a gentleman who recently moved here who has been doing American Kenpo for 20 years or so, and several people from a White Crane kung fu school.

We had scheduled three hours for people to come in and spar when they wanted and have time to take breaks or work on techniques with each other. A boxing timer was set up for us to have 3 minute rounds with 1 minute breaks in between and we switched off sparring partners every round. I did a full write-up of my experiences during this event on my blog, so I won't delve into it here because you can take a look at it if you're interested. I just thought I would share that we did this and that I feel like it was a great experience--we shared techniques, had some laughs and hit each other, so it was a good day overall! We did have one person have his jaw slightly dislocated (put back in place on-site, though) and I got my right shin and left instep pretty messed up, but those were the most serious injuries of the day.

Here is a gallery of photos from the event.

[bushido_man96]

Couldn't view the photos.

But its sounds like it was a very productive session overall (minus the jaw dislocation). I think these are great ideas for coming together and learning from different people with different approaches. Kudos for putting this together and pulling it off.

What kind of stuff did you take away from the other stylists showing up?

[Wastelander]

Couldn't view the photos.

But its sounds like it was a very productive session overall (minus the jaw dislocation). I think these are great ideas for coming together and learning from different people with different approaches. Kudos for putting this together and pulling it off.

What kind of stuff did you take away from the other stylists showing up?

I'm sorry you couldn't view the photos--you do have to have a Facebook account to see them since that is where they were hosted. I will try to upload them somewhere else when I get home.

I, personally, learned that I am very susceptible to being stomp-kicked in the shin--it's too low for me to see coming and even when I did I was too slow to prevent that guy from doing it to me. That fact makes me want to start working that technique a lot more, because it was extremely painful and is still hampering my ability to walk today and that seems like a useful technique. It also was evident that I need to keep working on my sprawl (one of the White Crane guys is also a wrestler) but I did already know that . The White Crane folks definitely attacked at odd angles and times--they didn't hit all that hard with a lot of them, but they were set up to do so with follow-up strikes. I got to fight someone taller than me, which isn't terribly common, and he pushed straight forward and we covered so much distance being as tall as we are that I kept running up against a wall before I circled away, so I need to work on having tighter footwork. As for good things--my spinning backfist, side kick, leg kick and Naihanchi-style arm trapping/striking all worked well for me that day.

[bushido_man96]

Sounds cool. Stomp kicks sound nasty.

I do have an FB account; maybe it was because I wasn't logged in to see them.

[Wastelander]

Sounds cool. Stomp kicks sound nasty.

I do have an FB account; maybe it was because I wasn't logged in to see them.

Yeah, that would do it--I had somebody else test it out after you said you couldn't get to it and they got an error when they weren't logged in, but as soon as they logged in the photos came up

[Montana]

I did the same thing a number of years ago. Invited Parker Kenpo, TKD, shotokan and a kungfu studio. Only people that showed were about a dozen Kenpo guys/gals. It was a BLAST!

l talked to the TKD instructor a few weeks later and asked why he didn't come. His response, and I quote, was "We didn't want to come and dominate the event and embarass you."

HA!

I REALLY wish he would have come, as did the Kenpo instructor.

[Dobbersky]

I'm surprised the Shotokan School didn't show!

[DWx]

Couldn't view the photos.

But its sounds like it was a very productive session overall (minus the jaw dislocation). I think these are great ideas for coming together and learning from different people with different approaches. Kudos for putting this together and pulling it off.

What kind of stuff did you take away from the other stylists showing up?

I'm sorry you couldn't view the photos--you do have to have a Facebook account to see them since that is where they were hosted. I will try to upload them somewhere else when I get home.

I think you've got the settings on private as I couldn't view them and was logged into facebook at the time. Did you take the link from the bottom of the page when viewing the album, where it says:"Want to share your album? You can give friends or relatives this link" rather than taking the one out of the address bar of your browser? That lets people see them even if they don't have facebook or aren't your friend on facebook. If your friend managed to see them, it was probably because they are friends with you so your security settings allow them to see.

Sounds like a pretty good event.

[Wastelander]

Couldn't view the photos.

But its sounds like it was a very productive session overall (minus the jaw dislocation). I think these are great ideas for coming together and learning from different people with different approaches. Kudos for putting this together and pulling it off.

What kind of stuff did you take away from the other stylists showing up?

I'm sorry you couldn't view the photos--you do have to have a Facebook account to see them since that is where they were hosted. I will try to upload them somewhere else when I get home.

I think you've got the settings on private as I couldn't view them and was logged into facebook at the time. Did you take the link from the bottom of the page when viewing the album, where it says:"Want to share your album? You can give friends or relatives this link" rather than taking the one out of the address bar of your browser? That lets people see them even if they don't have facebook or aren't your friend on facebook. If your friend managed to see them, it was probably because they are friends with you so your security settings allow them to see.

Sounds like a pretty good event.

I had been sharing the URL from the address bar, but it was the album on my dojo's Facebook page which is completely public. Here is the link you asked for from my version of the album: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2890659032687.2113238.1446572428&type=3&l=d5e4b8f5cc

[ShoriKid]

Sounds like you had some fun, which other than that whole "learning" thing, is the point. We've considered and discussed such a gathering, but there are some troubles with it. Not the least of which is the pure scheduling.