Mississauga Elite Martial Arts
For sparring think quality over quantity
*** please note i am only talking about for combat uses, martial arts are great overall often very intricate and beautiful so practicing them for personal development or fitness is great but combat is another thing entirely **
Sparring / live training or whatever you want to call it is very useful tool in giving you that real feedback on your training
In many martial arts more popular before the growth of MMA (now usually called traditional martial arts) many had the idea that whatever they were attempting would work without having ever practiced it vs resistance.
Even today its not uncommon in some circles that you have black belts or instructor level students that have never actually plied their craft under real conditions, just believing in their techniques would work because a higher ranked student said it would????
Clearly not the case… The first thing you realize when working vs a live opponent is that magic punch kick or strategy doesn’t often work after-all as world boxing champion Mike Tyson so eloquently put it
Enter modern combat sports
Along come more reality based combat sports like BJJ, Sambo, Boxing and Muay Thai and the mixture of them for mma competition, and we have a complete revolution in terms of how to prepare for real combat through martial arts training. In some ways that’s good thing, as a dose of reality is just what many need, but for the most part I can safely say things have gone too far in the other direction.
In today’s day and age it seems just about anyone with a Gi, mouth piece or pair of gloves is ready to rock and roll. Dressing the part and attending a few classes doesn’t make you ready to spar.
To get the best results from your training efforts try working with the following thought in mind.
“You are always practicing something. Every round creates habits whether good or bad “.
Learning the correct reactions and techniques to apply at the right time is far better for you development in any martial art or fighting system, than aimlessly banging around with a sparring partner.
How many times have you seen two fairly hapless people beating each-other up? Sure 1 person takes less of a beating than the other but there is no real winner with you approach training that way.
Building you martial arts skills the smart way
A much better / safer approach is to take your time developing skills and once you have a decent overview of the task at hand, step things up a notch with some more varied sparring.
Lets take boxing for example, instead of throwing heavy leather at each other in the formative stages of your training, why not take things step by step with set sparring / drilling?
Start with ” set reps ” of each person attacking 3-5 five times with any of the below listed tools, followed by free sparring with the same tools.
only the jab
jab or hooks
- any lead hand punch
- jab and cross
- jab and any rear hand punch
- full sparring
The fact your partner is only dealing with limited options helps build the comfort level to a point where full sparring makes sense for both parties involved.
Coming up next..
Really How hard should you be sparring??
