Do you spar, and how?/ sparring with the internal arts

[gazza99]

If you are not an internal stylist please answer the questions pertaining to your style and please add anything that may be of value. If you are an Internal MA'er , either answer here or on the internal forum please.


Do you spar with your internal art?
Schools who "spar" in the Niejia arts are in the great minority, I am in this minority, who else ?

1.If you "spar" then how?

2.Do you freespar?,or do one or two step reaction drills? , or both progressively?

3.Do you put any real "jin" into the movements?

4.How often?

5.At what level do you spar

6.To what degree of force?

My answers later.....

Gary

[NPMantis]

1. I like to warm up with hands only sparring, stand facing your opponent with one foot locked behind theirs and using hands only try to attack. Then I like to progress onto free-sparring, just both people attacking.

2. I don't personally like drills like each person is allowed to attack a certain numer of times while other defends and then change over, when I spar I prefer it to be freesparring with anything goes.

4. Ideally I'd probably spar at least twice a month for an hour though at the moment it's twice a week but the only problem is I don't really get time to practice my techniques by myself but I will cut down in the near future.

6. I don't put any power behind strikes, just go for speed with no real power behind it, this is to the body and I try not to touch the head at all though if I do by accident there is never any power there. I never wear gloves or padding, I'm just careful not to train with anyone who gets over-excited.

What about you?

Take care,

NPMantis

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i do wudan and pukulan.

1.If you "spar" then how?

in the begining very slowly. the idea as that you are learning to get your entire body behind every movement in a free flowing situation. as you get better you can speed up, but sifu still wants the advanced students to spar slowly most of the time as he feels this is the best way to learn. about once a month we have a class where all we do is beat on eachother at whatever speed you and your partner want.

2.Do you freespar?,or do one or two step reaction drills? , or both progressively?

both. we do technique work which would be drills, but when we spar we freespar.

3.Do you put any real "jin" into the movements?

if i have any real jin to put into it it's there.

4.How often?

every class.

5.At what level do you spar

i don't understand the question.

6.To what degree of force?

depends on who you are working with, how competitive you are, or how bad of a day you have had.

[OdderMensch]

1.If you "spar" then how?

A very friendly kempo karate school in the area has us out sometimes. Light pads (gloves, foot pads) cups/mouthpeices, no shoes (it's thier mat :( )

2.Do you freespar?,or do one or two step reaction drills? , or both progressively?

AFAIK its freesparing. I've seen kicks, punchs, throws, some locks and a bit of groundwork. 1-3 minute rounds against various people. from i think "blue belt" to BBs

3.Do you put any real "jin" into the movements?

have to. ting jin (sensitve energy), gan geep jin(flowing energy/linking energy), ma jin (stance energy), just not the full body linkage (fa jin).

4.How often?

about weekly

5.At what level do you spar

? if you mean my "level" sifu has us get double rolling hand traing before we spar. and some knowadge of chum kui.

6.To what degree of force?

always light for me. it's on of he things i'm "working on" right now. One of the bbs the other day nailed me "late" after i tapped him a few times and he pulled back and said "sorry man you pulled that on and I didn't" I'll see him next week :D

[TaoBoy]

Do you spar with your internal art?
Schools who "spar" in the Niejia arts are in the great minority, I am in this minority, who else ?


I am not truly a neijia artist - however we do use many of the principles in my style. We do spar but it is different to your standard san shou/kickboxing sparring.


1.If you "spar" then how?

2.Do you freespar?,or do one or two step reaction drills? , or both progressively?


We do what you term reaction drills. One, two or three step sparring - whereby your partner throws one, two or three attacks that you deal with and then retaliate (control and issue). If the attacks are not dealt with they are thrown again. So, in effect one step can become two step if the first attack is not sufficiently controlled.

We do not do free sparring until the more senior levels, however we do chi sao sparring where we start in distance, touching hands and attempt to strike our partners in the head.


3.Do you put any real "jin" into the movements?


Not in the true sense of the word.


4.How often?


As often as possible - but not often enough. It depends on class population, ie the more senior students generally spar amongst themselves in order to provide a good test.


5.At what level do you spar


I assume this means level of experience, if so, we generally start the reaaction drills almost immediately. The more free-flowing type of sparring - or free-flowing reaction drills - start after 12 months (depending on the student).


6.To what degree of force?


Realistic distance, realistic targeting at all levels.
Light contact for junior students.
At senior levels the attacked is using full-force.



Good question Gary!

[KC Elbows]

I do an internal style, and we spar. Frankly, our sparring looks a lot like people trying to hit and throw each other.

