How to improve my martial arts skills?

That's what I was thinking.

 

True, although I was more thinking in terms of my own combat sports.

 

Sparring straight away in combat sports is old school, but only because it puts off new people who arnt natural Fighters which impacts income to full time gyms, but I think putting sparring off for too long can also be damaging, that's why an introduction course of 4-8 weeks, which includes sparring is a good compromise.

 

Obviously alive drills and objective sparring help ease the transition just as well in striking as it does jitz too.

 

Although it took a little longer when I trained Thai Boxing. every BJJ gym I've been too was sparring day one and so is my current MMA gym. Personally I'm fine with it and think as long as there is composure and communication between participants then its fantastic.

 

As long as it's controlled, it's ok. We do this in Judo newaza to get the white belts' feet wet. The senior belt starts turtled on knees and elbows and the junior tries to turn him over and maybe try a pin if they can remember to do so. Pretty simple. It's not high intensity, but it gets the newbies comfortable with resistant training.

 

Agree! To let the new students to spar/wrestle with the instructor (or the instructor's senior students) on day one (with proper control of course) can help new students to

1. get the feet wet,
2. eliminate non-qualified students,
3. understand the goal of MA is for fighting and not just for health, self-cultivation, inner peace, ...,
4. find their weakness,
5. understand what he can learn from this instructor,
6. ...

For example, for 5, if a wrestling instructor wrestles his new students on day one, those new students will know exactly what that instructor is good at. If the instructor can use his "single leg" to take down all his new students on the 1st day, those new students will have respect and faith in the "single leg" technique. Later on when the instructor teaches that technique, students will pay attention on it. The end result will be all his students will be good at "single leg" and the instructor will have successfully pass his own flavor down to his students.

This method may fit in better for the grappling art than for the striking art (when fists are flying). A good wrestling instructor (or his senior students) should be able to protect those new students and provide a safe place for them to train.

 

There is sparring and there is fighting. Sparring from day one is a good thing. It can give confidence to the un-assertive and teach the enthusiastic the pitfalls of being over eager. But this can be done in a measured and controlled way - like starting in the shallow end on the first day of swimming.

Fighting from day one - dropping someone in at the deep end and letting them sink or slim does work for some. but I would argue not for most. and even in the medium term does not teach you anything that you can't learn with a structured approach to sparring ramping up the intensity over time.

Fighting against a weapon first session is just a flat out joke. Unless its a one-off demonstration of the difficulties of fighting open handed against a weapon. Fighting first session using a weapon against an armed opponent is also a waste of time. It is unlikely that the fighters would be treat the other guys weapon with the respect it deserves, they would not defend effectively and would learn habits that would get them killed in a real fight. This is why sparring rules such as the "right off attack" were developed to build good defense in life threatening situations.

 

So kali is a joke? Most kali o know of teaches armed first. Then un armed

 

The context of teh post in question was unarmed vs a weapon - not the kali way, and certainly not practical

 

Exactly

 

The schools I know of have you doing partner drills not full on sparring. So yes you are correct.

They do however do spar with weapons first.

 

No, Kali is not a joke it was not my intention to imply that it was or to say that learning weapons first then unarmed second is wrong.

I was talking about the difference between sparring in a structured controlled way, necessary in both armed and unarmed training and starting Fighting straight away. My comment was in response to a post that advocated "fighting" (whatever they mean by that) from the first lesson.

 

If you want to improve your MMA skills you need to practice harder with new techniques.

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