Instructors, when do you introduce your students to sparring?

[Aaron J]

I have heard a couple different schools of thought on this and am interested in your practices.

I am also curious about your sparring and kata relationship.

 

[pugpaws2]

I believe in sparring. It is a good way to have students get their feet wet so to speak. Without sparring martial arts are like learning to swim by lying on a towel beside the pool and going through the motions of the different strokes. However there can be a big problem with sparring too. Sparring must have rules or limited technique. Otherwise someone would get seriously injured quickly. I'm not talking about sparring light contact with the flashy flip/slap techniques common in sport tournaments. I'm talking about martial arts that are practiced for self-defense. We teach many techniques that simply can't be simulated. Either you do them or you don't. Those techniques can't be used in sparring at all. To do them easy is to have them not work at all. So that leaves us with this. We have students spar as a training tool. We do not see it as being realistic for teaching real life self-defense. Most real life situations are over in a very short time. Unfortunately, I have had to use my training on several occasions. In all of them I was surprised by an attacker. All of these attacks were over in only a few seconds. Had I known they were going to come, I simply would have left the area.

Often, I hear people tell me that because we don't spar that we can't possibly know if what wee do works. After all we have not tested them against a non compliant opponent. When I explain what I stated above, they just press the statement more. These same people will try to tell me that because they spar full power that they know that they can fight. I point out that they are not accomplishing what they think they are. What they don't seem to realize is that they are not fighting for their life. They do not spar intending to kill their opponent. Neither do they expect that the opponent is trying to kill them. In the heat of aggressive sparring, it is easy to forget that it is not as close to a real fight as they think. Often I have these same bone heads challenge me to prove that it is possible to develop good self-defense skills without sparring in the normal sense of the term. I do not accept challenges. I care not if someone things they know better than I do. But there have been a few that would not take no for an answer. I have been attacked once or twice by these so called experts on the subject. As a result i had to do what I train to do. I've hurt a few people because to do what we practice is not safe. After putting them down a few times they either leave never to return, or they want to be my student. I send them on their way. Bottom line here is that good technique, proper training in a one on one environment is effective, if you don't hold back when it is really needed. I'm sure that many will disagree with me. But the fact still remains. I have on several occasions defended myself against some aggressive people. Then after the first time I have even told them what I was going to do if they used the same attack again. In all cases I have been able to defeat them using techniques that they knew I was going to use. These comments are not intended to brag or say that what I do is better than what others study. These comments are here only to get others to stop and think about the subject in a different way than they are accustomed to.

Just my thoughts.


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[Christopher L]

I'm not an instructor, but in my karate shodokan classes, it's Orange belt+ with padding, and Green belt+ without, if you dont have padding (body equipment) then I'd just do what my judo instructor doses.

"Are you 12?"
"Yeah"
"Go spar."