Bad habits from sparring
I've heard this line time and again, and although I might have tunnel vision on the subject due to my own training habits, I simply can't see it. Just to be the devils advocate, lets think about this for a moment.
In the beginning, man knew nothing. Through pragmatic means (trial and error) man learns new things...what to do...what not to do...etc. It's the same thing with fighting and fighting techniques.
Every method of fighting on the earth today was created at some point from pragmatic methods, or past information which itself was gathered by pragmatic means. It can also be said that some people took this limited knowledge and through logic may have conceived other techniques based on previous similar experiences (This could be where the theorists came from). Some of what was theorized was tested and some was not. It can then be said that all these methods were passed from teacher to student and so forth till today...some evolving with times, and some not. Some theory, some pragmatic, somewhere in between, and sometimes to both extremes.
Now you have all these styles out there, all limited in some form or fashion, dictating what most people do in a fight. Now you've got two different types, most people are robots, doing only what they're told without thinking as to why, or even thinking logically if it may not work. They just do it on blind faith. Then there are a few people out there that do question all that is learned, they think for themselves, knowing that their survival in this subject is ultimately up to them.
Sparring/fighting is essential to fighting, and the human body adapts almost at a subconcious level...if you let it. If you don't keep your hands up and start getting hit in the face a lot, odds are you are going to start raising up the guard. If you keep your weight too forward and people are constantly sweeping you, you're probably going to keep more aware of what that front leg is doing and put less weight on in when you're in that danger zone. If people are constantly going for your legs, you're eventually going to sprawl your legs out naturally to a degree in a simple effort to keep your legs away from the attack. Etc...etc...etc. It causes one to think about what they're doing, and informs them quite honestly, as to what they're doing wrong.
Granted, if you were to take a completely clean slate, and throw them into a fight, odds are that they will get pummeled. Training this way with a noob consistently, without teaching at least the basics, will create a long learning curve. But bad habits? I still fail to see what bad habits could come. Fighting is like a filter, it will weed out the useless techniques and literally create effective ones.
So for those of you who believe that hard sparring creates bad habits, please, give some specifics of what you're speaking of. Because maybe it's just me, or maybe Im just not thinking right in terms of what you mean.
Last edited by SAAMAG; 03-14-2005 at 04:56 PM.
"I don't know if anyone is known with the art of "sitting on your couch" here, but in my eyes it is also to be a martial art.
It is the art of avoiding dangerous situations. It helps you to avoid a dangerous situation by not actually being there. So lets say there is a dangerous situation going on somewhere other than your couch. You are safely seated on your couch so you have in a nutshell "difused" the situation."