Principles of Sparring - Introduction & Article One
The First Installment in a Series of Articles on Sparring Principles
by FWC Instructor David Courtney Jones
INTRODUCTION
Sparring is many different things to many different people. To some it is great fun, to others it is perfectly terrifying; to some it is a way of getting better at their chosen art, to others it is a way of winning competition trophies, and to yet others it is a way of overcoming the fear of violence. However you view sparring, it is a facet of martial arts training which can dramatically improve your ability as a martial artist, and make you significantly more likely to be able to defend yourself in a real-life situation.
Whatever your approach to sparring, one of the key factors in taking random chance out of who will win is experience. Experience is what gives you the understanding of how an opponent moves and thinks, and further, how they can be manipulated. Winning by making your opponent do what you want them to do, so that you control them from start to finish, is one of the highest levels of martial arts, yet the principles are quite simple. It is being able to subconsciously play games with your opponent?s mind and body which takes many years of practice.
So, to get good at Kung Fu, you must practice often, and for many years. To get good at sparring you must practice sparring. Different schools have different ways of doing this, but practice you must, and with sparring this means you will get hit. Don?t worry; this is part of the learning process. It provides good incentive to get better!
This series of articles is not about one particular style. Nor will it teach you sparring techniques. It is assumed that the reader is already training under a qualified instructor. This series contains principles of sparring, the ways the human mind works, and methods which will help the reader to defeat an opponent.
Lastly, I must add that Kung Fu is a lifelong pursuit of mastery. To most people, I am a martial arts expert, yet I have met some, my teacher included, to whom I am still very junior and inexperienced. I hope that this series will be of use to the vast majority of martial arts practitioners, and in particular to my own students, and the students of my kung fu brothers and sisters. I hope to be able to add and refine, as my skills improve and my understanding increases ? so my apologies for any current omissions or errors. Such is the nature of lifelong learning and improvement.
1. INSTINCTIVE DEFENCE
My first article deals with the most important aspect of sparring ? NOT GETTING HIT. For a beginner, this is what you must start with first, and get good at first.
There are many forms of defence employed by countless martial arts schools. As I described above, it is not my intention to look at particular techniques or styles, but rather at the principles which are common to all.
The most important aspect of your defence is instinct. Your movements must by-pass conscious thought. When someone attacks it will be very fast, and there will be no time to consider your defence. Your body must pick up the stimuli which indicate an attack is on its way, select an appropriate response, time it perfectly, to within a fraction of a second, and execute it successfully. And it must be able to do this against a huge variety of different attacks. It must be able to do this without conscious direction from your brain.
How do you train your body to do this? By getting people to attack you. Through countless repetitions, your defence will become instinctive. By sparring against many different people, you will see the way that different people move, what the little signals are that give away the attack.
(It is for this reason that I do not recommend self-defence courses. There is only one way to learn to defend yourself effectively, and that is to train seriously in a martial art.)
One important thing to remember is that, no matter how many different types of martial art there are, and how many different shapes and sizes of person there are, at the end of the day it all comes down to the physical nature of the human body and the ways in which it can move.
There are only so many movements that the human body is capable of. The time you spend sparring is time spent learning what these movements are, understanding on a subconscious level what the most likely threats are, and then picking up the clues as they arise.
Partnerwork is vital, and where no partner is available, good visualisation is important. Practice your defensive drills. It is repetition after repetition that will hone your instincts. Defence must be appropriate and it must be instinctive. Knowing how to do something will not help you to do it in real life ? knowledge of the processes involved in riding a bike will not allow you to ride one ? you must practice (and fall off a few times) ? and the gap between theory and practice is even more pronounced when someone is trying to hurt you.
When an untrained person is attacked, they will probably flinch, and most likely still be hit. One of the first skills you must acquire is the ability to remain calm when someone attacks you, to learn not to flinch, and react appropriately. From here you will progress with your defensive principles. It is easiest to meet force with force (I.e. to stop an attack dead in its tracks); harder to deflect, or divert a force; harder still to harmonise with a force; and hardest of all to provide no target for your opponent to attack.
The increasing difficulty of these principles is due to more difficult timing, and the need for your movements to become more refined and accurate.
The more difficult the defence, the more it needs to be practiced. Do not be disheartened by failure. The very highest levels of accomplishment take a lifetime to achieve, and this will mean many, many failures!
Your defence is your first step; unless you are able to protect your body without concentrating on it, you will not be able to consider any tactical element of your sparring, and this is what I will be dealing with primarily in this series of articles.