I have received a few emails about a previous article titled “Are Martial Arts Techniques Too Dangerous For Combat?” and although it seems that the article was well received by the majority, perhaps I did a bad job of expressing my main point. In that article I said that neither myself, nor my school, nor the style I study is spars and we do not believe that sparring is really a beneficial practice method.
The two main arguments I made were (1) that since sparring eliminates much of the martial arts for safety reasons, what you are left with is not your martial art, its kickboxing, and (2) in actual violent encounters, the people don’t. They don’t raise their hands and face each other in fighting stances and they just don’t look like kickboxing matches, so why kickboxing in the first place? However, while both are valid arguments, based on a couple of answers I got, I think the problem is the context, so that is what I will try to analyze here.
First, I must say that I am not trying to prevent anyone from training as part of their martial arts training and I don’t care if people do. All I’m doing is saying why my style doesn’t, and tackling the ridiculous proponents of sparring back by asking if a style is too dangerous to train.
My first contact with sparring was studying boxing at age 9 and then a couple of years later when my Kenpo instructor made me join the American Taekwondo Association and enroll in the local Taekwondo school. Having studied martial arts for about 5 years, most of it was easy and often confusing for me, but what really tripped me up is after I got my yellow belt and started training, which happened after about 6 months.
I remember the first time I put the pads on and trained, it was after a great class we had on the importance of form. In Kenpo we learned mostly through drills and drills, we only had two forms and we used them primarily as warm-ups, so all the form work was new and I really got into it. We then put on the pads and paired up to train. Without even thinking about it, I assumed a back stance and when my partner struck, I hit his arm with a near-perfect internal forearm block followed by a front kick and a reverse left punch to the body. I didn’t hit my partner hard, but I had almost perfect form. My partner started cursing and complained that I was trying to hurt him and said that his arm was “killing” him as a result of my block.
After agreeing to go softer, he launched a front kick and I got into horse stance and hit him with a low block, causing him to fall to the ground holding his leg. My instructor came over and explained that I was “doing the wrong thing.” I explained to him that I was doing the Taekwondo that we had been working on and he told me that he should be dancing on tiptoe and not doing the same blocks that we learned on the forms. “But that’s not Taekwondo, that’s kickboxing … I’m here to learn Taekwondo … it works …” I said pointing to my unhappy partner who was rubbing a bruised calf. I was told that Taekwondo is a form of kickboxing and I replied, “No, it is not!”
We spend maybe 5% of our time training and the other 95% of the time getting drilled properly; so 95% of our training contradicted the other 5% … and I was the only person in the school who was bothered by this. I ended up staying until I got my black belt and when I started teaching I made it clear that we had a “martial arts part” of the class and a “kickboxing part” of the class. One day I was talking to a very skilled brown belt who managed to clean his watch with a black belt that wouldn’t last 10 seconds if they really fought and I said in a low voice: “Don’t worry, it’s just kickboxing, it doesn’t prove anything and then Unless you plan to do that for a living, who cares? ”The head instructor was behind me and my time at that school was almost over after that.
I believe that martial arts have to do with self defense and because of this belief, I approach martial arts from a different context than many people. Most people I know think that martial arts is about competing, whether it’s someone in a classroom, someone in a tournament, or someone trying to take your life. I don’t want to compete and I don’t care who is bigger, faster, stronger or more skilled. I want to protect myself and my family from violent people.
Most people dismissively say that the reason I don’t put my gloves on and practice training is because my skills are too lethal to train. I respond by saying: “You’re right, and so are yours, that’s why you don’t train with them either, kickboxing.”
If you study “modern martial arts” which is made up mostly of punching and kicking techniques, then training and competing is fine, but if you study “old school martial arts” which is made up mostly of blows to the temples, eyes, ears and throat. , sides and back of the neck, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, groin, knees and ankles, then sparring becomes much more difficult.
The thing about moderation is that safety is the top concern, and rightly so, which is why many techniques are not allowed. The problem is that all the things they take out for training are the real “meat” of martial arts. Blows like cuts to the eyes, bumps to the ears, forearm blows to the throat, palms on the chin, elbows on the back of the neck, shins on the groin, kicks on the knees, footprints on the kidneys and ankles, and those things are real. “meat and potatoes” of martial arts and fancy things is just the icing on the cake. The icing on the cake is not food, learning to drive a palm strike across someone’s chin is food. These are the things that cause injury, put people down, and save your life when someone else is trying to take it from you. That’s also why I don’t spar.
The problem with combat is that it is a competitive activity. How would you like to compete in a spectacular competition? However, how about an ear patting competition? How would you like to grab another guy and see who can hit himself in the throat better or kick himself in the groin better? The only way you can practice these dangerous techniques in a meaningful way without seriously injuring someone is to go slow and work with a collaborative partner.
If we were going to practice a head punch, we could probably train with that and no one would get hurt. However, what if we practice back fists to the kidneys, would you want to train with them? There’s no way I’m going to train with someone who’s trying to punch me in the kidney. I was almost knocked to the ground when someone punches me in the kidney while I was going slow under controlled conditions.
Moderation can teach you some valuable things, but you can learn the same things by doing controlled exercise. We do a lot of exercises that get people used to being attacked with random movements and exercises to get used to being attacked suddenly and aggressively. With the right exercises, you can reap the benefits of saving and practicing hitting vital points while preventing your students from getting injured and drowning in lawsuits.