Point Sparring is self defeating

[Dedication]

I as a kung fu student have always wished to try out my true skills. However, i have seen nothing but point sparring(light contact) in any tournaments. Now, point sparring teaches techniques that are not good for true fighting, and have no follow up attacks. So i ask, why do martial arts intended for self defense, train students for a situation entirely different? It makes you really wonder why there have not been any kung fu practitioners being successful in K1 or such. I still love kung fu, but i think in order to make people better fighters, point sparring has to go, and full contact needs to be ushered in.

[LEGEND]

Dedication...I guess your skool maybe part of the mcdojo branch. This is quite common since full contact=injuries=less enrollment=no capital gain! U may wish to enroll into a CMA skool that trains for SAN SHOU and SAN DA tourneys...they are all full contact CMA events.

[Dedication]

Nah, i dont think im in a mcdojo, we dont train for tournies, but i meant the only tournies i have ever seen advertised for Karate and kung fu are point sparrign light contact ****. My sifu has taught me pretty good about how to handle a streetfight. Yes i am VERY interested in San Shou ( i wrestled fora year too!) but i dont know of any schools in the area. Do you knw of any in PA (specifically Pittsburgh area), however if i go to VMI for college do you know of any down there?

[lau gar]

yeh i want to do full contact not just point sparring

[SevenStar]

1. point tournies are something that men women and children can participate in

2. if you don't train seriously hard, you will get hurt going full contact. Not everyone wants to take that risk.

3. unless you live in a big MA area, chances are that nobody is promoting full contact there on a regular basis.

4. liability and paperwork issues on the promoter's end.

That being said, take some initiative. travel to full contact events, or if your sifu throws tournies, ask him to do continuous format, where you don't stop for points, and takedowns are allowed.

[LEGEND]

DEDICATION...well the closest are san shou tourneys in NYC and Baltimore, MD. So check those area out on san shou links or ask IFKMD( ??? )...he's an instructor in NYC that promotes san shou. The drive is at least 3 hours i think either way. Don't know if it'll be worth it for u but u'll have fun or get KO. lol.

[TaoBoy]

Point-sparring is just a game of tag - if anyone thinks it is more than that hey are wrong. It's true that it doesn't promote good 'reality' fighting skill, but it is good for developing entry-exit speed and targeting. I'm not a big fan of point sparring, but if you look hard enought (almost) everything has some kind of benefit.

[fa_jing]

In terms of maximum benefit to your learning, I think medium-contact continuous sparring is best. The last CMA tournament I participated in was full-contact, knock'em out, and 4 competitors out of 15 were either knocked out or had the fights stopped due to injury, including me. They didn't even have a first-aid kit, standardized equipment, or a rules sheet which speaks badly of the organization of the tournament.

[Hau Tien]

Originally posted by fa_jing
In terms of maximum benefit to your learning, I think medium-contact continuous sparring is best. The last CMA tournament I participated in was full-contact, knock'em out, and 4 competitors out of 15 were either knocked out or had the fights stopped due to injury, including me. They didn't even have a first-aid kit, standardized equipment, or a rules sheet which speaks badly of the organization of the tournament.

Yup... that's what I was going to suggest... most tournaments I've been to have both point sparring and continuous sparring. If you don't like point sparring, try out the continuous, although a lot of the people entering that section around here aren't kung fu guys, but Muay Thai guys.

[Liokault]

full contact=injuries=less enrollment=no capital gain

We get very few injurys in full contact and we only sparr full contact. What tends to happen is that after sparring full contact for the first time.....finding how scared they are the vast majority of guys just dont come back and train again=no capital gain LOL.





San Shou rules....Its great ...I can not say that strongly enough.

Its full contact...but its safer than boxing or kick boxing because you are not encouraged to stand in front of a guy and trade punches. Ok you can do that in san shou but mostly its a fast exchange of blows then a clinch then a throw.


In about 15 or so san shou fights I have done I can only remembey 1 hard blow to my head!!

[yenhoi]

Dedication:

Important to point out that MA does not prepare you for self-defense. MA trains your mind/body/spirit for combat.

(Real) sparring is only a few steps closer to real fighting then point fighting is. For your time and energy payoff, you get more bang for your buck with regular, full contact sparring then you do with any other sort of combat simulation.

Also, for some reason beyond McDojos even, people seem to like point fighting - cause they do it in large numbers, and that is not 100% because of the instructors and schools and insurance and other such randomness. Not everyone does MAs to learn how to fight better, there is a giagantic host of motivations - you might be more focused on reality based training, but not everyone else (really the majority) is

[TenTigers]

I spent the first ten years of my training sparring in point tournaments-and the next twenty years trying to break out of bad habits. Fighting range, continuation, etc all bad habits-"The techniques that will win you a plastic trophy will get you killed in the street"
I train my students in this way-so far I am pleased with the results:
sam jien kuen-teaches the student to take strikes-'getting hit doesn't mean getting hurt" this way, the fear is eliminated first thing. Contact is taught the first day.
reaction drills utilzing pak,tan, gong with multiple continuous striking. Similar drills done with extreme contact.
specific attack sequences-i.e. front thrust kick,chain punches, cup choy-we teach in the beginning just five sequences which are non-stop combos using entries kicks, and punches from our style-meaning not kickboxing, but gung-fu.
controlled sparring-continuous-using only the techniques allowed from the drills, both with gear and bare knuckle, with different levels of contact.
leading to free-sparring. various levels of contact-with and without gear.

[TenTigers]

as stated before, I am pleased with the results-so far most students can spar freely using their gung-fu. Some students who have had experience (I have many Black Belts from other schools training here) sometimes when under the gun, revert back to what has worked for them in the past-old habits are hard to break. In this case, we take a step back in the training, perhaps more drills, or slow it down, or limit their attacks and counters to specific techniques.
"If you joined a Kung-Fu school, then you should be fighting with Kung-Fu, otherwise go down the block to the American Karate school." um...I seem to say that alot on the floor.

[Dedication]

Ten Tigers , you read my mind. What style do you teach? My sifu never really seemed concerned about the tournies in the area, but he does a good job of teaching me self defense, however i want to compete .

[Tai-Jutsuka]

Yes, point sparring is a bunch of crap. Seeing this topic reminded me of a tournament earlier this year. I had to fight a guy who was bigger then me in a point fight. His basic fighting strategy was just to fall on me flailing his arms to make sure he always gets the first hit though none of his hits ever hurt me. I was only able to hit him twice because of it, but both my hits struck him pretty deep. With 5 seconds left in the fight I was furious. I decided that since I wasn't going to continue in the tournament I was going to hurt him very badly. The ref counted down to 1 second, he dropped his guard since it was over, I decided to use a big uppercut to the chin knocking him on his ass, delaying his next fight about 10 minutes, and banning me from any more tournaments sponsored by whatever-that-guys-name-was. And I'm usually such a nice guy too.