the ideal sparring format

[apoweyn]

if you were to envision the ideal sparring format, what would it be? how would it reflect your training priorities? how would you make it workable (equipment, etc.)? full contact? light contact to some targets? headgear? boxing gloves? grappling gloves? takedowns allowed? etc.

i'm asking because we get into a lot of debates here about training priorities (forms or no forms, sport or traditional, and so on). yet most of us seem to agree that some form of sparring is a good thing. not all, but most.

so, if you hold that sparring is a good means to an end, then what sort of sparring format would best suit the end you have in mind?


example: i'm picturing a sparring format in which medium contact is used. strikes to sensitive targets are 'implied' (e.g., a kick to the thigh could be trained rather than a kick right in the knee) for safety's sake. takedowns and grappling are encouraged.

equipment would include headgear with covered face mask, grappling gloves, cup, mouthpiece, and perhaps shin guards (individual preference).

padded sticks, rubber knives, etc. are used as well. so you have a format that embraces a full spectrum: weapons down to empty hand. obviously, certain concessions would have to be made. rubber weapons (rattan sticks are used in eskrima sparring, but the padded vests and metal headgear would make grappling a b*tch; and i'm no dog brother), slightly limited contact to allow for lighter gloves, more conducive to grappling. that sort of thing.

multiple attackers? hmm... still needs some thought.

this isn't a competition format, mind you. just a way to train various skills within one spectrum rather than all fragmented.

how about you?


stuart b.

[Ryu]

What you listed is the kind of thing I'd have in mind.

Ryu

[apoweyn]

ryu,

i thought it might be, as you strike me as a mixed martial artist without a specific attachment to competition. does that sound accurate?


stuart b.

[Ray Pina]

To start:

Head gear and boxing gloves, no kicking but full power punching. Break after soemone gains considerable control. Take downs but obviously no breaking. If fighting grapplers, consider it a tap as soon as they get the KF, karate guy down. If they get them down they won, start over.

Then: Head gear, gloves, shin guards, elbow pads. Full power punching and kicking to everywhere except the supporting leg (this already is quite limiting but important to keep training partners).

I'd save the full on anything goes till you're with outsiders you don't want to hurt a training partner.

[Tigerstyle]

That sounds good Ap, but I don't feel comfortable with headgear on (I feel clumsy and deaf). I guess that's better than a busted nose or an eye injury, though.

One thing I think is a good idea is having some sparring sessions that are slightly limited every once in a while. Some examples would be no kicks or no punches (to help focus on your hands or your feet), and forcing each other to stay close (to focus on close range techniques). We do that second option when we (used to) spar (we called it "Too Close". When people would ask us the rules, we would say "No attacking 'til you're too close." :) )

[Tigerstyle]

"If fighting grapplers, consider it a tap as soon as they get the KF, karate guy down. If they get them down they won, start over."

I think it should continue after the takedown, because it gives the "non-grappler" an opportunity to learn, experience and adjust to fighting and moving on the ground.

[Ryu]

AP, that's me in a nutshell.

Ryu

[apoweyn]

tigerstyle,

that's a good point. i should have said 'ideal free sparring format.' in my classes now, i'm doing a lot of what i call 'focused sparring.' you're working one particular idea, technique, whatever (e.g., one person is on offense, the other person is just evading, or just clinching, or just using a lead sidekick, etc.) people can train specifics without worrying about all the variables that way.

that's the training part. but once the experimental part (the laboratory) arrives, that's what i was thinking. when you put it all together and give it a go.

and i hear ya. nobody likes those helmets. but they definitely do beat a broken nose. besides, my feeling is this. a friend of mine doesn't like the helmet. so we spar, and he says, "nah. i'll be alright. i'll risk it." great, but it isn't him that gets effed in that deal. it's me. i'll be so worried about busting his nose that he'll be happily pummeling me in the meantime.

i view the equipment as being a courtesy to both sides in that regard. but that's just me.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

ryu,

i think that's cool. i'm similar myself, i guess. and looking for a 'laboratory' to explore the possibilities. know what i mean? not a contest. just a more open-ended learning environment. (good grief. my work on education contracts is really starting to wear off on me. "open-ended learning environments." sheesh.)



stuart b.

