Full Contact Training: How do YOU do it?

Some of my training brothers want to go at it full contact. My sifu doesn't normally train this way, but he's given his OK if we want to try it.

When you guys train full contact, what exactly do you mean. What protection do you wear? Do you include throws and takedowns? If so, what kind of surface are you training on? What about sweeps? What about kicks/strikes against a down opponent? Weapons? If so, do you modify or pad them at all? Do you have any "full contact rules" that might be good?

Just looking for brainstorming here. I want good realistic training, but don't want to look like I've joined the "Fight Club."

TIA

"This is harder than it looks... and it looks impossible!"
-Chuckie Finster

I think that you would have to limit it in someway. After all the point of training is to PREVENT yourself from getting hurt(ie a permanent injury), not to ask for it. Just remember unlike your material possesions you cannot replace body parts...unless you live in southern california, but thats another story.
So I think you'd have to wear some kind of gloves or hand wraps (the lightweight fingerless ones are pretty good). In addition, a cup and mouth piece. The front of the face is also very vulnerable to injury. The sinuses (the areas to each side of your nose) are about as thin as an egg shell and very easy to break. Also, I've heard that if hit right the cartilage from the nose can push into the brain and cause injury or death. So I think that you would have to say no straight shots to the front of the face or my recommendation would be to wear a boxing helmet with a face mask..it limits visibility but you don't have to limit your movements.
You would also have to limit some moves...no eye gouges(face mask would probably take care of this as well), no knee stomps or arm breaks.
A mat would also help break the impact of falls. You need this unless you are a drunken, monkey or aikido master.
Lastly, full contact sparring is still dangerous. You could get ribs broken, break stuff if you're thrown, etc. The longer you are in the martial arts the more you realize how easy it is to hurt people.
I would not recommend this unless you are really high level, have practiced falling and have some level of iron shirt training.

Fu-Pow

Fu-Pow
"If you are talking about sport that is one thing. But when you are talking about combat-as it is-well then, baby, you'd better train every part of your body" - Bruce Lee

Well, I'm afraid we don't at my school. All we do is point-sparring which I consider valueless. I'd be very interested, though, to hear some answers to your questions...

K. Mark Hoover

I don't do full contact either and would be interested to see how it is done right.

at my school we do continual sparring (we dont stop for points or anything) and i would suspect that it would be just like that only hit hard.

no attacks to joints, eyes or neck
if your doing take downs use a mat or control your opponets as they fall
use as much gear as you do when normaly sparring
and use controled techniques

someone else please say more.

Civilize the mind but make savage the body

Besides your training, just because you say "it's full contact" doesnt mean you have to grab every oppertunity to be as brutal as you can. I for one would hesitate before using eye gouging or jamming a knee into someones face. I dont know if it's because i'm a wussy or what :) But i'm not sure i'd ever use any kind of eye gouging or anything that would (intentually) cause long term damage.

Free thinkers are dangerous.

we also do continual sparring. you really need to wear boxing gloves, as they are more padded than sparring gloves. 16 oz gloves are somewhat bulky, so you might want to try 12oz. the only problem is that you will not be able to use palm strikes and such. If we want to spar hard, and utilize everything (which we call kung fu sparring, just to differentiate between the two) we spar just as hard, however, we don't strike to the face, and use fairly light contact to the head. It's open season on the rest of the body though (except the nads, of course!)when we spar this way we also allow sweeps and throws.

"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; A fool speaks because he has to say something."

We do full contact, however you must progress to a certain level before you are allowed fight. It is a progressive training regimine designed to make the student aware of what full contact is and enable them to maintain composure when pressed. The more experieced do not pummel to the inexperienced because neither will learn from it.
The more experieced will however often times press the inexperienced to their breaking point (where defense and concentration fall apart). The more experienced will work on improving advanced technique that they have yet to master while fighting the less experienced.

Our general rule is don't intentionaly end someones career (i.e. take someones knee out or smash other joints.) nuts are fair game however.

No pads, headgear or gloves. Only rules, the head is off limits for punches, takedowns only when the mats are out, and use control and common sense with what technique you use.

