Sparring practice and eager to score

A tiring session tonight started with some light randori to warm up and also to see what issues fell out of these encounters with which to work upon. On of the things that sensei TO mentioned was the concept of winning before the engagement. An idea which involved trying to stack all the cards in your favour before the conflict even starts: something which can involve many elements but on the physical level it can mean making the opportunities for yourself without getting hit too much.

It occurred to me as we were discussing this that all my martial arts career I've always been eager to win the point. In sparring I tend to take the fight to my opponent always looking for opportunities but hungry for those occasions to arise. Wanting to land the kick or punch so much that I'd spar offensively. I wouldn't say I was impatient but I certainly usually look to put pressure on my opponent, chasing him or her down. The trouble with this strategy is an experienced opponent can simply wait and pick you off.

So this evening's lesson was simply that I should look to make the opportunities without the rush into conflict. Hold back, see the lay of the land and react to the opponent's techniques. Sounds rudimentary but I have to confess that it's something I still need to work on.

Spinning kicks

Last night's Tang Soo Do lesson went well right from the off. The children's lesson came together nicely and by the end of the hour we were enjoying ourselves and pulling together nicely, making a good job of technique and attitude.

The adult class was varied and interesting but something that *always* kills me is spinning kicks (I was reminded of this by SueC at http://kickasssuec.blogspot.com/). I know it's pathetic for someone who practices a Korean martial art but I am extremely sensitive to spinning and after about 5 reps find myself clinging to the floor trying not to fall off it. We were kicking an outside to inside kick swiftly followed by a spinning wheel kick which has a good solid feel to it, especially on focus pads when you can thud into something. But...as usual after 5 kicks I was gasping, fighting back *the* urge... Shame really as I love to kick.

Later in free sparring I executed plenty of spinning kicks which didn't affect me as they were spaced out enough to get my balance/wits about me again. Good sparring session with a young adult and a fit brown belt. One of these days he's gonna 'get it' and flatten me... (in the nicest possible way). I was really choosing my points and fighting strategically. I'm too old to go flat out, all guns blazing and I don't think this is very effective anyway.

Good session leading to healthy fatigued feeling....(and some unhealthy looking shin bruises...)

Gratuitous Van Damme spinning kick compilation.

Encouragement for beginners to sparring

I offered some pre-tournament sparring practice to a friend who gladly accepted. Off we went to the country park...

As we searched for a suitable clearing to kick off our shoes I asked her what her 'problem' was (so I could focus on this in the following 45 minutes) and she replied that she found it difficult to score a point. She was a bit flustered by the plethora of techniques she knows and felt unable to bring them into play during sparring.

OK-let's bring up her confidence by concentrating on a few essential sparring techniques, after all much free-fighting is made up of front kick, round kick and a variety of straight punches. Of course we aspire to be able to use all our techniques in order to score the point but invariably we rely on a stock of well serving base techniques and sometimes the simpler, the better.

So with a minimum of time we set about improving her confidence (she'd only sparred twice in class before!) and this is how we did it:

Round 1: Just front kicks from her. I would encourage her to connect with the attack and I would counter at competition speed with anything I fancied but she must use only front kick.

Round 2: Same deal for me, but front and round kick for her.

Round 3: Front kick, round kick and punches.

Last round: Focus on these three but feed in any 'fancier' technique if she felt that there was a scoring opportunity availing itself. (In the end she only really added in back kick and possibly side kick).

I also emphasized kihaping.

How did it go? She's a natural. She didn't need my help she just needed confidence. It's easy to forget that when we started out in a particular style there is a bewildering amount of techniques that we are exposed to directly in our syllabus or indirectly in group classes and often this is just too much information and we cloud up. "Oh yeah but I can do this, no wait....Er, what about this technique...."

No. Stop. The object of competition sparring is to get the point. To score within whichever framework of rules exist. In order to score you have to react to the attacks of the opponent as well as look for opportunity to counter or initiate. My advice today was to use a core set of techniques (as the student is a relative beginner) in order to score points. Keep it fairly simple.

What I didn't do was go easy on her. My attacks were speedy and of varying heights: I wanted to get her flinching, checking out her blocking reactions, which were great!

Photos courtesy of my little girl...

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Dave Russell

08 July at 08:11----

Hey up Chris,

I'm trying hard to learn a piece of country guitar at the moment which comes off a tuitional DVD, which involves copying what the guy does note for note and I was struck by a parallel with martial arts. Naturally, I want to know what you think.

All the note for note stuff that we learn, like I'm doing currently, or like learning a solo, or intro exactly is like the choreographed floor routines that you have to learn in martial arts (I wish I could remember the proper word, but you know what I mean).

This then gives you ideas and armoury to engage in improvisation, which is like sparring, or combat.

What think?

Christopher Littlefair

08 July at 17:07 ----

Oh, Oh! Nice one! I think I'll be able to expand a blog entry I did about this once. And yours is a slightly different take on it.

Here's my article:http://diaryofamartialartist.blogspot.com/2009/02/rhythm-in-hyungs-kata.html

I think it is very similar, if not exactly the same sort of learning process. We drill a lot on individual techniques, then build them up into sequences (especially in forms and kata) then take it further into free fighting which is, as you say, a direct parallel with music learning. Equally each of these exercises are valid in their own right. It's perfectly reasonable to perform kata on their own just as it is to free fight. On the guitar you might happily play a known song which you have to follow: that is to say a pre-determined sequence like kata, or you might want to improvise/create new songs, like free fighting creates 'new' forms of expressing oneself in combat.

Neat comparison Mr Russell!

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