Odd Question...

[Merryprankster]

Question for you guys:

Would you train with somebody who either can't hold their own against you, or their top fighter can't?

Let me narrow this down: Let's say I walk into a Kenpo school. I wouldn't expect them to be that good at the takedowns, defending them, or groundwork, and it wouldn't be fair for me to evaluate them on that. (Hee-hee, I *****ed So and So on the ground, even though he doesn't train for it as much or as intensely as I do, aren't I a bad-ass...)

However, if I'm standing grappling for control and using what boxing skills I have and my paltry assortment of other weapons and I'm clearly "winning," shouldn't that be cause for concern?

[prana]

yea, I would take a walk.

But be nice about it. Its a personal thing really.

[Braden]

"Would you train with somebody who either can't hold their own against you, or their top fighter can't?"

Yes. Train with people who can teach you something. People who can kick your ass? Buy them a beer.

[Merryprankster]

Braden,

I agree.

I guess my REAL question is this--how do you evaluate it?! Watching isn't necessarily enough. Feeling it in demonstration isn't necessarily enough....

It's easy in sportive full contact arts--you go to the people who have consistently trained champions!

How do we evaluate it when that element is removed?

[Braden]

It's difficult. The sportive venues you mention are one method, but not an ultimate alternative all others are compared with. For instance, just because one of two potential schools produces more highly-ranked amateur and/or professional fighters does not mean, necessarily, it is the choice where you will develop your skill the most. And, of course, skill development isn't a single axis, but rather, an incredibly complex and dynamic multitude of variables.

Ultimately what one must do is be sure of a few things. One, that the individuals at the school are being honest with what they present. Two, that you are being honest with yourself. And three, that you have clarity with respect to what your goals are.

Through these tenets, your evaluation will be made, and importantly, on an on-going basis, based upon your previous experience, personal and otherwise, correct and otherwise.

I know, not much of a revelation. But it's really the only answer.

[Merryprankster]

Can sparring with school members prior to joining provide any insight into their quality? Should it be de riguer to want to step on the mat with them.

Certainly, it is true that more factors than the number of champions go into this--after all, the 2nd best school by that criterion may be the best for YOU.

But, can sparring the students, master, whoever, help eliminate some wasted time? After all, who wants to spend a month somewhere only to find out it sucks?

Of course, I realize this doesn't help the newbie any :D

[Braden]

"Of course, I realize this doesn't help the newbie any."

Yes. And not just the newbie, but rather, differences in experience will always be problematic here. And again, experience in this context isn't linear. You hinted at this with your distinction between ground and standing methods in the original post. Had you walked in and dominated them on the ground, or in freestyle, but they you if ground was dissallowed, the two of you could have walked away with very different ideas as to who was deficient. Who would be right? Neither - experience isn't linear.

Certainly, touching hands with students and instructors is a very important part of the evaluation process - but it's also a very important part of learning. I believe the ideal is giving a potential school some time, or benefit of the doubt, rather than requiring a judgement after one night. Most serious schools, I think, will be amenable to this (as opposed to tying down their students with contracts). Of course, the degree to which one must do this is dependant upon both their general experience, their experience with the specific sort of style they're examining, as well as their expectations or goals.

Another complication is that, as I've alluded to above, there are different reasons to make an evaluation.

For instance, would I, even as a theoretical newbie, walk into a school and dismiss my chances of studying there right away? Yes. And this has to do with what I called having clarity about your goals. It could be that these people have alot to teach you, but if you're not interested in some aspect of how they teach, then the school isn't for you.

And of course this is not an absolute factor, but rather a continuum, and interacts constantly with other methods of evaluation.

I suppose this leads to an important question. Is your ultimate goal in martial arts to become the best fighter you can, as quick as you can, regardless of everything else? Mine isn't. So alot of the concerns you bring up as if they are primary are, in fact, not primary for me. If that is your goal... well, that's why I said originally what you must do is be clear about your goals; and from there, the proper decision will emerge.

[No_Know]

You should hear that they have what you would like in their ciriculum. You might have to follow that cirriculm to get that but even those you can defeat in a friendly setting can teach you significant things.

[Cipher]

Originally posted by Merryprankster
Can sparring with school members prior to joining provide any insight into their quality? Should it be de riguer to want to step on the mat with them.

Certainly, it is true that more factors than the number of champions go into this--after all, the 2nd best school by that criterion may be the best for YOU.

But, can sparring the students, master, whoever, help eliminate some wasted time? After all, who wants to spend a month somewhere only to find out it sucks?

Of course, I realize this doesn't help the newbie any :D

I have often wondered this myself. I have worried that it would be dissrespectful to want to spar some of their top students and even the Sifu.

