Sparring Styles

[camotheman]

Happy Tuesday everyone, I wanted to start off my week with a good question here. 

What is your favorite “style” of sparring? Meaning, what are your favorite techniques to throw, what are some of your favorite ways to set up techniques? Any favorite traps, feints, or throws?

Anything you use in sparring can be discussed. I’m looking to change up the way I spar a bit and I figured I could steal some of your guys favorite techniques!

Thanks!!

[bushido_man96]

My favorite "style" is just sparring in class, continuously, not breaking for points and just keeping track between the two of us.  I like to just go and do stuff.  My favorite technique to throw is the spin heel kick.

My other favorite is just rolling at BJJ class, especially in warmups.  When doing warmup rounds, I just focus on positional improvement and transitions.  I don't worry about submissions.

[sensei8]

I spar in a resistive way!! I don’t play pat-a-cake because it serves no purpose, imho. 

Our style lives off on the setup. Our primary tools for the setup is kicking the base to death while engaging my hands closeup.

 

[Revario]

My favorite is closing the distance and hit in the clinch to then throw or finish there. 

I absolutely like to distract high and attack low or the reverse. 

One trick that almost never fails me against jabs is uchi uke followed by shuto or uraken if being nice from the same hand, its so fast people rarely see it coming. A personal favorite. 

I like to remove limbs from my way in order to get close. If the opening is not there, I create it.  

I really like to be up close and personal and get out. 

[camotheman]

Whoops, I meant to follow up with my own little tricks / favorites in sparring in the original post. 

One of my own favorites techniques is to feint a jab until I can get a good read on their reaction, once I have that reaction locked down I grab their gi at the wrist, or just their wrist, and pull their hand down, then come over the top with a reverse punch to the face. This relies on feinting heavily, as well as hand speed. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:33 PM by camotheman
Grammar / Spelling

[Wastelander]

My preferred sparing format is kakedameshi, which is a form of sticky hands sparring. It forces you to stay close and in contact with the opponent at all times, which enables you to apply the techniques from your kata under pressure. We allow strikes, joint locks, takedowns, and strangleholds, as well as groundwork, to varying degrees, depending on the focus of the class. As far as feinting or setting up techniques, it's pretty easy when you get the hang of it--do something that causes them to resist, and use that resistance against them.

[Wado Heretic]

“Monogoto ni suki konomu koto nashi (In all things have no preference)” – Dokkodo, Miyamoto Musashi   

It is a long time since I sparred for my own benefit. In the sense that I have not sparred to “win” in a while. We are all on the older side, and spread quite far and wide, in the association I belong to so when we get together sparring is far from our priorities. it is more to focus on refining the fundamentals, as it is easy to let bad habits form when you are not regularly scrutinised by your seniors, and learn new Kata and explore application idea. Thus, all my sparring is with my students who are much junior to myself, and my goal is to help them improve.

The core of what I do when we spar is Sen Sen No Sen. Most use Sen Sen No Sen to mean the ability to anticipate and pre-empt an opponent’s action. However, in truth, if one studies the Kata of traditional Nippon Bujutsu, what is at play is guiding your foe towards what you want them to do. This can be seen in the Kumigata of Wado-Ryu and Kumitachi of Kendo to give more accessible, modern examples. With regards to free-sparring or fighting, Bas Rutten talks about this a lot where he works to put into his opponent’s minds an expectation which he then defies when the opportunity presents. For example, throwing low kick after low kick until the opponent starts to flinch in response to the sign of a low kick, and then throwing a high kick over the flinch response to guard low. To apply this to sparring, when I spar my students, I build my tactics and choice of techniques around two questions:

1.      What are their bugbears and bad habits?

2.      What are their strengths and best techniques?

I try to do things which punish their bad habits in a manner that helps them correct them. And I also give them plenty of opportunities to use their strong points, so I am helping them gain confidence. In this approach it is important to consider a student’s level and confidence coming into the spar. A very confident student I may balance my approach to 80% punishment and 20% giving them opportunities to work their techniques. Someone who has little experience sparring before I might invert that entirely and only focus on punishing mistakes that would get them hurt in a competitive bout and otherwise let them practice landing their strikes or making their techniques work. Thus, I try to have no character to my sparring style beyond what my students need at the time. And so it is all sen sen no sen: my aspiration is to make them do what I want to make them better fighters. Which might be tactical, or I might go into it with a strategy based on what I know they need to work on.

