Hey all-
You may recall that, a couple months back, your instructors at NSA handed out surveys for you to fill out. Though you were the ones answering all the questions in the survey, our intentions with doing that were to answer a few questions for ourselves:
1. Why do our students come in to train with us? What are their primary goals?
2. What do our students want us to spend more time on? What do they want us to spend less time on?
3. What the heck are we going to do with Saturday classes?
After gathering and interpreting all the answers and comments, we summed up the responses as follows:
1. The majority of you train with the primary goals of fitness and personal development (eg. stress management, focus, confidence, etc.)
2. The majority of you would like to spend more time sparring and working belt rank requirements.
3. Not too many of you are interested in training on Saturdays, but those of you who are would like to focus on Thai Boxing, perhaps with some grappling/mma thrown in.
What I'd like to focus on today is how the first two responses relate. In particular, I would like to discuss the role of sparring in our training, and how we intend to go about including more sparring.
Sparring is an essential, and IMO misunderstood mode of training in the martial arts. Typically, there are two schools of thought on sparring. Traditional martial arts in today's world tend either to focus on safer and less realistic modes of sparring, such as point sparring, or eliminate it all together for the sake of safety. The more modern, combat sports approach to sparring is to make it the basis of all training. In short, if the techniques you're learning "don't work" in sparring, then they're no good.
I sense that martial arts instructors, and especially school owners, struggle with the sparring issue all the time. Particularly from a business perspective, doing anything that is likely to cause your students injury is BAD FOR BUSINESS. This is one of the reasons why, for liability reasons, schools will often eliminate sparring from their training.
With the combat sport approach, it seems as though the coaches/instructors in those scenarios are making the assumption that all of their students have the desire to become "fighters," whatever that means. Not wanting to eliminate sparring, as to them it would be the equivalent of coaching soccer without ever scrimaging or playing a game, they typically have a "sink or swim" attitude and, as a result, the toughest, most competitive and/or most athletic students thrive, while the more timid, laid back, or less athletic students at best encounter repeated discouragement, and at worst encounter injury and eventually quit.
Having been through both of these approaches, I can tell you that neither is an effective long-term strategy, especially when keeping in perspective the goals stated above. Eliminating sparring will eventually lead to self-doubt, insecurity, and/or just plain boredom. Overemphasizing competitive sparring only serves to feed the ego, and will inevitably lead to injury.
So what are we to do in order to gain the benefits of sparring while minimizing or avoiding the drawbacks? In an effort to facilitate clearer communication on this topic, I came up with a list of 4 basic "levels" or types of sparring. These can apply no matter what "game" we're talking about, whether it's kickboxing, grappling, mma, or even stick or knife sparring. They can also apply to sparring drills as well as actual sparring. Here they are, with brief definitions:
1. Ego-less - In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu schools, "slow-rolling" is often used as a warm-up exercise, or when teaching beginners how to spar safely. Erik Paulson uses the term "Ego-less" sparring, to emphasize that there is no ego in this type of game. He also instructs grapplers using this method to "wrestle as if you had the flu." What this means is that no strength or explosiveness is used at all, submissions are never fully put on (that way your partner can practice escaping), and there is an equal exchange of offense and defense. (Note: A great explanation of slow-rolling in a grappling context can be found on Aesopian's Awesome Blog.) In short, ego-less training is more about just continuous, flowing movement and letting your body do what it naturally wants to do, but at a slow, completely non-competitive pace. Again, this is typically used as a warm-up.
2. Light Play - In this form of sparring, attributes such as speed and power are "put on the shelf". In other words, there is no use of speed, a reach advantage, or power or aggressiveness to compensate for lack of technique. Being up one notch on the intensity scale from Ego-less, Light Play involves working on technique and "trying things out," and is especially helpful when working on your weaknesses. For example, if you have very fast evasive footwork, you might choose instead to stay in range and work on your defense. If you are particularly good at throwing deceptive hand combinations, you might opt to just work on jabs and crosses. One mantra to use to emphasize what Light Play is about might be "do more with less."
