[quote]Miss Parker wrote:
Hello, Sentoguy! Why do you not recommend 16 oz. gloves for women, please? Just curious.[/quote]
Often times it’s due to a combination of hand size (generally 12-14 oz gloves are easier to find/more readily available in smaller sizes) and upper body strength. That doesn’t mean that women can’t use 16’s though, just that they shouldn’t go below 12’s. Remember that the primary purpose of gloves is to protect the puncher’s hands from being broken.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]Miss Parker wrote:
Hello, Sentoguy! Why do you not recommend 16 oz. gloves for women, please? Just curious.[/quote]
Often times it’s due to a combination of hand size (generally 12-14 oz gloves are easier to find/more readily available in smaller sizes) and upper body strength. That doesn’t mean that women can’t use 16’s though, just that they shouldn’t go below 12’s. Remember that the primary purpose of gloves is to protect the puncher’s hands from being broken.[/quote]
The hand size thing is very, very true. I have small hands (if it helps they are so small the Gen 4 Glock frame makes a clear difference) and once you get into the heavier gloves I often cannot roll a decent fist. This lessons the blows, but I wind up losing some of the hand protection benefits.
Regards,
Robert A
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[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.
[/quote]
I might not go quite that far, but I’m not sure they are doing themselves any favors. Trying to use “non-contact” striking really clouds things like distance and timing. Everyone gets how bad that sucks for offense. Practicing NOT HITTING is obviously not practicing to HIT HARD, but you can sort of patch that with other drills done with a ton of padding, pad work, etc. I think the more insidious issue is with defense. If we use excessively light or, even worse, no contact than concepts like slipping, rolling with a punch, smothering a strike, or making someone over extend are not as easy to pick up.
I realize that some people might be stuck in a school/system/culture that prevents really hard sparring, but I think a lot of good work can get done sparring at 60-80%. At that pace gloves, pads, and headgear can take a lot of the risk out. If it’s an option.
Regards,
Robert A
[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]
Sorry to keep harping on the subject, but that still sounds like causing them to develop bad habit, even if they are complete beginners (in fact probably even more so then because they are building their foundation at that point, which if based on always missing will crumble if put under pressure). IMO, if you don’t feel that someone is ready to spar safely (which should always involve at least some contact), then simply don’t have them spar until they are ready; don’t have them spar wrong as that really isn’t doing them any good in the long run.
As far as intensity goes, there will be a different optimal level for each individual. I will sometimes mandate that the contact be kept light (I never want my students purposely missing during sparring though), while other times I will mandate that they go hard (during belt tests for example). Most of the time though I will let them find their own level of intensity that they are comfortable with (assuming they can remain technical and not just start brawling). Eventually you figure out who works well with who, who should usually not work with who, and if a new person comes in who might be good to work with them.
When people work with me I tell them that they are in control of how hard we go. They usually figure out pretty quickly that the harder they throw the harder they are gonna get hit back and scale things back to a more moderate level of intensity. Every now and then you get the hard ass that needs to learn the hard way and then I just don’t let them hit me but still hit them back as hard as they are throwing until they figure out that they are better off toning down the intensity. Of course, sometimes I want them to really stand and bang with me, but that is the minority of sparring time as too much of that can have negative long term effects.
Thanks, Sento & Robert.
I’ll chime in after lurking on this & say I prefer to actually hit to both the body & the head in sparring. I’ve just started sparring every week after a long while off, and while we’re just be-bopping around right now every week we go a little harder & taking a nice shot (or, sadly, a series of them) is a good reminder why I shouldn’t have stopped in the first place.
The very first school I ever trained in was a traditional Chayon-Ryu dojo & were weren’t allowed to actually hit. The goal was to come within less than an inch away to display control. Going from that to Krav Maga was a bit of a rude awakening!
I learned so many wonderful lessons training in a TMA, and am glad I trained there, but learning to take a hit & keep going wasn’t on the menu - and for me that was tremendously important to learn.
As far as head gear, I don’t hit more gently if they are not wearing head gear & I don’t believe my friends do, either.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Of course, sometimes I want them to really stand and bang with me, but that is the minority of sparring time as too much of that can have negative long term effects.[/quote]
Concerning boxers, it was always fun sparring with guys that were real close to their fights.