[taijiquan_student]

I can't stand those face masks. Head-gear is great if you're using considerable power, but the face cage makes it so unrealistic. You're even training yourself to bring your power out at a place in front of their face cause you're aiming for the mask. I'm not saying constantly breaking your nose is desirable, but if you don't want to get hit, you probably shouldn't be learning how to defend yourself.

[LEGEND]

APO...we use to have a fight club type session at our school...it focused on light vale tudo. Nothing really full power...wearing light cloves and shin pads. This is purely training...so no one got out of hand...but there was contact! In FREE SPARING it's difficult to go full contact without getting hurt. In terms of full contact sparring...we just kickbox or do san shou without the ground grappling. Cause once u're on the bottom and the top guy start punching...u could easily suffer a concussion with your head bouncing off the hard mats.

[apoweyn]

taijiquan_student,

sorry, but i don't find that a very reasonable objection.

does it make more sense to get the living daylights kicked out of yourself in order to learn how NOT to get the living daylights kicked out of yourself?

the face mask sticks out by very little. so little, in fact, that you'll still feel a punch in the face on the end of your nose. all it does is prevent the fist from continuing into your nose, while still affording you the opportunity to learn about rolling with a punch. you absorb impact, but not in a body part that isn't designed very well for impact.

as for the self defense thing, if i'm ever attacked, i'll be elated to get away from it with JUST a broken nose. but for my practice sessons, i'd rather come away from those ready to practice again.

a face mask is a concession. no doubt about it. but it's one of many. without the face mask, you're making other concessions. or are you telling me that when you spar someone without a face mask, you go full tilt for their face? because if you don't, you've made as unrealistic a concession as i have. and if you do, then there are probably a lot of injuries, which is even less productive.

this isn't badminton, i'll grant you that. injury is inevitable. but disregarding viable equipment is a bit like expecting SWAT teams to train exclusively with live fire or else be accused of not being serious about what they do.


stuart b.

[LEGEND]

It's kinda funny when I hear people say they spar without headgear of some sort...if they CONSTANTLY sparred like this...either they're just holding back/point fighting or someone is really really cut up face wise and had mad concussions.

[apoweyn]

legend,

that makes a lot of sense. perhaps different equipment and formats to train different aspects of the art. boxing gloves to train more contact and learn to deal with the shock, rolling with it, the psychological and physiological reaction, etc. and lighter gear and contact to train with more variables, techniques, etc.

the inclusion of sticks and knives, too, would give people exposure to considerations they might have ignored in the past too. as an example, you've got the grappler that closes on a kicker only to discover that the kicker also has a knive in his waistband. now what happens? conversely, the kicker keeps someone at bay with a good stiff sidekick. what happens when someone has the option of smacking him across the shin with a stick?

this is all very theoretical right now, mind you. not sure when and if i'd be able to start using this (especially given that i'd be forking out for the equipment myself; equipment enough for at least two people at a time).


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

legend,

i agree. if you're not using a face mask, then you're compromising in some other fashion. i'm not saying that a face mask is an absolute must. only that it's no less 'realistic' than any other compromise we make in training.

what i've noticed is how difficult it is for a lot of students to throw a good clean jab/cross. why? because they don't want to drive their fists (gloves) into a friend's unprotected face. so instead, they train themselves to throw wider, more obvious shots that pose less of a threat to classmates.

the face masks are uncomfortable and hot, they obscure your vision a bit, and they make you look like a tool. but they do help to ensure that you get to keep doing this stuff.


stuart b.

[Ray Pina]

If one of these guys who specialize in taking down, Judo, BJJ, ect, the only thing to practice is dialing 911 with the remaining good limbs.

To practice ground fighting, my old sensei would have us sit on the ground, back to back, say start, and then go from there, getting in and out of holds.

But in an actual fight, with gear, with adrenaline, with full speed moves, one of these guys take downs ablone are quite painful.