A while back my teacher and myself went to visit a Wing Chun school in a different town with another friend of his that wanted to show us were he took classes. We went through the class and started sparing and the main teacher there sparred with my teacher, it was pretty friendly but the schools teacher started getting ****ed when my teacher blocked him and got good hit in. It was not really out in the open but you could tell by the way he acted afterwards when my teacher realized this he pretty much took it easy because he did not want to offend them. So I guess it really depends on the people were you want to train and how their attitudes are.

I do think though that people can be good teachers even if you may beat them in a full out fight they can still have something good to teach you. Heck, you think Tyson could have beat his trainers?

[yenhoi]

Big difference between learning time and training time, and even sparring time, instruction time, etc.

Also someone who is TRAINING you, doesnt need to be TRAINING with you. That person training you, doesnt even need to be 'better' then you.

Im with Braden.

[SevenStar]

I can see instances where training with someone less skilled is helpful. Let's take judo for example. you are doing randori with someone more skilled, and he is always stopping your techs, countering you, etc. consequently, you never get to work your throws in randori, only when he's not resisting. Since this is the case, you don't know if you can really do the throw. By sparring against someone lesser skilled, you can work your techniques and pull them off. As you do so, you

1. Assure yourself you can do the techniques in real time
2. Can make corrections to yourself on things yohuaren't doing right.

You can learn alot from fighting a lesser skilled opponent. Also, some people are better coaches than fighters - it doesn't mean that they have nothing to teach you...

[ewallace]

Would you train with somebody who either can't hold their own against you, or their top fighter can't?
Yes. For a few reasons.

First, not every style is set to where you can just step in and start sparring with them. For instance when I went to check out the Kali school I go to, it really woudn't have been feasible for me to spar with the teacher, because I would have been whacked upside the head with a stick multiple times. :) Of course we could have just gone at it empty hand, but you should see my point here. I chose that school simply because of the attitude of the place (respectful but aggressive), the training, and there were no false promises..."If you are in a fight you will get hit, if there are knives you will get cut" kind of attitude.

Second, as has been said many times before, you can learn a lot about yourself from teaching others.

Third, there are a lot of great coaches out there that were never world-class champions in their respective sport or art.

[yenhoi]

Funny Sevenstar mentions Judo, he gave me this link: www.judoinfo.com

one of the articles there speaks about how IMPORTANT it is to play with people of lesser skill then you.

[TaoBoy]

Depending on my aim I would learn from someone less proficient than me. Different people have different knowledge to offer.

As far as training I think it is important to train with people of varying skill levels. In stand-up for example, when sparring with someone of the same level in your own style you may know what they know, but when someone with lesser skill is involved they may just try to hit you however they can.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by yenhoi
Funny Sevenstar mentions Judo, he gave me this link: www.judoinfo.com

one of the articles there speaks about how IMPORTANT it is to play with people of lesser skill then you.

cool! can you post it here? I'll try to find it after class. It may be a good read for all of us.

[yenhoi]

Here is the specific article: http://www.judoinfo.com/kudo.htm

Good stuff all over that site, and Im not a judoka

[Merryprankster]

Originally posted by Merryprankster
Braden,

I agree.

I guess my REAL question is this--how do you evaluate it?! Watching isn't necessarily enough. Feeling it in demonstration isn't necessarily enough....

It's easy in sportive full contact arts--you go to the people who have consistently trained champions!

How do we evaluate it when that element is removed?

Do people not read?!!!! :confused:

And I'm not talking about selection of training partners within a school, I'm talking about the level of instruction and the overall quality. That is, I can always go with somebody less skilled to work on something I want to work on.

[Mutant]

I think it depends on what you want to or think you can get out of it...

I'm sure there is some sort of value to be gained from training with just about any martial arts group (even if its learning 'what not to do'. ;-) If they have a good positive attitude and are enjoyable and easy to work with, that is a big plus. I don't think it has to come down to 'could i kick this dudes/classes a$$?'; different styles/arts have different theories, techniques, ways of solving the problems. You could possibly improve your own understanding and add to your bag of tricks by training in these different techniques. Since you;ve already developed a core level of proficiency, cross training probably wouldnt corrupt your technique and understanding. When cross training you have to have an open mind and be flexible, but at the same time you don't need to be/shouldnt be remolded into a kempo guy, that would probably just frustrate you, due to your solid past training. I guess it depends on your relationship with and understanding with the kempo instructor and the scope of your training with this class.