[quote]MWP wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Of course, sometimes I want them to really stand and bang with me, but that is the minority of sparring time as too much of that can have negative long term effects.[/quote]
Concerning boxers, it was always fun sparring with guys that were real close to their fights. [/quote]
It is fun, but again, your brain really can only take so many hard shots, so unless you want to sacrifice your long term health and wind up with neurological diseases like Parkinson’s for the short term benefits of being really good at taking a beating/tough, you don’t want to do this too often. I honestly feel too much of this hard sparring isvfoolish unless you are a professional fighter who is going to make enough money to support your family for generations to come (and even then you could arguably get similar results from more technical sparring/lighter contact), or aren’t planning on living very long anyhow (similar to the “iron body training” that many Japanese Karate systems and even old school Muay Thai/Muay Boran practiced to deaden the nerves in the forearms and shins to allow them to block or kick extremely hard in the short term but often results in being crippled should they actually live to old age) and doing so might be the difference between dying tomorrow or in a few years (which if given the choice we’d all most likely want any extra time we could get).
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
It is fun, but again, your brain really can only take so many hard shots, so unless you want to sacrifice your long term health and wind up with neurological diseases like Parkinson’s for the short term benefits of being really good at taking a beating/tough, you don’t want to do this too often.[/quote]
Agree. Was really kidding. I like to go against a live human as much as possible and the guys that are closing in on fights are the ones that like to really bang. It’s not their fault, they are just hyped and have a hard time coming off their punches. However, I tend to try and avoid heavy sparring with some as I don’t enjoy as you put it, the beatings.
huh, i guess i’m one of the few who doesn’t like headgear… IMO, the main benefit is preventing cuts and facial fractures.
i’ve had a handful of concussions in my life, and they were in football and sparring with full head gear (and one car accident).
i never had a noticeable head injury without headgear… every time i sparred heavy with it on, i’d have a low-grade headache afterwards, and sometimes the day after.
i believe that’s due to a similar phenomenon as the MMA gloves vs boxing gloves (and no standing 8 count)… i simply took too many shots where my brain was bouncing around my skull, but not enough to put me out. also, the heard gear makes my head movement worse (so, from really bad to craptastic!) and also causes some issues with peripheral vision.
if someone wants to use it, then i say let them, but i think it’s worth noting that long-term brain damage might still be there…
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
huh, i guess i’m one of the few who doesn’t like headgear… IMO, the main benefit is preventing cuts and facial fractures.
i’ve had a handful of concussions in my life, and they were in football and sparring with full head gear (and one car accident).
i never had a noticeable head injury without headgear… every time i sparred heavy with it on, i’d have a low-grade headache afterwards, and sometimes the day after.
i believe that’s due to a similar phenomenon as the MMA gloves vs boxing gloves (and no standing 8 count)… i simply took too many shots where my brain was bouncing around my skull, but not enough to put me out. also, the heard gear makes my head movement worse (so, from really bad to craptastic!) and also causes some issues with peripheral vision.
if someone wants to use it, then i say let them, but i think it’s worth noting that long-term brain damage might still be there…
[/quote]
The truth is that regardless of whether you are wearing headgear or not, the potential for brain trauma will always be there if you are taking repeated hard shots to the head.
Saying that the head gear somewhat hinders your peripheral vision is probably true, but just like football players and hockey players of old who resisted the implementation of helmets into their sport; from a saftey perspective headgear is still beneficial in terms of decreasing the incidence of injuries. You cannot argue that having a layer of shock absorbing padding on the sides of your head will absorb some of the shock of incoming strikes to your head. Just like in other contact sports where there are forceful blows to the head, the possibility of concussions and resulting brain trauma is still a very real possibility (or even inevitability).
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
huh, i guess i’m one of the few who doesn’t like headgear… IMO, the main benefit is preventing cuts and facial fractures.
i’ve had a handful of concussions in my life, and they were in football and sparring with full head gear (and one car accident).
i never had a noticeable head injury without headgear… every time i sparred heavy with it on, i’d have a low-grade headache afterwards, and sometimes the day after.
i believe that’s due to a similar phenomenon as the MMA gloves vs boxing gloves (and no standing 8 count)… i simply took too many shots where my brain was bouncing around my skull, but not enough to put me out. also, the heard gear makes my head movement worse (so, from really bad to craptastic!) and also causes some issues with peripheral vision.
if someone wants to use it, then i say let them, but i think it’s worth noting that long-term brain damage might still be there…
[/quote]
The truth is that regardless of whether you are wearing headgear or not, the potential for brain trauma will always be there if you are taking repeated hard shots to the head.
