Craig (Sonshu) Sorry I haven't come back to you sooner - been away on business. I'm a bit hesitant to reply now that the thread has evolved somewhat, but here goes……. I'll try and illustrate what I meant in my post with a quick story. My Dojo mate Leon spent 12 years in the ABA and boxed out of Repton, East London (Top class boxing gym). He has also done kick boxing and is a Nightclub bouncer. I asked him if we could spar and of course he agreed. So some time later having gone hammer and tongs at each other, we called time. So there we were, both knackered, and Leon said,"That was a laugh, but how does that help me with my taijutsu? In fact I couldn't use very much of it at all." We both ended up with the conclusion that in BBT, sparring is a real constraint. We had been told a thousand times, but now know this through experience. Leon then said "That's the trouble with sparring, it becomes a competition, not real self defence. This is just about who has the biggest (bleep). This is a long way away from real fighting". So we both really didn't learn much at all. We both know how to take a hit, Leon learned this through sparring and real ring time, I learned it through taijutsu training. Therefore, to me, sparring is really not a necessity; it is a means to an end, but we get there by other methods. Its been said loads of times since, but its horses for courses, some MA find it beneficial and very necessary (great - carry on) and we don't want to devalue it from your point of view, but we tend to find it detrimental to our learning process. Anyway - hope to share another pint with you some time. That is all I was trying to convey. Cheers, DC
To the N00b My answer to any such N00b is this: "In Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, we teach you how to respond, rather than react. There is a huge difference between the two. The only specifics anyone can give you is to point you to all the practitioners who have used Taijutsu in their actual lives in order to avert or survive potential disasters. For me, it would be my friend who got hit by a taxi in Tokyo while on a bicycle, was thrown fifteen feet sidewise and rolled right up unscathed. Or my friend who successfully defended a family trapped in their car from a large group of weapon wielding punks. Or a friend who "unbalanced" a crazed druggie in a hotel lobby merely through words and body language. Or perhaps that man from Eastern Europe (Croatia? Serbia?) who had his leg blown off by a landmine and crawled miles, bleeding all the way, to get help. After a several hour trip, on his belly and in later by vehicle, he survives to this day because of his sheer strength of will to live. All of these examples embody the teachings of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu and NONE of these could be attributed to sparring. In my opinion, and in the opinions of people with vastly more skill and experience in our art, sparring creates a mentality that there is only one way to resolve an issue. Sparring creates habits and reactions; it gets you to think within a box and within a framework. Before you got into the toe-to-toe situation, what brought you to this point? Were you situationally aware? Were you an egotistical assh0le or did you simply find yourself in the wrong place by happenstance? Once you do end up toe-to-toe, when you are focused intentedly upon your sparring partner, have you forgotten that guy behind you who just came back from the bathroom and has found his friend facing off with you? Did you remember him? Did you notice that he had come in with your friend? Once fists are flying, are you focusing on trying to "get techniques" to "win"? Have you forgotten that you could put an ura gyaku on anyone with greasy pinky fingers, if you would just focus on controlling the kukan? Did you know that at the highest levels of BBT, there truly are no "openings." That's because you are the one molding your fate, in real time. The world is much more complex than sparring would have you believe. It takes a lot to get into a fight, make it through a fight, and avoid jailtime after a fight. If you want to learn JUST how to fight, there are far faster ways to learn than through Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. If you want to learn how to live and survive, it will take some time, but we've got some things that we'd like to show you." -ben
Living in Bilston? That would be something to see, skimpy skirts with legs like a trucker and a face to match!!!
i knew they were a couple, Greg's been dropping hints as to Rich's sexuality when he just wanted to come out of the closet!