In terms of types of sparring, I use most of the time it is two forms of isolation sparring:

1.      Kakei-Kumite

2.      Renzoku Kumite

Kakei-Kumite may be best understood as varieties of Sticking Hands/Pushing Hands. I tend to think of them as gamifications of various positions you can end up in during close quarter fighting. Single hand representing a single wrist grab or when your opponent has moved offline relative to you. Double hand representing a double wrist grab or even an attempt at a lapel or throat hold. Collar and Elbow, and backhold representing being caught in a clinch. And so do and so forth. I use them to isolate and practice grab releases and guard passes found in our Rolling Bunkai (We have association wide standard applications for the pinangata), against active and evolving resistance. Once students are confident in the gamified, back and forth, we then move onto versions where one starts in the actual, disadvantaged position the game reflects, and have to learn how to fight out of it. Also, I have introduced Kakedameshi, as mentioned by Wastelander and I highly recommend looking at his material on it, to my more advanced students. I use it as a means to explore applications from kata for which we do not have a set curriculum. Sometimes I also add Sumo rules to encourage active attempts to knock down or push the training partner because I often see a lot of positivity. For more advanced students I also allow them to continue on the ground, though the goal is to be the first to get back to their feet rather than focus on pinning or locking techniques.

Renzoku-Kumite can have many meanings because Renzoku is largely translated as Continuous. The version I use in the dojo is a type of continuous, free-moving, isolation sparring. As in kakei kumite, for students, there are five rule sets each corresponding to a pinan kata. The attacker can only use the attacks practiced against in the Rolling Bunkai, and the defender is to try and use the deflections and receiving techniques from the kata and return with the practiced application. Depending on the students level, the attacks either come in the rehearsed order and as done in the basic exercise, or the attacker chooses an attack and may perform a variation on the foot work as long as the angle remains the same. I have other rules I apply as well when I want to get students working on a particular weakness or strength.

We sometimes do light-sparring under what I would call free-style boxing rules when I want people to work on their hand techniques. In that if it is done with a closed fist, I consider it legal, and I allow some limited arm control and fighting in the clinch. Though if people are grabbing more than punching, I will pull it back to classical boxing. Coming up to and during gradings, or when I feel it is time for people to learn to spar, we do classic Sundome Jiyu-Kumite. With regards to ground work, we occasionally do a kind of isolation sparring where we start on the ground from different control positions, and the goal is for the one in the control position to work towards a finish, and the one at a disadvantage to escape the situation.  

For full-contact free-sparring I use Bogu Kumite under Nippon Kempo rules. This I usually reserve for my more advanced students coming up to grading for brown belt or black belt level. Stikes are to anywhere on the body, bar the usual banned targets, and takedowns and fighting on the ground are allowed. I allow controlled striking to a downed opponent, but it has to be to somewhere armoured, and from knee control, standing, or mount, to a maximum of five seconds. The only locks expressly banned are knee bars and neck and spinal cranks, but I tend to encourage my students to stay away from injurious techniques anyway, and when caught to tap before risk of injury.

I am hesitant to offer my own selection of toys and tricks, but that is probably the old cynical competitor in me creeping out. One I find useful as a teaching tool is a reverse ridge hand swung up to head height from low. It is good for reminding a student to keep their hands up, because it can come very quickly from a blind spot and has more reach than a conventional hook. I used to use it in competition a lot too. I would throw a lot of straight techniques and get them used to watching my front hand and back foot for a jab or front kick. Then I would throw the ridge hand, let them see it at the last second, apply the Stockton slap to keep the guard high, and then come under it with a front round house or reverse punch. In terms of grappling, a tool I use with students is to brute force my way to controlling a limb or the trunk, make it obvious what I am trying to do, and the moment they fight that slip to another control position or path to a submission or takedown attempt. A hip toss to a body-lock take down is a favourite combination of mine. Mostly because they try to dance around my getting my hip in, which just lets me slip to the back. Anyway, those a couple of things I use as coaching tools.