Poeple think I talk smack about them, but I don't, I respect the damage they can do. If you want to follow thorugh, you'll have to make additional rules, for safety, but they will limit the groudn fighter and not be a good representation in my eyes.

One thing to think about with grapplers: if they can grab you, feel lucky, because they could have hit you but didn;t, they chose to grab you instead. Don;t be so nice. If they are close enough to grab, you are close enough to strike. Who can afford one good one to the chin from point blank, focused?

Magic markers and long-sleeved white T's are fun for knife simulation, thought I have never truly been trained in their defense.

[Shooter]

Sparring is a relationship which evolves naturally as the people involved develop a more sophisticated dynamic. The evolution of peoples' sparring has an intangible element that's based on intent more than method. Tactical intent begins to supercede technical application as the dynamic becomes more intimate. Push-hands, chi-sau, rolling, randori, armoured, street-clothed, are just variations of defining the relationship. Some are cooperative and some not.

If I spar with a long-time training partner, the relationship is different than if I spar with someone who I've never met before....and the intent will be very different regardless of the format. Ergo, the format reflects the familiarity and mutual understanding of what is being accomplished in the exercise. eg...The format is a street-fight scenario where we agree to "duel" rather than a format reflecting a random violent attack..if I throw a punch at my partner's thigh, the unfamiliar guy will be like "WTF???" but with long-time partner, it might be understood that I just pulled a kife and attempted a cut. If I make contact, the unfamiliar guy will have a pause that allows me to control his flow-state as well as the direction that the sparring takes, but with the familiar guy, I can expect him to take the intiative with a sense of urgency toward controlling the hand I just hit him with,...or he can run like the wind away from the danger. The difference is that one sparring session has a cooperative quality which is absent in the other.

Sparring reflects the intelligence of the participants and the IDEAS they've embraced mutually as a means to practicing particular skill-sets contained within the format. Skill-sets and etiquette dictate the format, but the corner-stone is the relationship.

Push-hands isn't any different than other cooperative skills we practice everyday within the dynamic of any given relationship. eg...I worked for a moving company for a few years when I was younger, and there were times when I was working with a rookie where we had to carry heavy appliances or large pieces of furniture up and down stairs, across an icy driveway, etc, and it was marginally dangerous. When I worked with a seasoned mover however, we could carry the heaviest $#!+ with much less effort. The main thing in regard to push-hands is that with a seasoned guy, we each had the same sense of balance and equilibrium. If we were carrying a big, heavy freezer, I could apply 4 ounces in a certain direction and send him flying..all the force I needed was between us rather than within either one of us. ;)


I once read in the Yang family secret transmissions that push-hands should contain the same ideas that are applied to operating a 2-man saw. Not too much force or too little, lest the saw bind in the wood. Both people must have a sense of this equilibrium before wood can be cut efficiently. "I am not a meathook!!!" :cool:

apoweyn sorry to hijak your thread, just thoughts that popped up as I read your initial post.

[apoweyn]

evolutionfist,

granted, in reality, a takedown would hurt like a mutha. but personally, i'd rather train to continue from there. if, in reality, i'm too hurt to do so, then that's that. seeya in hell. but if i'm not too hurt, i'd hate to then be stumped on what to do next. "boy, that wasn't so bad. good thing i landed on this pile of leaves. now what to do about this choke he's applying."

see what i'm saying? i'd rather train for the full progression. if, in reality, some part of that progression takes me out, then it takes me out. but if it doesn't, i don't want to take myself out because i'm not sure what comes next in the flow.

as for the knife sparring, yeah the marker thing is pretty 'enlightening.' knife sparring in general is a pretty unpleasant eye opener. you don't really need the marker, except to make the point that much more clearly. in practice, with two cooperative partners, i think one should be able to acknowledge that a rubber blade in the ribs spells bad news.

we can't recreate reality in sparring. if we could, sparring would presumably become as dangerous (and therefore as undesirable) as being attacked in the first place. what i'm talking about is approximations that make the logical leap to reality a bit smaller.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

shooter,

that was no hijacking. that was a beautiful addition to the thread. originally, i was thinking fairly specifically. but if this expands into a larger examination of sparring, then for goodness' sake, fire away.

what i've been thinking about is how often we start with a format and then train our style 'into' that format rather than the other way around. we (or at least i) don't tend to visualize what we want to be capable of and then organize a sparring format around that.

you've introduced some other factors. very interesting stuff. cheers.


stuart b.

