Sparring

[Helicopter]

Most people on this forum seem to do some form of 'sparring'. For me the term 'sparring' covers a big area and I was interested in finding out what kind of sparring people did.

The things that we do, that I would call sparring, are:

Light free sparring - continous relaxed game of 'tag' to neutral areas (Shoulders, outside of thigh)

Continuous competition sparring - semi-contact continous competition-rules sparring with gloves etc.

Goal oriented sparring - continuous sparring with defined roles/limited techniques (eg 1 attack/1 defend, kicks only, grabs only etc)

Free sparring - Continuous free 'non-contact' sparring (punches and kicks are pulled).

I'm not looking for an argument about 'what's the best way.' I'm just curious about how the rest of you guys train.

Thanks in advance.


Jpcm

[SifuAbel]

It more of a progression than a choice. All the above types are used to incrimentally get into harder contact and difficulty. One should start slow, gain experience and work his way up.

[Helicopter]

Hi SifuAbel,

I'm guessing from your reply (and your userID :) ) that you teach.
If so, do you spar still?

[HongKongPhooey]

all of them, each teaches something different.

[Ish]

I try to do a bit of all them and som e full contact with 10oz gloves and some a little lighter with thinner gloves. I also do some where one person tries to take the other down and one has to stop them.

[Liokault]

Full contact with light gloves is the only way to go.


We spar full contact with light gloves and full face protection from the first few weeks of training for any one who wants to learn Tai Chi as a martial art.

We have had very few injurys in the 12 years that i have been doing this and it teaches so much. I feel that sparring semi contact teaches you more bad things than it dose good!!!!

The key to sparring full contact is to get your students through the stage where they just stand and hit each other in the head and onto the stage where they can close the gap, clinch grappel and counter hit. That way even with a long sparring session theres no need to take to many hits.



I have to say though that after sparring full contact i dont writ as fast as whut i used ta.

[fa_jing]

There are many approaches but under my Sifu, we spar full contact with 16 oz. gloves and headgear. Not to say that we are trying to hurt each other - we shouldn't be going above 80% force at any time within our school. But, the training is to prepare us for full-contact tournaments.

-FJ

[LEGEND]

Yeah...during my standup training we sparred like FAJING skool. Headgear and 16 oz gloves.

[tri2bmt]

We spar full contact without any padding but limit the targets mainly groin eyes and throat.

[taijiquan_student]

We do what it sounds like tri2bmt does--no protection, full contact (of course not really full power though), but no eyes throat or groin, except during "Hell Month" when we put on headgear (w/out face mask) and open hand gloves ( same target restrictions) and really go at it--as I believe the taiji classics say, "send the opponent straight to hell":)

[Ryu]

In the grappling schools I attended it was full resistence grappling just about everynight.

When I trained JKD it would always be semi-full contact with headgear and gloves. (Speaking of which, I will probably be training with Paul again in the next coming months.)

Right now I am kinda training solo with martial arts friends, and spar every session with the above progression. Usually start out light, but end up testing any kind of new theory with headgear and gloves. Semi to full contact, standing, clinching, and on the ground. Also with Filipino weapons from time to time.


On another note..... from all the contact sparring people seem to do on this board, I would think many of the "traditional" stylists here do in fact get "it." and train realistically.

Ryu

[Shaolindynasty]

We spar in allot of different ways at the "sdka" school. Most often we use small cotton hand protectors from century and go full contact to the body and medium to the head. We start out with prearranged patterns and slowly increase the spontaniousness of the sparring, so the students actually use their technique and don't just brawl. i feel useing some kind of prgression method is better than jumping in full contact, most begginners can't handle it and start swinging like girls.