Saying that the head gear somewhat hinders your peripheral vision is probably true, but just like football players and hockey players of old who resisted the implementation of helmets into their sport; from a saftey perspective headgear is still beneficial in terms of decreasing the incidence of injuries. You cannot argue that having a layer of shock absorbing padding on the sides of your head will absorb some of the shock of incoming strikes to your head. Just like in other contact sports where there are forceful blows to the head, the possibility of concussions and resulting brain trauma is still a very real possibility (or even inevitability).[/quote]
with headgear, people take shots to the head they shouldn’t take. a lot of them…
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
huh, i guess i’m one of the few who doesn’t like headgear… IMO, the main benefit is preventing cuts and facial fractures.
i’ve had a handful of concussions in my life, and they were in football and sparring with full head gear (and one car accident).
i never had a noticeable head injury without headgear… every time i sparred heavy with it on, i’d have a low-grade headache afterwards, and sometimes the day after.
i believe that’s due to a similar phenomenon as the MMA gloves vs boxing gloves (and no standing 8 count)… i simply took too many shots where my brain was bouncing around my skull, but not enough to put me out. also, the heard gear makes my head movement worse (so, from really bad to craptastic!) and also causes some issues with peripheral vision.
if someone wants to use it, then i say let them, but i think it’s worth noting that long-term brain damage might still be there…
[/quote]
The truth is that regardless of whether you are wearing headgear or not, the potential for brain trauma will always be there if you are taking repeated hard shots to the head.
Saying that the head gear somewhat hinders your peripheral vision is probably true, but just like football players and hockey players of old who resisted the implementation of helmets into their sport; from a saftey perspective headgear is still beneficial in terms of decreasing the incidence of injuries. You cannot argue that having a layer of shock absorbing padding on the sides of your head will absorb some of the shock of incoming strikes to your head. Just like in other contact sports where there are forceful blows to the head, the possibility of concussions and resulting brain trauma is still a very real possibility (or even inevitability).[/quote]
with headgear, people take shots to the head they shouldn’t take. a lot of them…[/quote]
That’s more the result of poor supervision and guidance on the part of their coaches than it is the fault of the headgear though.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
huh, i guess i’m one of the few who doesn’t like headgear… IMO, the main benefit is preventing cuts and facial fractures.
i’ve had a handful of concussions in my life, and they were in football and sparring with full head gear (and one car accident).
i never had a noticeable head injury without headgear… every time i sparred heavy with it on, i’d have a low-grade headache afterwards, and sometimes the day after.
i believe that’s due to a similar phenomenon as the MMA gloves vs boxing gloves (and no standing 8 count)… i simply took too many shots where my brain was bouncing around my skull, but not enough to put me out. also, the heard gear makes my head movement worse (so, from really bad to craptastic!) and also causes some issues with peripheral vision.
if someone wants to use it, then i say let them, but i think it’s worth noting that long-term brain damage might still be there…
[/quote]
The truth is that regardless of whether you are wearing headgear or not, the potential for brain trauma will always be there if you are taking repeated hard shots to the head.
Saying that the head gear somewhat hinders your peripheral vision is probably true, but just like football players and hockey players of old who resisted the implementation of helmets into their sport; from a saftey perspective headgear is still beneficial in terms of decreasing the incidence of injuries. You cannot argue that having a layer of shock absorbing padding on the sides of your head will absorb some of the shock of incoming strikes to your head. Just like in other contact sports where there are forceful blows to the head, the possibility of concussions and resulting brain trauma is still a very real possibility (or even inevitability).[/quote]
with headgear, people take shots to the head they shouldn’t take. a lot of them…[/quote]
That’s more the result of poor supervision and guidance on the part of their coaches than it is the fault of the headgear though.[/quote]
i don’t really think headgear disperse the force hitting the head that causes the brain to smack into the skull…
and i’ve never seen a MMA/kickboxing gym where sparring was observed 1 on 1… you’re right-supervision matters. but most gyms simply can’t afford it, from what i’ve seen…
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
huh, i guess i’m one of the few who doesn’t like headgear… IMO, the main benefit is preventing cuts and facial fractures.
i’ve had a handful of concussions in my life, and they were in football and sparring with full head gear (and one car accident).
i never had a noticeable head injury without headgear… every time i sparred heavy with it on, i’d have a low-grade headache afterwards, and sometimes the day after.
i believe that’s due to a similar phenomenon as the MMA gloves vs boxing gloves (and no standing 8 count)… i simply took too many shots where my brain was bouncing around my skull, but not enough to put me out. also, the heard gear makes my head movement worse (so, from really bad to craptastic!) and also causes some issues with peripheral vision.
if someone wants to use it, then i say let them, but i think it’s worth noting that long-term brain damage might still be there…
[/quote]
The truth is that regardless of whether you are wearing headgear or not, the potential for brain trauma will always be there if you are taking repeated hard shots to the head.