[Fu-Pow]

In regards the face mask issue. It seems like if you wear one then you get this false sense of security about getting hit in the face. It hurts like hell and it can quickly end a fight. So shouldn't you learn without one? So that you don't go into a real confrontation thinking you can easily withstand headshots?

I think that the end goal as far as sparring goes is light/med power to the head, med/full power to the body. Obviously some things are just not allowed groin shots, joint locking, knee attacks. But no gloves, no protection. This of course means that you must have some sort of iron shirt training.

[Ray Pina]

Shooter, that was great. Apow, I agree with you, and when fighting I like to see it through too.

But as a general warning to others I suggested that, if you consider yourself decent, and the guy is good enough to get through to you, wrap you up AND take you down -- its over. If you're good enough to get out on a good ground player, he probbaly wouldn't have gotten in.


Just my opinion so far.

[Tigerstyle]

Yes and no, Fu Pow. As it was mentioned earlier, the protective gear is as much for your partner as it is for you.

Quote by Apoweyn:
"what i've noticed is how difficult it is for a lot of students to throw a good clean jab/cross. why? because they don't want to drive their fists (gloves) into a friend's unprotected face. so instead, they train themselves to throw wider, more obvious shots that pose less of a threat to classmates."

In a way it can serve as an aid to improve your partner's striking ability (most likely to your frustration, though :mad: ).


"If you're good enough to get out on a good ground player, he probbaly wouldn't have gotten in."

I think that's not necessarily (sp?) true. You could be facing someone with great takedown ability but mediocre positioning/submissions. Someone had mentioned that we fight like we train, so if we train to stop when we get taken down...

Also, nobody's perfect. No one wins 100% of the time (unless they only fight tomato cans).

BTW: Where did the term "tomato can" (to describe some unskilled rook) come from? That term makes me laugh every time I read it. :)

[apoweyn]

fu-pow,

if you could convince me that you weren't making another set of concessions in not wearing a face mask, i'd see your point. i mean, do you just do medium contact to the nose? or do you not shoot for the nose? light contact to the nose? aren't you then just training yourself to pull your shots to the face?

that's what i mean. you can make observations about the limitations of training with a face mask. but i could make as many counter observations about training without. my feeling is that it trains you to avoid face contact, jeopardizing your ability to throw a good straight punch on someone, or you get injured frequently.

and trust me, a good stiff shot in the face mask does NOT imbue a person with a feeling of invincibility. you still feel it in your nose. and your neck. the shock (physical and psychological) doesn't dissipate thanks to the miracle of plastics. you still absorb a lot of it. you just don't have to go digging your teeth out of the other guy's glove afterward.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

tigerstyle,

exactly. part of your job as a sparring partner is to give your opponent the opportunity to train their stuff as well. and to my mind, that includes giving him the reasonable and morally acceptable option of punching me square in the face. if he can score a good solid shot on my face mask, i have no doubts (and neither will he) that he can eek out that final half inch and peg me square in the shnoz as well, should that opportunity come up.

but if my partner has trained to circumvent open shots to the face, then it doesn't matter how many opportunities he gets. his reflexes will be to avoid my face.


evolutionfist,

i'm with tigerstyle here too. i think you and i are in basic agreement, but i don't believe that getting away from a grappler indicates that he wouldn't have gotten a hold of you in the first place. (did i get that right?) there are so many variables that trying to make leaps of intuition seems problematic. if you can reasonably train the event, then why not? most grappling matches don't end with injury or breaking. so why not keep going?

