I NEED YOUR HELP TO DESIGN A SPARRING TRAINING PROGRAM???

[Fu-Pow]

Hello All!!! I've been studying Gung Fu for about 4 years now. I know quite a few hand forms, weapons forms, 2 man sparring routines, etc. However, what has been lacking in my training is lots of application and sparring. Although my teacher is very knowledgable and a good martial artist he is more interested in teaching the art than in teaching the application. Therefore, my sparring skills and application training have been kind of left to my own design.
Here is where you come in. I am trying to design a sparring program going from basic 2 person choreographed hand combos all the way up to multiple assailant, multiple unsharpened weapon free sparring. This, I believe, is the highest level of training and I also think that without this kind of application training kung fu will slowly die. Without at least "testing" our forms our styles slowly become diluted and weakened. I think this is what Bruce Lee was getting at.
I already have some excercises that I have learned that train hand eye coordination, reflex etc. but I have had trouble putting it all into a unified program. Therefore, any input on training for the above is much apprectiated. If you can outline a whole step by step program, that would be even better.

Things that could/should be trained in the program.
-Eye-Body Coordination
-Deceptiveness
-Ability to take a hit (ie iron shirt)
-Rythm
-Explosiveness
-Endurance
-Footwork
-Toughening of anatomical weapons (ie shin, arms)
-Conservation/Efficiency
-Incorporation of Chi Na/Throws/Sweeps/Groundfighting
-Hand to Hand
-Hand to Weapon
-Attitude
-W

Thank you and good luck!!!


Fu-Pow

[mantis108]

Fu-Pow,

With all due respect, this is your Sifu's job. Should you feel the direction which he is taking is not your cup of tea, then you should consider other alternatives.

Personally, I wonder how you drawn your conclusion that your Sifu is a good and knowledgable martial artist? As far as my exprience goes, a knowledgable Sifu would have no problem transmitting materials in "original" format or his personalized format. I would be very concern if my Sifu cares about what he wants to teach more so than the well being of his student(S).

Any martial arts program should cover 4 to all 6 components of combats. Some may choose to specialized in 1 component such as striking but that's just a perference which is where styles come from in the first place. That's just the technical and is upto the style and the Sifu. For conditioning, it should also cover the 6 pillars of martial arts training. Materials that are covered in the program may very well be style specific. So you can see unless you are prepare to take a giant leap forward into the beyond, the task you are asking is quite an undertaking for any responsiable Sifu.

It sounds like you are at the point of breaking a plateau. So good luck in your search.

Mantis108

Contraria Sunt Complementa

[Brad]

You should first voice your concerns to your teacher. If you've allready done that, then good luck :)

[Fu-Pow]

Let me explain a bit more. It is not that my school does no application or no combat training. However, what we do is limited. Having come from a combat oriented school previous to my current school it has been an adjustment. My Sifu is more focused on performance ie lion dancing, demos, etc,etc. This is actually probably more of a traditional approach. In fact I'd go as far as saying that largely my issue may be a cultural issue. My current teacher is chinese and my old teacher was american. It seems the traditional chinese style of training dictates that you show up stretch, imitate what the teacher does and then go home. My old school had this methodology but we supplemented the "traditional" style of training with various sparring/reflex building excercises. As I often help instruct the class at my current school I have tried to include some of these sparring excercises to the apparent irritation of my Sifu. We do tournament style sparring on Friday nights but there is no stepwise building of skill. You just show up with your pads and go for it. Occassionally, Sifu will interject with some advice. I guess I'm just looking for something more stepwise building to a higher level of skill than just tournament sparring.

Fu-Pow

Fu-Pow

[AsianSifu]

keep in mind that students are idiots. They don't understand thing like "going slow", they mainly just want to "win" and not get hit or blocked. Kick the **** out of them untill they can fight well. If they get mad and charge then you must hurt them a little bit. :( :rolleyes: :p :D ;) :eek:

I don't have a signature because I have no pen to write it.

[ope]

Actually to much sparring is bad.. when you spar you learn to hold back.. this is not good if your in a real life situation when you need the full extent of your techniques.. and if you get accustom to holding back then in a real fight you most likely will..

[MaFuYee]

fupow,
i would say that, it's really not your place to tell your teacher how to run his school. - you can let it be known to him, what you would like to learn, (privately, of course) and if your teacher gives you what you want, then great! - otherwise, look elsewhere.

- not every school is about turning out fighters. - i would say that most schools are not; and for good reason...most wouldn't be able to handle that kind of school. - and, your current teacher may be doing you a bigger favor than you know, by not stressing the fighting aspects. - (everyone has stories of "black belts" getting their butts kicked in silly bar scuffles... that could be you, if your teacher were to give you the "halfway" approach.)

my suggestion would be; if you want to do 'extracurricular' training, get a group of like minded people together, and do it outside of your school. (that way, if you get your arse kicked, because of false confidence, it's soley your own fault. - haha!)