At my MMA we do a lot of sparring, at some classes I have been to they did none or very little. My question to the forum is what kind of training do you do? A mix of sparring and drills? Or just one or the other. What kind of sparring, point sparring, full contact, light contact, etc do you use. What drills do you use, flow drills, katas, etc. I have read about Matt Throntons training where he uses 'aliveness'. This seems to me a great idea, especially for MMA, but perhaps some of the traditional stuff can work as well. Also has anyone used their training in self defence? If so, what kind of training worked for you.
Sparring is critical, but too much sparring is harmful especially in full contact sports. Top MMA Coaches like Greg Jackson and John Kavanagh only let their fighters do MMA sparring at most once a week. There are clubs that seem to think sparring is like doing overtime in work: the more you do the richer you'll be. It's faulty logic and frankly shows a lack of understanding. Bear in mind too there is a lot of interesting middle ground between sparring and drilling. Look up the Gracie Reflex development the Gracie Academy teaches. It's not sparring, but it's not drilling either.
It depends on what MA skills that you want to develop. For example, if this week you want to develop "defense against head punches", you can set up a rule as: If you - can hit my head within 20 punches, you win that round. - can't hit my head within 20 punches, you lost that round. Test this for 15 rounds and record the result. Of course that number of 20 can be 30, 40, or ... IMO, this kind of test is very safe.
We often build from drills into controlled sparring ,occasionally building up the intensity to realistic level. Realistic sparring I wouldn't do more than twice a week,long term.
I looked at Tomiki on youtube. It looked like the wrist locks could still work, but they didn't look like as smooth as traditional aikido kata. I suppose thats the reality of using them on a resisting opponent.
Yeah the I-Method coined by Matt Thornton of SBGi. Introduce - Isolate - Incorporate. Sure it's explained in Hannibal's post but not watched video yet. I genuinely find it the single best method I've experienced for skill acquisition and excellent as a filter for quality.
I can't speak for other peoples experience of traditional martial arts but my personal experience of traditional kungfu is that it is based on the principles outlined in video of introduce - isolate - incorporate. In my experience traditional arts are about hands on skills. This said, going by what the commentary says the "I method" does not appear to recognize the spectrum of different ways that people learn. The types of drills that the commentary appears to dismiss as irrelevant to application such as two man fights, provide a structured scaffold for building and exploring theoretical understanding. Some people find it easier to go from theoretical understanding to practical application others find it easier to go from practical application to theoretical understanding. But theory and application are equally important parts of the cycle of learning.
You shouldn't spar properly until you can control yourself (shadow boxing) The bag and your pad holder. Instead it should be time spent on these 3 things and partner drills. Then sparring can begin to develop these skills in my humble option