as the face mask thing seems to be a hot topic, consider this: boxers spar in preparation for a match, yeah? they wear headgear. it doesn't jeopardize their sense of the reality of the real deal. it just enables them to continue training. the real deal will be far more taxing. that's why they don't fight the real thing day after day. self defense is probably a bit like that. it's different from training. so thank god you don't do it often (if at all).

and before someone points out that boxing headgear doesn't have a face mask, that's true. but it has cheek guards. and boxing gloves are big enough that that padding will help to prevent every clean face shot from breaking your nose (as do the gloves themselves). but in the format i'm suggesting, you've got a smaller (able to slip into that opening) and lighter (less padding) glove. so any shot that gets through could potentially break your nose, take out teeth, or otherwise prevent you from visiting your kwoon for some time to come.


stuart b.

[Sam Wiley]

Traditional Taiji sparring is fine for me. Start out light and controlled in the beginning, and progress to full contact. No gloves, no head gear, no chest protectors. In the end, there are no pulled punches or kicks, either; you block it or it's gonna hurt.

How can you get conditioning if you are wearing pads? How can you learn to take full powered strikes should they happen if you are wearing foam? How can you possibly learn to take the shock if the shock is less than what you would encounter in a real fight?

I understand that a degree of safety is called for, but I don't see the benefit of pads unless you are doing all out self-defense training, where your attacker is wearing pads so you can defend yourself and strike with full power.

[LEGEND]

Going without padding is BS. You can learn to absorb blows...shoot boxers and thai boxers do it all the time. They do not go all out during training. Even the KYOKHSIAN( ??? ) karate guys go all out but guess what happen when they get struck in the face accidently...fracture nose. Boxers wear headgear in practice to avoid getting HURT...they get hit and if they constantly get hit they feel it! Or there coach *****es at them...

Sam...it's like u're saying hey...let's practice knife fighting full contact without gear...how do u know if u can operate if u're never stabbed!

[Sam Wiley]

Originally posted by LEGEND
Sam...it's like u're saying hey...let's practice knife fighting full contact without gear...how do u know if u can operate if u're never stabbed!

Not at all. It's not THAT extreme. And although I have tested knife defenses against people with real knives, I would never recommend something so foolish to someone else. I do things like that to make sure it works before passing it on, but would never recommend knife training with real knives to others because of the danger factor. But here, we are getting into the kind of training that needs some sort of special equipment anyway. We're getting into solid self defense training, and not just fighting training. That's different than friendly sparring.

Besides, I do not trust the conditioning methods of Thai boxers. There is a video clip being passed around the net right now of either a kickboxing or Thai boxing match (I forget which it is), where one boxer tries to kick the other in the thigh. The guy blocks it with his shin, and the kicker's shin snaps like a twig, and he steps back on it and it folds beneath him. Sounds to me like their conditioning methods are not all that trustworthy, nor are some of their other methods like purposely making bone on bone contact. Whether or not they can take a blow, I don't trust their methods.

Anyway, the full contact stuff should only come when you are ready for it. Obviously, if you cannot take a blow and cannot defend yourself properly against attacks, then you should not be sparring full contact. The power should be lesser and the control should be greater.

[Merryprankster]

Sam,

Not trusting Thai Boxing conditioning methods? Ok... look, that guy was a fluke. The exception that proves the rule. It's an ugly ugly thing, but it happens. Should I not trust wrestling headgear because my ear got partway torn off by set that shifted during practice and they had to sew it back on? (True story) :D


I second the use of BOXING style headgear WITHOUT the facemask. If you can't handle getting hit in the face, you can't handle getting hit.

An full contact self defense sparring session, without weapons, would for me, ideally consist of:

Boxing headgear
Mouthpiece
Cup
shinguards
NHB type gloves.

Light knees to the head (meaning LIGHT)
Light elbows to the head (meaning LIGHT)
75% punches to the head while on the ground

Don't kick the knees.