Wearing gear is great for going at it harder.

I think doing both is the way to go.

BTW qeySuS is right on the money.

good post dunn...I've done point sparring & did pretty good, but that was at my old school..where I attend now they do full contact sparring(at least the advanced people do) & some of the guys r huge...6 foot something 250 or so, I sorta dread fighting him full contact....though it just makes more sense to be able to practice the techniques you learn as opposed to just kickboxing.(not that there's anything wrong w/that, but I practice Wing Chun...I don't want to study that & then spar like a kickboxer)but it's good to see from the posts that others approach full contact w/a level head, 'cause at some point I look forward to participating......ahh...sweet security. ;)

[This message was edited by Abstract on 04-03-01 at 05:34 PM.]

Well I know where I train the guys that want to be MMA fighters normal get thrown into the mix almost right away. For the most part it is broken down into two parts, striking and grappling. The striking is basically boxing/Muay Thai, and the grappling is a mix of wrestling, Ruas Vale Tudo and "freestyle BJJ." When it gets close to a fight, the fighter is thrown into the cage and goes at it non-stop for three ten minutes rounds against three fresh fighters. If you are doing this for fun or self defense, I would suggest two or three drills then straight sparring, changing partners at the end of every round until the end of class. I would say no elbows or knees, strikes to the head ok(except the back of the head). Standard boxing equipment with head gear being optional. I normally also wear light shin guards as well when sparring.-ED

Ginsue has a pretty good thang going at his school. Same at mine...I wear boxing gloves...but go LIGHT on the HEAD unless we're wearing BOXING HEADGEARS( note: not the point fighting ones )...when u say FULL CONTACT...the goal is not to hit SUPER hard to KO your opponent...the goal is to train hard and be precise...depending on the body...u may wear the chest protector! Mostly 2 parts...striking sparring then ground sparring!

A

First, two ground rules for real full contact sparring, if you don't want to get hurt.
1. Don't spar people you don't trust. That's a biggie. Otherwise you get too many people just out there to hurt you.
2. The general contact rule is "go home and stay friends." Injuries are inevitable (hell I broke 6 bones in 1998 alone. I haven't gone a full year without breaking a bone since 1996.) But if everyone doesn't take it too seriously, and everyone agrees to take it easy and stay friends, everyone will keep on training happy.

As for my school, the rules depend on your level of training, your opponent's level of training, and what your opponent is comfortable with. But eventually, and it may take a couple of years to get here, everyone starts going pretty hard. At this point, ALLOT of people drop out.
Padding/protection includes foam padded footgear, 12oz gloves or those foam dipped point sparring gloves if you can be carefull with the fingers in the face, a cup, a cup, a cup, a mouthpeice, and headgear (Olympic boxing headgear is best.)
As far as throws, any. Strikes, any. Targets, instead of eyes, finger jabs to the forehead are ok. Instead of attacking a joint full force, we attack directly above it or below it. Like the thigh or shin instead of the knee. The groin is just fine. Personally, I don't strike directly to the face. I choose the head instead, somewhere there is padding. But that's just my polite little rule. And we fight on a matt usually. When we fight outside, or at another school without a matt, we have to take the throws a bit easy.
The fight is NEVER over when someone hits the ground. You are expected to strike people on the ground. And the fight is over when the instructor says so or a fighter submits.

BTW, I've noticed most injuries occur from bad kicks (broken toes) bad blocks (broken hands/fingers, falls from throws or strikes (mostly sprains and strains-sometimes a concusion, and foot/leg sweeps (broken shin bones).

JW

If you pr!ck us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that the villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. MOV

nice to see this post:) I am a long way from Full contact as I've just started Wing Chun....but in time I will be up there and nice to see you guys so at your schools:)

Koing

"Bye 4 now; not 4 ever"

In traditional 8 step training, you just go slightly lighter with your training the week of the fight and just do it.

The other side is that with traditional training i would take a few years before you were fighting, drills, foundations,2 man sets, techniques, slow sparring etc.


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