Funny enough, speaking to a friend (Shane) who trains at a MMA centre here in Melbourne (I think it's called Fighting First or Fighting Fit) he was saying that in class they do "controlled" sparring, exactly they way we do it in the bujinkan. Ie: running through a drill and then just playing with it until you get distance, timing, pressure etc...right, then increasing resistance as your opponant improves, then begining to try and reverse the technique as the opponent improves further. I said, that's really strange that your instructor would have that mindset when so many other MMA seem to think the other way. He said his Instructor says that sparring causes the bad habit of "distance" and distance belongs in the ring and not on the street. Just my (er well his) two cents.
Oh er erm it was you was it wow can someone stop the thread from spinning have to admit my Ninja mind powers worked well last night had people buying me drinks all night hmm now if only I can get em to forget about me dancing to footloose *cue Kenny Logins*
I was done with it all but your as your post was so honest I thought I would post a well done for it. The pressure testing side of things does often show that many points of arts can only be applied in a compliant situation. Sparring a kickboxer or boxer and leaving out the option to grab, and grapple leaves it very much as a kickboxing event and therfore is not overly beneficial for self defence (great fun and work out though). When you add the grappling element and carrying on (within your peramiters) you then take it a step closer to reality - Sparring is not a tear up where you aim to maim each other but a chance to apply what you learn under a non constrained environment - when you did it BBT did not work and a real life altercation if you dont nail the guy in the first attempt "could" go the same way. The way you pressure test it and find out what works when you have limtied time and the pressure when someone stays on you is a great training tool. Adjusted type MMA sparring gives you the option to do this however under compliant situations we can all look fantastic if truth be told. Nice post though!
Besides trying to avoid injuries, is there a bigger reason behind 'no sparring' method that I cannot see? I'm don't see sparring as completely harmful.
I have tried to boil down all of the above into the idea that if you know that there are limitations on what you can do, then you can still train and yet do something else in a real situation. Well..... no. As you train, so shall you fight. Take a look at how Kyokushin guys do in a boxing ring. Kyokushikai is a Karate style started by Mas Oyama. It has tournaments in Japan every year that send several people to the hospital. The only real rule is that there is no punching to the head. So, to use the 'logic' that being aware of the rules makes you free of those rules in a real situation, then they could train with no punches to the head in sparring and yet still cover their head in a real situation. The reality is that boxers eat Kyokushin guys for breakfast whenever they get in the ring with them and the rules say punches to the head are valid. The Kyokushin guys just can't react like they should to punches to the head and get knocked out on a regular basis. I have talked to people involved in some of what I say. Some people of course will say that the solution is to let punches to the head happen in training. They miss the point that no way of sparring is going to be 100 percent accurate. And those points are the ones that will be exploited in a real situation. Think about it, the stress of the situation is not a benifit, it is a minus. You are so stressed in a nasty sparring situation that you unconciously protect what can be hit and can hurt you. You drop awareness and guard on some level to those that you know can't harm you. That is how you train under stress and build habits over time. When everything hits the fan, that is what you have trained yourself to do. In the ring would you adopt a strategy that would protect you from a hidden knife but leave you a little less able to deal with a black eye- I think not! To avoid the black eye you protect yourself against that and unconciously discount the idea of a treachea strike, weapon, friends, etc because they are not threats that are causing you the stress at the moment. This is an example of the bad habits that you can build up due to sparring.
i agree, but i'm just another thick wannabe nunjur warrior, who has never been hit, never been in a fight, never venture into pubs, in fact my mum hasn't even raised her voice at me, but at least my pathetic existance can bring a smile to the boys on the other board, cut and paste away fella's!! but all we are doing is wasting our time, they will never understand the difference until crunch time, i have watched a bjj student in a simulated 3 on one drill latching on and trying to take a guy to ground, and we are being laughed at???????! it is totally pathetic. but proves the 'fight as you train' thing again.
I wouldn't worry to much about the "other board" , i suspect they're just trying to deflect attention from their own internal problems(jfs usa )
Shut up siphus....Maybe, someone would have another point that has not already as to why not to spar. Edit: No one take this serious.