If you cannot escape an inferior position (side mounted, back mount or full mount) AND the person in control is throwing strikes to the head for 10 seconds straight (like I've got you in side control and I'm kneeing your head repeatedly and you can't seem to get out), then you lose and get to start over. I say this because controlling somebody is one thing. STRIKING and controlling them on the ground is a little different. If I'm controlling you, but I can't hit you without losing control, then good for you--you may have just saved yourself a fight ender!

On all the rest, have fun and go play. Use common sense. If the guy has your head controlled properly and his thumb positioned near your eye for a good solid, appropriate gouge, then concede. If he has hold of your windpipe and you know getting out isn't really an option because there's appropriate control, concede.

And no biting. Bite me to escape the armbar and I am fully justified in anything I do to you :)

[Stacey]

elbow/knee pads too.

Otherwise, no one uses them. Chest protector....untill they have gut muscles. I hate fighting people who only think of grappling and lean their body forward. Then I kick, but don't have the heart to kick or knee them too hard. Then they ignore the kick.

Then I'll do it again, knock the wind out of them leaving them gasping on the ground. Suddenly I'm the criminal.:rolleyes:

[Merryprankster]

Nobody would be full contact sparring like that unless they were in shape for it. That means they've sparred all the "other," pieces seperately and more or less full contact.

Ideally, this eliminates the idea of guy who doesn't know how to take a shot to the body dropping like a brick.

[Ryu]

Good thread so far guys. MerryPrankster is a dangerous man, LOL :) (by the way, I completely agree about control in a groundpound situation....that, in my opinion, is the real key.)

I spar both with and without headgear at times, but without it you do hold back. Having headgear gives you the ability to throw a more intentful punch, and that's important.

(Not to say I've not gotten creamed in the face while sparring without headgear LOL)

Ryu

[Nichiren]

I hate the face mask!!! Throw it away! I'm with Merry on the gear topic and rules topic.

At my jutsu club we have experimented with what rules should be used to give a realistic but not to dangerous competition.

Using atemis on the ground;
hard to count points because of unclean techniques. If there is a timelimit atemis gives more points(in our experiment), but if a timelimit isn't used atemis aren't used that much.

We choosed 30 seconds as a timelimit on the ground, all atemis allowed and 5 minutes matches.

Another problem was all the blood because of straight punches to the face standing. We use ordinary open-grip grappling gloves and when you connect with a straight to the face it will be bloody. We choosed not to use straight punches standing due to this problem(I use uraken instead).

BTW: Great topic :D

[apoweyn]

the other argument for a face shield, at least in the format i was suggesting, is the threat of an errant knife (rubber or otherwise) in the eye. no amount of conditioning is going to make you feel a whole hell of a lot better about that.

also, you can certainly make the argument that anyone 'hardcore' about their training should learn to take a punch. or evade a punch. or whatever. and that's a sound point. but it assumes a certain level of skill. many of the people in this thread have years of experience. merryprankster, i know from personal experience, is more than good enough to close past punching range before absorbing too many shots. but what about the guy who doesn't do that? because they've got less experience. or because they're more comfortable at a longer range (albeit not more talented)? or whatever. i'm suggesting measures that can be taken to train people of varying strengths and weaknesses. not necessarily the bad*sses on this forum.

in my classes, i have students who, in time, might be really good. but for now, if we trained with earnest straight shots to the face in sparring, and they took a couple in the nose, they'd be gone. if i can get them to stick around, we can change that. if i can't, that opportunity is lost. and that's not such a great training method, to my mind.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

nichiren,

i'm pleased with how this topic is shaping up too, thanks to you guys. i may not agree with everything here (obviously), but this is definitely turning out to be one of the more productive threads i've seen (at least, it's productive for me).

cheers.


stuart b.

When I taught kung fu a few years ago at a kwoon, I would take a kicking bag and one of those foam "blockers" that looks like a demented baseball bat.

I'd hold the kicking bag like a shield in one hand and wield the blocker in the other. It was like having a sword and shield.

Then I'd tell the student to ATTACK, full force. As they attacked, I'd batter them with that "sword" in order to force them to keep their guard up. They could even grapple me, though they'd get smacked by the "sword" all over the place.

