Thoughts? I don’t wear head gear when I spar, but the fighters in my gym (muay thai) do mostly. Not always. Usually when they have a fight coming up (probably to help with cuts more than anything).
From the subtitle bullet points under the headline:
“Theory is that the opponents apply less force if the head is left unprotected.”
Right. I don’t know what epithets to use, because the comment is so ridiculous for a COMBAT ATHLETE I don’t know where to start.
Did you read the rest of it? It says that studies show concussions are more likely with head gear because of the blocking of peripheral vision, though cuts and the like are substantially reduced.
Also people take more risks wearing head gear.
Obviously agreed that particular point is garbage though.
Yea this is clearly the case, being as there’s so many more KO’s in amateur boxing as compared with pro boxing.
Wait… what?
Take a look at Ali sparring. His partners wore head gear. Is it about learning and training or trying to hurt someone? Obviously, when competing its different,but, when training together,are we trying to hurt eachother or be macho or something? Just curious, do you try to knock out the guys at your gym? Or, do you have the control and knowledge to know when you could,but,let them live to fight another day? What are the tenants of your particular style? You mentioned others training muy tai,but didnt say that’s your discipline. Pil Sung. Confusion
First that study is about as scientific as smelling a turd and telling you what you had for dinner. They need to get some science behind it and test the effects of getting hit with a substantial amount of force and not base it on the hope that someone will not hit you harder without headgear.
This is my take on headgear. You should wear it when sparring hard. There is a time and place for everything. For me, I wear it when guys are needing to go hard like when getting ready for a upcoming fight. I can say from experience it lets you take a harder shot than without it and it does prevent cuts. If you are cut or bruised to badly you cannot fight in a sanctioned match. My philosophy on it is that if you are the one who has a fight coming up you need to train like you fight, with the same intensity and throwing hard meaningful shots. If your opponent is not protected he could get hurt and you need training partners.
I see lots of guys pitty patting or pulling there shots and thinking that they are good to fight. When you step in the cage or ring or bar or wherever you end up fighting you will be throwing your shots much harder than you do in your training like that. This effects your cardio and stamina greatly. If you train to throw weak ass punches and BS jabs that is what you will do in a fight so in order to protect each other I recommend headgear.
Now there are a lot of times in that off period between fights that we don’t wear it at all, I believe you need to get tough and get used to taking shots etc. Like I said a time and place for everything.
As far as amateur boxing I could give a fuck if they wear it or not. Personally I would not want to wear it in a real fight because you got in the ring and that means you have something to prove.
I let the students decide if they want to wear head gear in my dojo based on their comfort level. But I stress the importance of protecting your face/head in every class, and encourage “controlled misses” to the head.
I’m not gonna tell an attacker, “Please avoid my head, I don’t want a concussion.” So hands up, be ready. And don’t let yourself get hit in the head. At the same time though, don’t hit your sparring partner in the head either.
**EDIT: This article reminds me of the arguments for and against helmets in American football, and the concussion rates in American football compared to rugby.
[quote]Ranzo wrote:
First that study is about as scientific as smelling a turd and telling you what you had for dinner. [/quote]
Couldn’t put it better.
In the end I would not be concerned with a statistic on a full contact sport coming from a guy who looks like this
Does he even box? Did he box? Does anybody know if this guy is actually legit and not just talking out of his ass?
Because I think he does.
http://www.boxingnews24.com/2012/06/dr-charles-butler-is-elected-usa-boxing-president/
This article states that he is a cardiac surgeon but not a boxer.
Why the fuck would anybody actually take advice on what is safe for boxing from a guy who never fought in his entire life?
It’s the same wise words you hear from your medical general practitioner:
“Lifting is bad” “According to this statistic your body can’t use more than 60g of protein, This statistic says yadayadyada…”
I hope some of these big organisations actually get doers not talkers to take care of professional athletes.
Talking about what is dangerous in the ring behind a bunch of happy horseshit and actually knowing what is going on in there are two totally different things.
P.S.:
LOL @ the fat slob being a cardiac surgeon. Tells you a lot about the intergrity this guy has.
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
I let the students decide if they want to wear head gear in my dojo based on their comfort level. But I stress the importance of protecting your face/head in every class, and encourage “controlled misses” to the head.
