I believe it is vital to have some type of contact in your training. MMA and BJJ gave me this. From the rough and tumble, the chaos and proximity of free form sparring you learn a lot about yourself, what you would use in said street situation and what you would not. The theory behind many traditional techniques in an application sense do make sense, however throw in the unpredictability of fighting and most do not work.

Another gem from MMA is fighting with a much bigger and skilled person whilst being very tired. You should know what this feels like and how you would react All martial arts should have some type of developmental and incremental sparring, put the theory into practise with your training partners. Humans learn from experiences so go and have some!!!