With another instructor, I'd come at these students with this kind of gear. This is how we'd introduce the concept of fighting multiple opponents.


Of course, it's nowhere near the same as full contact sparring.

But it was a good way to introduce sparring to beginners without scaring or hurting them.

[apoweyn]

actually, i really like that idea. might swipe it from you, with your permission. :)

[LEGEND]

Head gear with a face mask kinda sucks cause it majorly impairs your vision. But I use boxing gloves and I think that as long as u use boxing gloves the training partner will be safe...sort of...lol!

On da ground...true BJJ is practice with palm strikes??? If u look at RALPH GRACIE training...he works the positioning and shows palms strikes...u can do that for ground fighting if u have no money! The training partner should inform u that u're doing good or not. That's really the key...good thing we dont' have a lot of arrogant guys at our skool. Usually does ***** don't last!

[apoweyn]

i hadn't really anticipated the face shield thing being such a hot topic. :)

in any event, whether a person wears one or no isn't worth my getting riled up about. god knows i don't always wear one myself. but i was coming up with standards that would serve as an overall guideline, to be altered at the discretion of those involved.

in any event, carry on.


stuart b.

[Merryprankster]

Ap,

I totally agree that a face shield is a good thing for certain formats.

With weapons, it's a must, absolutely. And with newer guys, that's fine too. I was just assuming a certain level of skill on the part of the combatants. No biggie. You adjust as needed to fit the situation. But an IDEAL sparring format was what you asked for, so I gave you my ideal :) hee-hee.

And as for being good enough to get by without absorbing punches, I'll take a rain check. I remember distinctly eating some fists a few months ago from a friend of mine with VERY heavy hands.

To say nothing of the knee you caught me with when we played that one time :) That, my friend, would have ended me before we started.

Since I actually swiped that drill from my TKD instructor (a true Korean master), you can swipe it from me apoweyn.

He didn't have the blocker to beat my butt with, but he did have the blue shield and used it to his full advantage.

I was the only student he really did it with because he knew I had full control.

[apoweyn]

merryprankster,

absolutely, i asked for an ideal format for each of you. i caught myself getting a bit defensive about the face shield thing. mea culpa. but as you said, you can adjust as needed. i was trying to envision something where weapons could be used, down to empty hand, down to grappling without any sort of regearing taking place (i.e., don't start with stick gloves, then switch to boxing gloves when disarmed, then grappling gloves when you hit the floor). i imagine that would really mess with the transitions.

as for me catching you with the knee, i can only hope that's so. because after that, if memory serves, you could have inflicted your 'assault yoga' on me at will. (you know, the form of yoga where you take someone else's limbs and contort them into fascinating new shapes)

:)


huang,

thank you, sir. you're a gentleman and a scholar. and that drill's going into the book.

:)

[Royal Dragon]

First off, I want to say congrats for having a real thread (As opposed to Ralek Vs Kung Fu or some such BS)

Personally, when I have training partners we usually follow something similar to original UFC rules. INCLUDING joint Locks and small joint manipulations.

Equipment is

Head Gear (Sheild or not to shield is personal preferance)

Light grappeling gloves (mine are the "Cheapies")

Cup and Mouth piece

Foot pads are optional.

Contact varies from light to medium to hard depending on the days goal.

Often isolation sparring is done (Hands only, feet only etc) for working specific areas.


Sparring stops when we either step back and bow, Tapp the opponent, our own thighs or the ground if that's where we are.

Or say the ever popular "Ok, Ok you got me!!", or "Uncle d da m mit UNCLE ALREADY!!"


Never chest protectors or Shin Pads. I used to used shin pads, untill one day I forgot them, and blocked round kick with a shin block, and got layed up for the night. Basically I never knew blocking with the shinn hurt so much because i had been "Padded" all that time. Had to adjust my tactics after that.

Anyway, it's a simple format, we seem to do alright, never had a serious injury (Bloody noses from time to time) and always fun and easily adjustable to the day's needs.

Royal Dragon

[apoweyn]

thanks royal dragon.

[Royal Dragon]

:D always glad to help.

RD