Sparring Without Injury

[ShaolinDan]

Kind of an aside to the "Sparring without Instructor" thread.


I find that when I spar with medium or heavier contact, I frequently get injured. Right now I'm nearly recovered from a frustrating month with a badly bruised rib.
Light sparring is fun and fine, and what I usually do, but lacks the feel of "reality."

For those of you who spar hard on a regular basis, what do you do to avoid injuries?

[Kellen Bassette]

Kind of an aside to the "Sparring without Instructor" thread.


I find that when I spar with medium or heavier contact, I frequently get injured. Right now I'm nearly recovered from a frustrating month with a badly bruised rib.
Light sparring is fun and fine, and what I usually do, but lacks the feel of "reality."

For those of you who spar hard on a regular basis, what do you do to avoid injuries?

I guess you got to assess what your most common injuries are and work on ways to avoid them. My most common problems are bone bruises to my shins and pulled muscles during clinching/throwing.

The past couple years I have focused more on my shin conditioning, which has really helped, along with being better about wearing decent shin pads...another problem with that is I often spar much larger men, with much bigger legs. I have to be a lot more careful picking my shots with them, to not have my kicks checked or hit shin to shin.

The pulled muscles usually aren't a problem if I do a solid 10 minutes of stretching, instead of just a few quick half-hearted stretches before jumping in the ring. I know that's on me when it happens.

For worse injuries, (like your ribs,) you really got to let that heal. Seems like every time I spar hard with an injury it gets hit again...then it takes way to long to heal. I did that last year with my hip blade, I got kneed and it bruised pretty good, the next week I was sparring a bigger guy and took a real solid punch in the exact same spot, (weird situation.) It took a solid month before I could spar; and I was gun shy about that hip for quite a while after...

[YouKnowWho]

I used to use Kendo equipment to train full contact. The only problem is since it doesn't hurt, you may get lazy to block any body punch.

http://imageshack.us/a/img545/4410/gd98.png

I also use my bullet-proof vest (my birthday gift) for full contact on the body too.

[Kellen Bassette]

I also use my bullet-proof vest (my birthday gift)

Your worried about one of those "internal only" guys doing you in, aren't you...

[MasterKiller]

If you spar with any reasonable amount of force on a consistent basis, you're going to get injuries. If you continue to spar without properly resting and healing these injuries, like most of us, these injuries will become exacerbated. Exacerbated injuries will exponentionally increase the frequency and duration of which you are unable to spar. Eventually, these injuries will be beyond repair and you will no longer be able to spar. Thus, proper sparring leads to not sparring.

[GoldenBrain]

When sparring a younger practitioner for the sake of training, always spar the student at their own level of ability or just slightly more, so as to evoke learning and progress from them. Never beat on younger students and do not allow advanced students to beat on them either.When fighting someone with less training, fight just slightly above their level so as to fine tune and control the level of engagement, at the same time assisting the other person in upgrading their art.

I whole heartedly agree with this statement. In fact, I agree with everything you said SKM. In our system we say fight to your opponents ability. And, if it's a real fight, then fight until there's no fight left in your opponent. This does not mean kill, it just means you are obligated to stop beating them up when they stop attacking you.

ShaolinDan, If you have sparring partners who do not live by this, but instead are there to feed their own egos then I'd suggest moving on. If a student is regularly showing their psycho nature and hurting people on purpose then the instructor or his best student…whoever wears the black hat…should run them out of the school. Violently if needed.

Miyamoto Musashi said in the Book of Five Rings that an injury sustained in martial training should be considered as equal to an injury sustained in battle. I believe he was making the point that martial training is combat training which is serious war training. People should respect this concept because what they are learning can do serious damage to people so it should not be taken lightly.

[ShaolinDan]

Thus, proper sparring leads to not sparring.

That's what concerns me.
I've read about your (and other's) long-term injuries on here, and taken it to heart. The challenge seems to be finding the balance between training hard enough and often enough to fight well, verses preventing chronic injuries that inhibit one's ability to fight. For my goals I'd prefer to err on the side of too little hard contact...but I'd like to have as much as I can without crossing that line. Tricky problem with a lot of luck and random chance mixed in. Appreciate reading everyone's thoughts.

[Brule]

............. Thus, proper sparring leads to not sparring.

thus, practise your forms more.....

[YouKnowWho]

Your worried about one of those "internal only" guys doing you in, aren't you...

You won't believe what kind of birthday gift that I have received every year. Besides bullet-proof vest, I also received stun gun, pepper spray, Star War sword, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sword, Walther PPK, ...

http://images.search.yahoo.com/image...nsw&hspart=avg

[-N-]

You won't believe what kind of birthday gift that I have received every year. Besides bullet-proof vest, I also received stun gun, pepper spray, Star War sword, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sword, Walther PPK, ...

Can't she just get you a nice package of noodles?

[David Jamieson]

Kind of an aside to the "Sparring without Instructor" thread.


I find that when I spar with medium or heavier contact, I frequently get injured. Right now I'm nearly recovered from a frustrating month with a badly bruised rib.
Light sparring is fun and fine, and what I usually do, but lacks the feel of "reality."