We do three step sparring at the early levels, then free sparring. As far as throwing power and fa jing, that is up to the practitioners and the lessons goal, but most of us do some full power sparring to keep frosty with others at our own level of proficiancy or with the teacher, with the full understanding that we may get injured in the process.

Oh yeah, we spar every class. I also spar with a longfist stylist outside of class, and others, occassionally.

[Twistedstance]

I free spar all the time. At least three times per week, for times between 20 minutes to over an hour. We spar with some protective clothing, mainly gloves and booties to protect delicate joints from agressive blocking.

I will teach my students self defence movements, and one to three step sparring, in addition to the free sparring. Free sparring is something that I have done with them right from the get-go, paying careful attention to not spar too highly above their level, and to keep it educational. The other style I practice, the Sifu gets us to free spar every week, sanshou rules, reasonably light contact.

As for utting "jin" into the moves, well, I'm not 100% sure on what you mean by that. I use a lot of "chi" however, and focus on making every hit count. However in sparring I'm not aiming generally to hit my opponent, more likely I'm aiming to penetrate their guard and stop short (usually with a slight tap and that's it), but I have to use focus to get there, hence the "chi".

As stated above we spar no less than three times per week.

As for the level we spar at, well, I will spar anyone who is keen. It's always educational, and I work on ideas constantly.

All sparring is generally heavy semi contact. Not full contact, but plenty of contact... if you get my meaning. Head contact is real light, body contact is hard. I tell my students to not be afraid of hitting me hard in the body (as it's good for me - I guess....). I like to ensure that they exercise control, however.

Sparring is fun, and it's a good way to bond with others in your school, I feel. Provided it's conducted in the right environment.

[jon]

1.If you "spar" then how?
* Both with gloves and gear under san shou rules and also free with no gear and no rules.

2.Do you freespar?,or do one or two step reaction drills? , or both progressively?
* We both freespar and do reaction drills, the level and balance of both is really up to the individual students.

3.Do you put any real "jin" into the movements?
* Usualy agreed upon before hand, we try to maintain movements we know actualy do damage as opposed to fairy slapping each other but we always try to avoid doing anything that could cause really bad damage or excessive pain. Hence kicking someone in the shins with a little punch is ok but dont scrape down them using your full bodyweight in an attempt to break the bone and rip the skin.

4.How often?
* As often as we please, sparring is done by the students when we feel we are ready. If only a junior sifu will watch like a hawk and immediately stop anything he doesnt like.
Usualy the seniors will spar every chance we get.

5.At what level do you spar
* Really up to the student, although its kind of an unwritten law that there is no point untill you actualy know some movements. Hence you either need training in another style or at least have a good grasp of our basics before anyone will really bother with you.

6.To what degree of force?
* Again up to the practioners, some of us go fairly hard and others really dont like being hit.
Lets just say many of us go home pretty sore after training, and the odd cut lip or black eye is not uncommen.
Still i again stress we dont try to distroy each other, this would be foolish and keep us out of training. All things in moderation, if i can hit you with half force i can also hit you with full. If i can place my hand lightly on your chest i also could have thumped it.

[sweaty_dog]

Hey jon, where do you do San Shou in Sydney? I would love to try it.

[Daredevil]

As for utting "jin" into the moves, well, I'm not 100% sure on what you mean by that. I use a lot of "chi" however, and focus on making every hit count. However in sparring I'm not aiming generally to hit my opponent, more likely I'm aiming to penetrate their guard and stop short (usually with a slight tap and that's it), but I have to use focus to get there, hence the "chi".

Don't mean to jump on you here, but I'm personally a bit tired of people saying they use "chi" to hit something. In your above example, that's not "chi" you're using. That's intent ("yi") if anything beyond just keeping a cool, focused head.

"Jing" (sometimes "jin") is a manifestation of energy/power. Basically and at its simplest it's just power, but there's various kinds of "jings" in CMA and they're trained. You could say its "internal power".

I think some of us westerners need to get our terminology straighetened. The whole idea of "chi" has been embraced, but not the rest of the theory. That results in some quite strange interpretations.

Chi is an intangible. You can't hit your opponent with "air".

Of course, all that said, theory is nowehere near as important as having kungfu and the skill to excel at a fight. It's easier to talk about on the 'Net, though, s'why I'm digging into it. :)

Comments anyone?

Later.

[Twistedstance]

I stand corrected. In which case I hit with Jin, yes.

Funny you should mention terminology, because I've learned some hard body qigong and can do breaking too, but we never bothered to sort out the differenet names for the things that we were doing.... now that I think about it, that's not quite right, is it?

Hmm... I need to do some thinking.

Chairs.