I’m not gonna tell an attacker, “Please avoid my head, I don’t want a concussion.” So hands up, be ready. And don’t let yourself get hit in the head. At the same time though, don’t hit your sparring partner in the head either.
**EDIT: This article reminds me of the arguments for and against helmets in American football, and the concussion rates in American football compared to rugby.[/quote]
I think it’s not a bad idea to have beginners who lack control and judgement is distance to “pull” certain techniques when practicing things like self defense skills (even though I’ve taken some while full on sparring or even inadvertent ones during grappling, getting kicked in the balls because someone misjudged their distance and blasts me while we are just drilling techniques gets old reeeeeally fast). But I think it’s a bad habit to get into (like Ranzo said above). A much better practice is to have students go slowly and actually make contact, then gradually speed up (as their skill level improves) until they can hit the target they want to, but still have enough control to decide whether they want to follow through or just touch.
If you want to be able to really apply your skills in full on “Active Combat” though, you got to at least occasionally actually try to punch/kick/knee/headbutt/etc… your opponent for real. When you do so, protective equipment like headgear, boxing gloves (or at least MMA gloves), mouth guards, shin guards (if allowing kicks), and groin protectors are all crucial safety precautions that should be taken to avoid serious injury. If you wanted to take things up even another notch you could put on some High Gear or other such protective equipment.
I agree with everyone else, it’s a silly argument made by someone with no knowledge of the subject matter.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
I let the students decide if they want to wear head gear in my dojo based on their comfort level. But I stress the importance of protecting your face/head in every class, and encourage “controlled misses” to the head.
I’m not gonna tell an attacker, “Please avoid my head, I don’t want a concussion.” So hands up, be ready. And don’t let yourself get hit in the head. At the same time though, don’t hit your sparring partner in the head either.
**EDIT: This article reminds me of the arguments for and against helmets in American football, and the concussion rates in American football compared to rugby.[/quote]
I think it’s not a bad idea to have beginners who lack control and judgement is distance to “pull” certain techniques when practicing things like self defense skills (even though I’ve taken some while full on sparring or even inadvertent ones during grappling, getting kicked in the balls because someone misjudged their distance and blasts me while we are just drilling techniques gets old reeeeeally fast). But I think it’s a bad habit to get into (like Ranzo said above). A much better practice is to have students go slowly and actually make contact, then gradually speed up (as their skill level improves) until they can hit the target they want to, but still have enough control to decide whether they want to follow through or just touch.
If you want to be able to really apply your skills in full on “Active Combat” though, you got to at least occasionally actually try to punch/kick/knee/headbutt/etc… your opponent for real. When you do so, protective equipment like headgear, boxing gloves (or at least MMA gloves), mouth guards, shin guards (if allowing kicks), and groin protectors are all crucial safety precautions that should be taken to avoid serious injury. If you wanted to take things up even another notch you could put on some High Gear or other such protective equipment.
I agree with everyone else, it’s a silly argument made by someone with no knowledge of the subject matter.[/quote]
In my opinion,no beginner shoukd be making contact with the head while sparring. Speaking from my white belt days,If i made contact with someone,s head,there was little to no control over momentum,nor power. this was not because of a lack of proper instruction,it was because most beginners have very little control. Best leave the head alone until a bit of experience and then if the instructor will allow some hard sparring, bring it on! I get the point but would perefer to err on the side of caution, like the sensei from new york. Confusion
First, I am excited that they are dropping head gear. The switch from all hits count equally in amateur to the pro scoring/rules is a big one. Amateur style fighting is also less marketable, and as a fan I would like to see more support on a local level. No head gear might make for more exciting fights.
The idea that cumulative “sub-clinical” trauma is actually as or more damaging to the brain than a single concussion is not new. I couldn’t find a direct link to the study/studies mentioned in the article, but I wonder how he controlled for weight class/skill/and overall condition of fighters.
It is also possible that a lot of the trauma is happening in training, so that competition conditions may not matter as much statistically. IF that is the case, than the point could be made that the fighters are no less safe competing without headgear and if eliminating it provides promotional advantages than why not?