For those of you who spar hard on a regular basis, what do you do to avoid injuries?

Conditioning is key to preventing injury.
Not that it's a panacea, but it helps a lot to condition your body to be struck via various methods.

Sparring is almost never going to be a scenario where injuries do not occur.
The important thing is to not spar with ego. Because that turns into a quick pile of shyte an detracts from learning.

[SavvySavage]

Kind of an aside to the "Sparring without Instructor" thread.


I find that when I spar with medium or heavier contact, I frequently get injured. Right now I'm nearly recovered from a frustrating month with a badly bruised rib.
Light sparring is fun and fine, and what I usually do, but lacks the feel of "reality."

For those of you who spar hard on a regular basis, what do you do to avoid injuries?

Do you do any grappling? You will suffer less injuries if you include grappling sparring into your training.

[ShaolinDan]

@GoldenBrain: Thanks man, good tips. I'm 5'8", between 135-140lbs...before starting kung fu and getting mabu thighs, I weighed 125 lbs for years. BTW I do smile a lot when sparring, it's a game after all.

@SavvySavage: I usually spar with both striking and grappling...I find this can be problematic though, as striking is usually done with reduced power and grappling is not...can be misleading and also difficult for people to keep adjusting their force output.

@everyone: Thanks. Seems like iron body conditioning is a must...but that's going to take some time to make a difference, so any other suggestions to keep going in the meantime are appreciated.

I know there's been a thread on sparring gear before...When I spar I usually just wear cup, mouthguard, light shin pads and mma gloves (or nothing for light sparring). Sometimes I will wear boxing gloves for heavier hitting. Any thoughts on chest guards? Would have saved my ribs this last time, but I hate the lack of mobility. I also want to know when I get hit.

[GoldenBrain]

@GoldenBrain: Thanks man, good tips. I'm 5'8", between 135-140lbs...before starting kung fu and getting mabu thighs, I weighed 125 lbs for years. BTW I do smile a lot when sparring, it's a game after all.

@everyone: Thanks. Seems like iron body conditioning is a must...but that's going to take some time to make a difference, so any other suggestions to keep going in the meantime are appreciated.

I know there's been a thread on sparring gear before...When I spar I usually just wear cup, mouthguard, light shin pads and mma gloves (or nothing for light sparring). Sometimes I will wear boxing gloves for heavier hitting. Any thoughts on chest guards? Would have saved my ribs this last time, but I hate the lack of mobility. I also want to know when I get hit.

You're not that small at 5'8", but you are light and probably quick so use that to your advantage. Dance around, wait for the openings and capitalize. I use hard blocking like elbows to top of feet and ankles when people kick to high towards my mid section. It's easy to just drop an elbow and check that kick. In friendly sparring I don't block low kicks with my knees very often, so as to keep from causing the kind of injury that what we just saw in the UFC but that is always on the table for those who are trying to hurt you. I will sometimes put my knee pads on just to work on that, but normally I just try to block kicks with kicks or soak them up on my shins. I also strike at points on the arms as people throw punches. The top of the forearm at the top of the radius and the inside of the wrist at the bottom of the radius as well as the inside of the biceps at the brachial are favorite targets. This usually slows down my opponents and gives them pause for thought before throwing the next strike.

I think you'll be surprised at how fast you'll see results from iron body training. I'd say if you're consistent you'll start seeing results within just a few weeks. And, from there it just gets better and better. Iron hand conditioning is the same. I found my striking was much harder, to the point that I had to pull back more of my power, after only a few weeks of the conditioning. I'm sure you've seen warnings from other members on this forum about doing this kind of conditioning incorrectly so keep that in mind.

I only use a custom fitted by a dentist mouth guard, various types of gloves and the nicest cup/compression shorts combo I could find. I used to wear light weight shin guards but now my shins are like diamonds so I haven't bothered with that in years. We wear mat shoes so only the bare footed students have to wear foot pads. This is really only to protect our feet. We don't have that many injuries in our school other than bruises and nose bleeds because we absolutely live by the motto of fight to the lesser opponents ability. Sometimes though, as careful as we are there are some rude injuries, but that's mostly on the higher level belt test. I do bang it out with some of my MMA buddies but I don't think I'd recommend anybody roll with the heavy hitters like that outside of their school until they have reached a high level of skill or hit a plateau in their own school. It's great experience to spar with people outside of your school but if you are still being challenged by your teacher or others of higher rank then what's the point. Stay in the relatively safe environment that you know.

[Pete]

Any thoughts on chest guards? Would have saved my ribs this last time, but I hate the lack of mobility. I also want to know when I get hit.

i think if you wear the taekwondo ones then your mobility will be ****

maybe something like this would be better:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RDX-Advanc...item2ec9b3b899

i've only used a cheap 60rmb chest protector before, it had good mobility and you could still feel the hits it just took the edge off really and at least i never broke a rib

edit: well, the one i posted is apprently a TKD one too, only looked at the pic haha looks lighter than others though