3. Medium Game - In Savate, this form of sparring, which is also used as Savate's form of amateur competition, is known as Assaut. The emphasis in Assaut is not on trying to knock the opponent out, but rather to display technique and finesse while "scoring points" with controlled contact. You may still decide to work on weak points when training in this game, particularly when working with someone less experienced, smaller, or less athletic. But Medium Game is mainly about having a "style" or "game plan" that fits your attributes, body structure, and personality. Some examples of this in kickboxing might be a "runner" or "counter puncher" style. In Medium Game, you try to be as effective as possible with the game plan you've developed. This is where, in JKD terms, you are "expressing yourself" through movement. Medium game most likely will require a step up in the level of protective gear, but for our purposes, this is still not meant to be competition.
4. Full Contact, aka Competition Speed - This is where you put it all together, and your only objective is to "win." In boxing or kickboxing, it ultimately means doing what you can to knock the other guy out. In grappling, it's all about positional dominance and setting up your go-to submissions.
In my opinion, unless you have serious concerns about being able to defend yourself, or are interested in competition, Full Contact training is pretty much unneccessary. Even for those who do choose to engage in this type of training, it must be done sparingly if longevity is of any concern. That would mean no more than 1-2 times a month for recreational martial artists, and probably no more than once or twice a week for serious competitors. Anyone engaging in Full Contact training must also be very diligent about their conditioning, nutrition, and recovery in order to avoid repeated injury.
Medium Game sparring also has the liklihood to cause injury, as it's difficult to keep it from escalating into competitive mode. For non-competitors, this type of training should also be used sparingly (no more than once a week) or not at all. More athletic non-competitors, as long as they keep a postiive, non-competitive attitude, can do this more often and more productively without incurring repeated injury. For the average student who trains a couple hours a week, however, it's largely unnecessary, particularly at the beginner level.
For persons interested in training martial arts for general health, recreation, and personal development, it's my opinion that nearly all sparring time should be spent in the Ego-Less and Light Play modes. These can be done daily without incurring sufficient wear and tear on the body, and will go a long way toward developing your skills in the long term, when done with a positive attitude consistently over time. Essentially what it's about is long term goals rather than short term. If I had to get you ready to fight in a month, you'd need to do some full contact stuff, and take the consequent bumps, bruises, stress, and emotional discomfort as par for the course. But if your objective is long term health, personal development, and HAVING FUN, why do something that incurs more emotional stress and will almost inevitably lead to injury?
For me, this is a somewhat recent develoment in my approach to martial arts training, and I cannot take sole credit for what I've written here. Listening to coaches such as Erik Paulson, Ron Balicki, Rodney King (no, not that one), Dan Inosanto, Rick Faye, and Matt Thornton all talk about their experiences with all of the above methods of training and their benefits/drawbacks has influenced my own experimentation and thinking on the subject, and a large debt of gratitude is owed to all of the above.
I would be remiss if I didn't make specific mention of Rodney King. For those of you unfamiliar with him, he's the creator of the Crazy Monkey Defense Program (which is in my links section). It's safe for me to say that no other coach has had a greater influence on my approach to training within the last year. If you've noticed any recent change in my approach to coaching, particularly stand-up, it's due to him and his ideas. For anyone looking to improve their boxing/kickboxing skills as well as their mental game while having a great time doing it, I highly recommend checking out his website and his instructional DVD's. I especially recommend the Championship Series Vol 1: For the Everyday Guy as a great introduction into the fundamentals of the boxing/kickboxing game. If you're looking for cool new combinations and tricks, you'll be disappointed. But, if you're looking to get back to basics and polish up those fundamentals that you know you've neglected, give it a try. And, if you fall in love with this material as much as I have, I also would recommend purchasing a Pro online membership to his website. There are a ton of instructional videos, seminar footage, and a host of great people who train under Rodney (as well as Rodney himself) who are available to answer questions on the Pro Forum. Don't be surprised if you see CMDP added to my list of organizations with which I'm affiliated sometime within the next couple years.