Finally, I do not know Dr. Charles Butler. I have not read any of his published material, nor attended any of his classes at Harvard, The Mayo Clinic, LSU, etc. He was the director of Cardiac Surgery at a teaching hospital for 20 years. The promotional blurb about his appointment to chair of USA Boxing makes it sound like he has significant clinical and teaching experience, is a long standing member of the board of USA Boxing, and has experience as a ringside physician. I have zero reason to question his integrity or ethics as a physician regardless of how he looks as a senior citizen.
Regards,
Robert A
[quote]confusion wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
I let the students decide if they want to wear head gear in my dojo based on their comfort level. But I stress the importance of protecting your face/head in every class, and encourage “controlled misses” to the head.
I’m not gonna tell an attacker, “Please avoid my head, I don’t want a concussion.” So hands up, be ready. And don’t let yourself get hit in the head. At the same time though, don’t hit your sparring partner in the head either.
**EDIT: This article reminds me of the arguments for and against helmets in American football, and the concussion rates in American football compared to rugby.[/quote]
I think it’s not a bad idea to have beginners who lack control and judgement is distance to “pull” certain techniques when practicing things like self defense skills (even though I’ve taken some while full on sparring or even inadvertent ones during grappling, getting kicked in the balls because someone misjudged their distance and blasts me while we are just drilling techniques gets old reeeeeally fast). But I think it’s a bad habit to get into (like Ranzo said above). A much better practice is to have students go slowly and actually make contact, then gradually speed up (as their skill level improves) until they can hit the target they want to, but still have enough control to decide whether they want to follow through or just touch.
If you want to be able to really apply your skills in full on “Active Combat” though, you got to at least occasionally actually try to punch/kick/knee/headbutt/etc… your opponent for real. When you do so, protective equipment like headgear, boxing gloves (or at least MMA gloves), mouth guards, shin guards (if allowing kicks), and groin protectors are all crucial safety precautions that should be taken to avoid serious injury. If you wanted to take things up even another notch you could put on some High Gear or other such protective equipment.
I agree with everyone else, it’s a silly argument made by someone with no knowledge of the subject matter.[/quote]
In my opinion,no beginner shoukd be making contact with the head while sparring. Speaking from my white belt days,If i made contact with someone,s head,there was little to no control over momentum,nor power. this was not because of a lack of proper instruction,it was because most beginners have very little control. Best leave the head alone until a bit of experience and then if the instructor will allow some hard sparring, bring it on! I get the point but would perefer to err on the side of caution, like the sensei from new york. Confusion[/quote]
Then we very much disagree in that regard (or perhaps we are training for very different reasons). You are correct that some beginners have little to no control (heck, even some more intermediates will have issue with this as some people are just not very coordinated and/or have difficulty judging distance and timing), but plenty of them will have some level of control (some fairly good even) and should be learning to gauge distance and penetration/follow through control through the use of hitting bags, pads, and actual targets (their training partners) from from the get go. And even if they do mess up and hit harder than they expected (assuming it’s light sparring and not full contact/hard sparring), that is why they should be wearing protective equipment.
IMO, if they are not wearing boxing/Muay Thai/Kickboxibg headgear, boxing/MT/KB gloves (16 oz for men 12-14 oz for women) or possibly MMA gloves if doing MMA sparring, mouth guards, MT/KB (full contact) shin guards, and a groin protector, then what you are doing is not sparring; you are either “free fighting” (which is about as close to real fighting as you can get and tends to result in a high incidence of injury), drilling (stuff like Chi Sau, Push Hands, etc…), or playing Martial Arts tag (point sparring).
I’ve done the “free fighting” stuff before and have seen way too many injuries as a result of it (fingers snapped or nearly bitten through to the bone, hernias from hard repeated strikes to the groin, broken noses, fractured orbitals, etc…) to use it as a training methodology on a regular basis, so while on rare occasion ratcheting up the intensity and down the rules/limitations can be a useful training tool, it should not be the norm if you want to still have training partners/students to work with or be able to continue training optimally yourself. Instead protective gear should be utilized IMO the vast majority of the time. Of course, you could simply try to mimic the conditions of your chosen sport with this type of “free fighting” as well (like Ranzo suggested) prior to/leading up to a sanctioned fight and don’t have to go as all out as I used to. But even then this can/should only be done on occasion for longevity and continued healthy training purposes.