Side note: i was at a tournament recently run by the local kempo federation (didnt go to compete) that was approximately 95% kempo peeps and small amount of kung fu/other arts. Well, i was horrified by how lacking in fighting proficiency they were. And their forms were fantasy-based (as most if not all forms are..). Their point sparring was junk, probably a detriment to their understanding of self-defence and fighting. A few of them competed in the Light contact - Continueous fighting (non point sparring, but still fairly mild) and fought poorly in that, which based on a conversation with one of them, was the most hard-core sparring they had done.
Then i met this one kempo sensei who came over when one of my friends took out some padded practice weapons we were playing around with. He was totally psyched and started talking shop with us, showing us some of his techniques, he knew way more about swords, especially japanese style swords, than i'd ever known and he was extremely cool and enthusiastic. He had like 30 years of martial arts training (kempo based i assume) and seemed to bring a lot to the table, no matter what his style or how bad his students were at sparring. I'd go cross train with that particular guy in a second if i had time, he'd be great to work with. I wouldnt want to learn all his wierd katas, but other than that, I'm sure I could get somehting out of cross training with him. Well there's a painfully long and dull example, but you get the point ;)
Cheers

[omarthefish]

I often DO train with people not as good as me but I wouldn't let it become a large part of my training. Everyone's gotta learn. You need people to show you how far you've come and also people to show you you still suck.

The other aspect is that often I am looking to understand a specific skill. I often push hands with people I feel I could wipe the floor with. Sometimes it takes a lot of self controll not to loose patience with their superior attitude. I have listened to countless lectures on nei-gong from people with 1/4 the experience I have. (especially here in China where it's typically assumed that westerners are genetically incapable of grasping internal concepts and have never heard of taoism)

I've learned a lot of Taiji stuff which helped me with my home art from taiji people who couldn't fight. I loads of details about Thai boxing from a guy who trained in Thailand for several months. I could clean his clock easily but I DID improve my low kicks signifigantly from what he showed me.

Sometimes there are nuggets of gold laying around if your willing to just hold your nose and wade through a little stink to get it.

[Shadow Dragon]

It depends.

If the Guy has a specific skill you want to learn go with it.

If you want to be a bad-ass fighter and only play with the biig boys than don't.

In many Kwoon and Dojo I been they told the student to try their stuff on as many people as possible.
We were told to try to do "Push hands" with ANYBODY we would meet and willing to do so.
You can learn both from better and inferior fighters.

IMHO, only learning and sparring with good people can lead down a road where you expect your opponent/s to react and fight in a given manner, and if that does not happen you might loose.

Especially if you train for SD you need to be able to deal with any fighter and form of fighting or none he might have.

It can be surprising what an untrained person can pull on you in a fight or sparring session.

The same way it can be frustrating the way an untrained fighter does not respond to your cues as he cannot sense them.

Just my thoughts.

[jon]

Tricky question MP.
To be honest i think my answer is going to double over and im not sure thats really fair.
I would happily learn 'technique' from someone i could beat and then apply that same technique using my own understanding.
I would honestly not trust someone i could beat easily to teach me to actualy fight. I just simply dont think they would have what it takes.

As an example.
My sifu is getting on in years but in his day as well as being a KF man he was also a body builder. I have seen many photos of him in his younger years and he was HUGE - so are his trophys. He was also one hell of a fighter in his day and comes from a whole family of fighters. His home life was basicaly spent training.
Now whilst i dont actualy 'fight' with my sifu now, i know well that in his hay day he could have ripped my head off and fed it to me. He is still more powerfull and faster even at his advanced age.
Still every movement he does i can feel real power in and his application work is superb. Ive also hit him *hard* at his request and it felt like hitting steel padded with a light pillow. His shins are like granite and ive nearly been knocked out cold by an accidental clash of heads which he didnt even seem to notice.


Here is the big kicker though.
My sifu likes to watch me fight other people. When i do so he is absolutely ammazing at picking out my mistakes and giving me things to improve on. Nothing he says is ever out of line and it always makes perfect sence to me. It can be anything from a change of distancing with a certain move to compleatly changing my mindset for the application of a given principal.

This is where my contradiction comes in.
Although i dont 'fight' my sifu he certainly has helped me to improve *my* fighting. I certainly get a lot of hands on work with my sifu in terms of pushing hands, application work and light contact sparring but ive never gone the full tonk with him.

Still no matter which way i look at it one simple fact remains. I learn to 'fight' from my sifu at present becouse he is simply much better than me. Both in terms of his movements and also his fighting mind.
If i had a sifu who was better in technique but i could easily whip and couldnt feel stronger power than i was personaly generating then i would be happy to learn there movements but no way im going to trust them to couch me in actual combat. There is simply to much at stake.


I will also say that i have a funny feeling my sifu doesnt 'fight' me as he knows well he could still wipe me out way to easily. Ive only been with him under a year after all.
He can knock me off balance in push hands without even pushing me - just though position. During the fighting form ive never once managed to lay a hand on him:(
All up there is probarly not much point for him going to hard... yet;)


lol that was the biggest 'my sifu is great' rant but heck he is a very nice man and i owe him a lot. The occasional plug of the mans skills is the least i can do.