Sonshu, I completely agree with you. Sparring is a great and essential training tool. I know what Bujinkan people reffer to free sparring, and I'm not thinking of that. If the attacker does not give resistance, than you cannot learn to fight. I agree that introductory level sparring is when attacker doesn't give resistance and acts with less tactics. But there is a whole another dimension when you start to do semi and full-contact sparring WITH attackers resistance. That means, when attacker wants to spoil your technique and doesn't act like a brainless dummy. Which is, unfortunately, just the situation in most of the Bujinkan schools.
Maybe this should actually go in the "10 most common ninjutsu myths" thread: "Bujinkan training is about learning and applying techniques." My smilies aren't working or I'd use the "banging head against wall" one here.
Yeah, funny as it look, but tragically true that big number of Bujinkan people actualy don't do that. Throwing away years of training. Of course, I'm not trying to say EVERYBODY in Bujinkan, but majority.
So, in short, you are saying that you train so that if someone knows what is coming far enough in advance to set up resistance, you continue on with an attack they are preparing for??????? I personally think that if someone is trying to cover point A, you switch targets and hit areas B, C and D.
wouldn't it be fairly easy to kill someone if there simply focussed on resisting your technique? it always seems these discussions are based around the sort of kyu level, not grade, type training/thinking ie. ' i'm going to do an omete gyaku' if you don't know what you are going to do, how will they? and when you do do what you don't know what your going to do in a way they can't feel until it's too late, how do you resist that? i think the problem is a few people like dale and ben are just begining to 'get it' that is, what sensei has been trying to show for many years. even dare i say it, hatsumi sensei is stiil 'getting it' from what takamatsu sensei showed him. therefore what is seen in many dojo hasn't caught up yet. it is a slow process to atain this level of the true bujinkan arts, and for anyone to think they understand or can see what is going on after a couple of years is laughable. so in short you probably couldn't even see whats right under your nose, however hard you look at the video. i could be completely wrong though.
Ah, you've noticed that too. . . That's a delightful restatement of an important point. Yesterday in my town we had an all-day training with a number of West Coast senior instructors and a "captive Japanese shihan" who, being stuck here for a year, has been authorized by Sensei to train while he's here. One thing we went into was the Musashi ryu taijutsu approach that got Takamatsu sensei's elbow dislocated in a match when he was young (it's a way of countering an opponent's defense against your attack). The shihan having shown this, we worked on it for a while; then my friend Bill Atkins showed how this approach can be countered. I saw people having huge difficulties with that because they were trying to "resist/counter a counter-technique". So I pointed out and demonstrated that to counter that Musashi ryu approach it's not necessary to know what sort of technique he's trying to do -- and in fact, if you DO know then you've already lost the timing you need to be effective. If you're trying to work with "the timing of the technique" there's too much lag time: You need to work with "the timing of the space" at a "pre-technique" level, and this allows you to neutralize him and flow into all sorts of things -- which I demonstrated at speed. That's exactly right -- most people, in most dojo, do not yet "have the eyes to see" what we're talking about; possibly because their own teachers coming back from training in Japan don't see it yet themselves. If they did, then threads like "Is Bujinkan training methodology really effective?" would simply generate amused chuckles.
uhhh ur not suppose to actually break each others neck in sparring, ur suppose to like stop when u know the next move is checkmate, in other words u stop before u actually hit them in the face. that builds them confidence and they wont get scared they gunna get hurt so there not gunna start flailing on each other.
WhereMyRiceGo: "uhhh ur not suppose to actually break each others neck in sparring,..." I can agree with that. "...ur suppose to like stop when u know the next move is checkmate, ..." I don't stop until I feel safe (usually after I've ran out the door - yes I do do that in sparring - adds realism ya' know). "...in other words u stop before u actually hit them in the face." You stop before you hit them in the face? Doesn't that cheat your training partner out of a useful experience? "that builds them confidence and they wont get scared they gunna get hurt so there not gunna start flailing on each other. " Sounds more like false sense of security. I don't spar much, but sometimes kata geiko can go a little randori on you and it's like sparring. The pace is a bit slowed, and tech's are pulled just enough to prevent serious injury, but real contact is made. Bujinkaners will recognize this motto: "keep going." - it applies to so many areas, but in the context of training: you don't stop after you hit your partner, and you don't stop after they hit you. One must 'keep going' until a safe resolution is reached. As far as opponents / training partners / sparring partners resisting techniques . . . If they are able to resist, then your technique probably wasn't good enough in the first place, or more likely it was too obvious. I've never successfully put on a technique that I was trying to do on a resisting opponent - because I was "trying to put on a technique" - if I just let it happen and kept myself safe, my opponent is unable to resist because they are doing it to themselves. When I train with my sensei, I can ukemi out of nearly everything he tries if I notice it coming, but most of the time, he is so slick, that I get turned around just trying to resist and end up getting shuto'ed in my cerebellum - which stops any further efforts, let me tell you . . . Like I said, I don't do much sparring, but when I do, it frustrates the hizell out of my opponent, because I don't try to fight really. I walk around avoiding their attacks, and when I see an opening, I punch them in the face (or whereever). This continues until they realize how futile the whole exercise is and eventually give up. It is much like Dale's 30-second video clip, just with a little more blood - because I am not skilled enough as a martial artist yet to prevent that.
If your partner doesnt feel fear than he isn't getting anything valuable from the experience. If you dont feel he is going to hit you, why move at all? Not wanting to get hit is what motivates you to protect yourself. Without a little fear the sparring is just a game and not a useful tool. A good poke in the face will let you know your timing or distance is off...Will tell you you'd better keep your hands up, or you better wait for an actual opening before striking, etc...Better to feel the fear and overcome it in a training enviroment than to get into a real situation a freeze/lose confidence and get killed or maimed.
if u watch ppl who are in judo spar , they practice take downs, they stop after they get there partners down. sparring isnt beating each others face in, its practicing, trying different things and seeing what can bypass what technique. pretty much trial and error / experimenting without having to worry about getting ur eyes pulled out. look at this sparring video: http://www.hungkuen.com/video/1_T1.mov
Hitting someone in the face is checkmate? I wonder why no one told this to boxers, who get hit in the face all the time in sparring and keep going. Depends on the Judo. Plenty of Judo guys do ground work, and if they're stopping after the throw that's fine if they're just working on their throws, but again, throwing someone isn't "checkmate". Unless you get lucky with your throw or punch, or you're just really really good, the fight is likely to continue either until someone get's knocked out, someone gives up, or the fight gets broken up. There's a place for no contact sparring and a place for full contact. Yeah you can build up confidence with no contact so you don't just start flailing around, but if that's all you practice then in an actual fight with full contact, chances are you're going to just flail around like an idiot because you're not used to getting hit. And if you think that video was sparring then geez, I don't even know where to begin
uhh maybe cuz u guys have gloves n mouthguards. boxing is modern. ninjutsu didnt use boxing gloves n mouthguards and stuff like that back then.