If you are point sparring or no contact sparring, then that’s fine if you are looking to/training people to compete in such competitions, but for pretty much anything else you are wasting your time. If you are looking to compete in a sport (Kyokushin for example) where punches to the head are banned, then I also completely understand why you would not train punches to the head (odly enough though kicks to the head are allowed and much harder to control/more powerful).
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]confusion wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
I let the students decide if they want to wear head gear in my dojo based on their comfort level. But I stress the importance of protecting your face/head in every class, and encourage “controlled misses” to the head.
I’m not gonna tell an attacker, “Please avoid my head, I don’t want a concussion.” So hands up, be ready. And don’t let yourself get hit in the head. At the same time though, don’t hit your sparring partner in the head either.
**EDIT: This article reminds me of the arguments for and against helmets in American football, and the concussion rates in American football compared to rugby.[/quote]
I think it’s not a bad idea to have beginners who lack control and judgement is distance to “pull” certain techniques when practicing things like self defense skills (even though I’ve taken some while full on sparring or even inadvertent ones during grappling, getting kicked in the balls because someone misjudged their distance and blasts me while we are just drilling techniques gets old reeeeeally fast). But I think it’s a bad habit to get into (like Ranzo said above). A much better practice is to have students go slowly and actually make contact, then gradually speed up (as their skill level improves) until they can hit the target they want to, but still have enough control to decide whether they want to follow through or just touch.
If you want to be able to really apply your skills in full on “Active Combat” though, you got to at least occasionally actually try to punch/kick/knee/headbutt/etc… your opponent for real. When you do so, protective equipment like headgear, boxing gloves (or at least MMA gloves), mouth guards, shin guards (if allowing kicks), and groin protectors are all crucial safety precautions that should be taken to avoid serious injury. If you wanted to take things up even another notch you could put on some High Gear or other such protective equipment.
I agree with everyone else, it’s a silly argument made by someone with no knowledge of the subject matter.[/quote]
In my opinion,no beginner shoukd be making contact with the head while sparring. Speaking from my white belt days,If i made contact with someone,s head,there was little to no control over momentum,nor power. this was not because of a lack of proper instruction,it was because most beginners have very little control. Best leave the head alone until a bit of experience and then if the instructor will allow some hard sparring, bring it on! I get the point but would perefer to err on the side of caution, like the sensei from new york. Confusion[/quote]
Then we very much disagree in that regard (or perhaps we are training for very different reasons). You are correct that some beginners have little to no control (heck, even some more intermediates will have issue with this as some people are just not very coordinated and/or have difficulty judging distance and timing), but plenty of them will have some level of control (some fairly good even) and should be learning to gauge distance and penetration/follow through control through the use of hitting bags, pads, and actual targets (their training partners) from from the get go. And even if they do mess up and hit harder than they expected (assuming it’s light sparring and not full contact/hard sparring), that is why they should be wearing protective equipment.
IMO, if they are not wearing boxing/Muay Thai/Kickboxibg headgear, boxing/MT/KB gloves (16 oz for men 12-14 oz for women) or possibly MMA gloves if doing MMA sparring, mouth guards, MT/KB (full contact) shin guards, and a groin protector, then what you are doing is not sparring; you are either “free fighting” (which is about as close to real fighting as you can get and tends to result in a high incidence of injury), drilling (stuff like Chi Sau, Push Hands, etc…), or playing Martial Arts tag (point sparring).
I’ve done the “free fighting” stuff before and have seen way too many injuries as a result of it (fingers snapped or nearly bitten through to the bone, hernias from hard repeated strikes to the groin, broken noses, fractured orbitals, etc…) to use it as a training methodology on a regular basis, so while on rare occasion ratcheting up the intensity and down the rules/limitations can be a useful training tool, it should not be the norm if you want to still have training partners/students to work with or be able to continue training optimally yourself. Instead protective gear should be utilized IMO the vast majority of the time. Of course, you could simply try to mimic the conditions of your chosen sport with this type of “free fighting” as well (like Ranzo suggested) prior to/leading up to a sanctioned fight and don’t have to go as all out as I used to. But even then this can/should only be done on occasion for longevity and continued healthy training purposes.
