Sparring

[CredoTe]

Alas, many dojos don't spar enough, mine included. I'm not the CI, so it's not up to me. Kumite is an important part of developing necessary fighting skills and mentality. As many have said here already, the only way to get better at sparring is sparring. But, also as previously mentioned, drilling your footwork and defense strategy can be done on your own; but, it won't truly improve until you use it in sparring.

Also it might be important to mention that we don't do point sparring. I am sure Sensei would love to see chudan blocks or jodan blocks, or oy tzukis but it looks a lot more like boxing. His Sensei's grandfather was an old school bareknuckle boxer and father a professional boxer so some of that made it into our training.

Its basically training for a fight, to understand body relation, get used to getting hit, attacking and defending.

Good to hear that your kumite is for fighting sense, not points. Training for points / tournaments have its uses, but isn't conducive to street defense. And, actually, you make a specific example of why it's important to do kumite... uke (blocks) are seldom used as the "surface" blocks they represent. Why? They take too much time to set up. One of the few ways to use uke's as uke's is for the opposite hand / arm be doing something else to distract, deflect, or attack the opponent. Otherwise, uke's are used as strikes. In particular:

its worth noting, that "blocking" usually wont work very often. the best block is movement. pretty much the only block thats worked on a consisten basis is an open palm brushing block when moving to the back side of someone.

As maisweh says, the best defense is to not be there. But, when blocking, an open-handed check (barai) or weighted-hand trap (kakiuke) is what truly "blocks" a strike, followed with an uke (gedan, chudan, jodan, etc) to strike the opponent's striking arm or body or face or etc... Moreover, this concept is combined with tenshin (footwork) so that while you're executing such check-uke technique, you're moving into a better position to continue counter attacking your opponent and to move into Iri kumi (in-fighting). Once you make it into in-fighting, you will have advantage over your taller opponent (as long as you keep moving, striking, etc).

[sensei8]

Can you learn how to swim without water?

The question is the same. You could practice the strokes while perhaps lying on your belly, you could read a lot of articles online...etc.

But until you get in the water...no real progress.

Solid post. Conceptional sparring, imho, just won't work because it lacks substance.