If you are point sparring or no contact sparring, then that’s fine if you are looking to/training people to compete in such competitions, but for pretty much anything else you are wasting your time. If you are looking to compete in a sport (Kyokushin for example) where punches to the head are banned, then I also completely understand why you would not train punches to the head (odly enough though kicks to the head are allowed and much harder to control/more powerful).[/quote]
For sparring, we have our gear and that’s when I emphasize “controlled misses” or highly controlled head shots. As the sensei, when I spar, if I see the opportunity, I will tap them on the head, to remind they have one; but these kids don’t even realize how hard or soft they should be punching in sparring, so until they can gauge their own strength, no head shots.
Outside of sparring and wearing gear, for the self-defense aspects, we use light taps on the head to convey a strike to the head (light chuto or a light palm heel, just enough to touch the skin and that’s it). Faces shouldn’t be off-bounds for a street fight, but in the dojo, this is your classmate, so of course don’t nail them in the face. For finger-tip to the eyes, controlled and slowed down to not actually gouge the eyes but to make it known that the option was there was acted upon.
If there are any other strikes to the head during a self-defense technique, it’s slowed and controlled.
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]confusion wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
I let the students decide if they want to wear head gear in my dojo based on their comfort level. But I stress the importance of protecting your face/head in every class, and encourage “controlled misses” to the head.
I’m not gonna tell an attacker, “Please avoid my head, I don’t want a concussion.” So hands up, be ready. And don’t let yourself get hit in the head. At the same time though, don’t hit your sparring partner in the head either.
**EDIT: This article reminds me of the arguments for and against helmets in American football, and the concussion rates in American football compared to rugby.[/quote]
I think it’s not a bad idea to have beginners who lack control and judgement is distance to “pull” certain techniques when practicing things like self defense skills (even though I’ve taken some while full on sparring or even inadvertent ones during grappling, getting kicked in the balls because someone misjudged their distance and blasts me while we are just drilling techniques gets old reeeeeally fast). But I think it’s a bad habit to get into (like Ranzo said above). A much better practice is to have students go slowly and actually make contact, then gradually speed up (as their skill level improves) until they can hit the target they want to, but still have enough control to decide whether they want to follow through or just touch.
If you want to be able to really apply your skills in full on “Active Combat” though, you got to at least occasionally actually try to punch/kick/knee/headbutt/etc… your opponent for real. When you do so, protective equipment like headgear, boxing gloves (or at least MMA gloves), mouth guards, shin guards (if allowing kicks), and groin protectors are all crucial safety precautions that should be taken to avoid serious injury. If you wanted to take things up even another notch you could put on some High Gear or other such protective equipment.
I agree with everyone else, it’s a silly argument made by someone with no knowledge of the subject matter.[/quote]
In my opinion,no beginner shoukd be making contact with the head while sparring. Speaking from my white belt days,If i made contact with someone,s head,there was little to no control over momentum,nor power. this was not because of a lack of proper instruction,it was because most beginners have very little control. Best leave the head alone until a bit of experience and then if the instructor will allow some hard sparring, bring it on! I get the point but would perefer to err on the side of caution, like the sensei from new york. Confusion[/quote]
Then we very much disagree in that regard (or perhaps we are training for very different reasons). You are correct that some beginners have little to no control (heck, even some more intermediates will have issue with this as some people are just not very coordinated and/or have difficulty judging distance and timing), but plenty of them will have some level of control (some fairly good even) and should be learning to gauge distance and penetration/follow through control through the use of hitting bags, pads, and actual targets (their training partners) from from the get go. And even if they do mess up and hit harder than they expected (assuming it’s light sparring and not full contact/hard sparring), that is why they should be wearing protective equipment.
IMO, if they are not wearing boxing/Muay Thai/Kickboxibg headgear, boxing/MT/KB gloves (16 oz for men 12-14 oz for women) or possibly MMA gloves if doing MMA sparring, mouth guards, MT/KB (full contact) shin guards, and a groin protector, then what you are doing is not sparring; you are either “free fighting” (which is about as close to real fighting as you can get and tends to result in a high incidence of injury), drilling (stuff like Chi Sau, Push Hands, etc…), or playing Martial Arts tag (point sparring).
I’ve done the “free fighting” stuff before and have seen way too many injuries as a result of it (fingers snapped or nearly bitten through to the bone, hernias from hard repeated strikes to the groin, broken noses, fractured orbitals, etc…) to use it as a training methodology on a regular basis, so while on rare occasion ratcheting up the intensity and down the rules/limitations can be a useful training tool, it should not be the norm if you want to still have training partners/students to work with or be able to continue training optimally yourself. Instead protective gear should be utilized IMO the vast majority of the time. Of course, you could simply try to mimic the conditions of your chosen sport with this type of “free fighting” as well (like Ranzo suggested) prior to/leading up to a sanctioned fight and don’t have to go as all out as I used to. But even then this can/should only be done on occasion for longevity and continued healthy training purposes.
If you are point sparring or no contact sparring, then that’s fine if you are looking to/training people to compete in such competitions, but for pretty much anything else you are wasting your time. If you are looking to compete in a sport (Kyokushin for example) where punches to the head are banned, then I also completely understand why you would not train punches to the head (odly enough though kicks to the head are allowed and much harder to control/more powerful).[/quote]
For sparring, we have our gear and that’s when I emphasize “controlled misses” or highly controlled head shots. As the sensei, when I spar, if I see the opportunity, I will tap them on the head, to remind they have one; but these kids don’t even realize how hard or soft they should be punching in sparring, so until they can gauge their own strength, no head shots.
Outside of sparring and wearing gear, for the self-defense aspects, we use light taps on the head to convey a strike to the head (light chuto or a light palm heel, just enough to touch the skin and that’s it). Faces shouldn’t be off-bounds for a street fight, but in the dojo, this is your classmate, so of course don’t nail them in the face. For finger-tip to the eyes, controlled and slowed down to not actually gouge the eyes but to make it known that the option was there was acted upon.
If there are any other strikes to the head during a self-defense technique, it’s slowed and controlled. [/quote]
Why would you emphasize “controlled misses” while sparring? Actually hitting someone cleanly and accurately is already such a challenging and time intensive skill to develop; why would you choose to purposely miss? In drilling of certain techniques (like the eye poke that you mentioned) I can understand doing do from a safety perspective (although an even better approach is to actually train eye attacks that are safe to do full speed, or have your opponent wear safety goggles so you can go for your eye pokes full speed and develop your accuracy), but you are developing a very dangerous false sense of proficiency, effectiveness in your strikes and experience in terms of what combat feels like (even though real combat is different from full contact sparring, at least it familiarizes you with what it feels like to have someone try to and quite possibly succeed in hitting you in the face, what it’s like to hit them, and what it actually takes to hurt/finish someone as well as knowing what you are capable of enduring) through this practice.
If you do both full contact sparring and also very light sparring to minimize accumulated brain trauma and prevent students from developing bad habits like just flailing their arms around like Rock’em Sock’em Robots or becoming afraid of punches coming at them and “flinching”, or on an individual basis because you deem that they as an individual is not yet ready for contact sparring, then I can completely understand that philosophy.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Why would you emphasize “controlled misses” while sparring? Actually hitting someone cleanly and accurately is already such a challenging and time intensive skill to develop; why would you choose to purposely miss? In drilling of certain techniques (like the eye poke that you mentioned) I can understand doing do from a safety perspective (although an even better approach is to actually train eye attacks that are safe to do full speed, or have your opponent wear safety goggles so you can go for your eye pokes full speed and develop your accuracy), but you are developing a very dangerous false sense of proficiency, effectiveness in your strikes and experience in terms of what combat feels like (even though real combat is different from full contact sparring, at least it familiarizes you with what it feels like to have someone try to and quite possibly succeed in hitting you in the face, what it’s like to hit them, and what it actually takes to hurt/finish someone as well as knowing what you are capable of enduring) through this practice.
If you do both full contact sparring and also very light sparring to minimize accumulated brain trauma and prevent students from developing bad habits like just flailing their arms around like Rock’em Sock’em Robots or becoming afraid of punches coming at them and “flinching”, or on an individual basis because you deem that they as an individual is not yet ready for contact sparring, then I can completely understand that philosophy.
[/quote]
Controlled misses when they spar each other, specifically. They’re only beginning to spar for the most part. Those who’ve been training the sparring component for about a year or more are given more leniency to controlled, soft taps to the head when sparring me, but only with me. It doesn’t help that most of them are sparring a sibling, either. But I whole-heartedly agree: Missing the head isn’t a habit I want them to have.
I was in one dojo as a guest where you weren’t allowed ANY contact with the body in sparring, which I do wholly support. Learn to take the punch or kick, and learn how to give them out. Considering I’ve been on both sides of punching someone in the face (not a kid out when I was 8 because he was being an ass while sparring, so I hit him a bit too hard); but I’ve also been hit far too hard. It’s always the struggle of finding the happy median for sparring.
martial arts has a different meaning for different people. one of my instructors told me,not everyone wants to learn how to beat someones ass and take a chance on getting hurt every time they come to train. the serious fighter might say,well dont train them then. The instructor says,there are a couple guys that wanna train badass,theres a roomfull who dont. i,m running a business here. You probably need to find a couple guys like you and train with them,if you can,or take private lessons.
[quote]confusion wrote:
martial arts has a different meaning for different people. one of my instructors told me,not everyone wants to learn how to beat someones ass and take a chance on getting hurt every time they come to train. the serious fighter might say,well dont train them then. The instructor says,there are a couple guys that wanna train badass,theres a roomfull who dont. i,m running a business here. You probably need to find a couple guys like you and train with them,if you can,or take private lessons.[/quote]
Your first statement is true, different people have different reasons for training. As long as you are not billing what you do as legitimate self defense or “Martial” (which translates to war) skills, then cool. My issue is with people who don’t explicitly differentiate between legitimate Martial skills and just practicing skills or movements to improve fitness, or coordination, or cultural connection, or any of the other very worthwhile and beneficial aspects of practicing the “art” aspect of Martial Arts. Unfortunately I see this happening far too often.
I completely understand about the business aspect as well as I too own and run a school. IME, as long as you are honest about what you teach and don’t bill yourself as something you are not you won’t have an issue finding people who want to train what you want to teach/focus on.
[quote]Kirks wrote:
Thoughts? I don’t wear head gear when I spar, but the fighters in my gym (muay thai) do mostly. Not always. Usually when they have a fight coming up (probably to help with cuts more than anything).[/quote]
I have had 2 broken noses and you can almost breath on my nose now and it will bleed, hence one of the main reasons I quit competitive boxing. However, I like to spar and throw the head gear on with the face protector but damn I catch shots that I normally would miss not wearing head gear.
Hello, Sentoguy! Why do you not recommend 16 oz. gloves for women, please? Just curious.
[quote]Seachel_25 wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Why would you emphasize “controlled misses” while sparring? Actually hitting someone cleanly and accurately is already such a challenging and time intensive skill to develop; why would you choose to purposely miss? In drilling of certain techniques (like the eye poke that you mentioned) I can understand doing do from a safety perspective (although an even better approach is to actually train eye attacks that are safe to do full speed, or have your opponent wear safety goggles so you can go for your eye pokes full speed and develop your accuracy), but you are developing a very dangerous false sense of proficiency, effectiveness in your strikes and experience in terms of what combat feels like (even though real combat is different from full contact sparring, at least it familiarizes you with what it feels like to have someone try to and quite possibly succeed in hitting you in the face, what it’s like to hit them, and what it actually takes to hurt/finish someone as well as knowing what you are capable of enduring) through this practice.
If you do both full contact sparring and also very light sparring to minimize accumulated brain trauma and prevent students from developing bad habits like just flailing their arms around like Rock’em Sock’em Robots or becoming afraid of punches coming at them and “flinching”, or on an individual basis because you deem that they as an individual is not yet ready for contact sparring, then I can completely understand that philosophy.
[/quote]
Controlled misses when they spar each other, specifically. They’re only beginning to spar for the most part. Those who’ve been training the sparring component for about a year or more are given more leniency to controlled, soft taps to the head when sparring me, but only with me. It doesn’t help that most of them are sparring a sibling, either. But I whole-heartedly agree: Missing the head isn’t a habit I want them to have.
I was in one dojo as a guest where you weren’t allowed ANY contact with the body in sparring, which I do wholly support. Learn to take the punch or kick, and learn how to give them out. Considering I’ve been on both sides of punching someone in the face (not a kid out when I was 8 because he was being an ass while sparring, so I hit him a bit too hard); but I’ve also been hit far too hard. It’s always the struggle of finding the happy median for sparring.[/quote]
Sounds like you’re training a bunch of people who ain’t gonna be able to fight.