Saying that the head gear somewhat hinders your peripheral vision is probably true, but just like football players and hockey players of old who resisted the implementation of helmets into their sport; from a saftey perspective headgear is still beneficial in terms of decreasing the incidence of injuries. You cannot argue that having a layer of shock absorbing padding on the sides of your head will absorb some of the shock of incoming strikes to your head. Just like in other contact sports where there are forceful blows to the head, the possibility of concussions and resulting brain trauma is still a very real possibility (or even inevitability).[/quote]
with headgear, people take shots to the head they shouldn’t take. a lot of them…[/quote]
That’s more the result of poor supervision and guidance on the part of their coaches than it is the fault of the headgear though.[/quote]
i don’t really think headgear disperse the force hitting the head that causes the brain to smack into the skull…
and i’ve never seen a MMA/kickboxing gym where sparring was observed 1 on 1… you’re right-supervision matters. but most gyms simply can’t afford it, from what i’ve seen…[/quote]
Why not? Are you actually arguing that a layer of shock absorbing padding doesn’t absorb shock? Do you also not believe that the padding in boxing gloves doesn’t absorb some of the shock during punching? Why then do thicker padded gloves result in fewer hand injuries than smaller gloves? Or to put it another way, go punch a brick wall as hard as you comfortably can bare fisted, then put on MMA gloves and do it, and finally put on some 16oz boxing gloves and do it. You can punch harder and harder the more padded the gloves get right? Why? Because there is more padding to absorb the shock of the punch and slow the hand down before it finally makes contact with the wall (if it does at all).
The same is true of headgear. No shock absorbing padding means that all of the force of the punch is transferred into the skull, a little padding like the headgear used in TKD and similar point sparring comps absorbs more than none, but headgear like that used on full contact amatuer striking comps (Olympic boxing for example) absorbs the most.
To deny this fact is to deny the physics of what shock absorbing foam has been proven to do.
I think the reason people take too many hard shots to the head while wearing headgear or feel like they get rocked more with it on is because fighters think that (or are coached to think that) wearing headgear gives them full liscense to throw full power strikes every time they spar (even if the person they are throwing them on is clearly not ready for that level of intensity). IMO (and also many highly respected striking coaches such as Freddie Roach’s opinion) that hard full contact sparring should make up only a very small portion of all of the sparring that one engages in, precisely for the reason that your brain really can only take so much trauma before you run into serious long term issues. So again, it’s the result of poor coaching or supervision, not that headgear doesn’t absorb some of the force from punches.
no, you’re right about headgear dispersing force… but by how much? that’s the point i was trying to make, and apparently did not, at all (i guess typing and drinking doesn’t work). anyway, i obviously don’t how much force it takes from an impact, but there is still some impact that exists , where the brain hits the skull. the question i pose, is the decrease in force by headgear offset by the increase in punches one absorbs in training?
the other issue i have with most styles of headgear is how if affects the wearer’s style… i hate seeing MMA guys sparring in full head gear and boxing gloves as a bulk of their sparring. MMA striking is simply so different, and using equipment designed for another sport contributes to errors in training/style. same goes for people training exclusively for self defense…
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
no, you’re right about headgear dispersing force… but by how much? that’s the point i was trying to make, and apparently did not, at all (i guess typing and drinking doesn’t work). anyway, i obviously don’t how much force it takes from an impact, but there is still some impact that exists , where the brain hits the skull. the question i pose, is the decrease in force by headgear offset by the increase in punches one absorbs in training?
the other issue i have with most styles of headgear is how if affects the wearer’s style… i hate seeing MMA guys sparring in full head gear and boxing gloves as a bulk of their sparring. MMA striking is simply so different, and using equipment designed for another sport contributes to errors in training/style. same goes for people training exclusively for self defense…
[/quote]
I think the answer to your first question would depend strongly on how you were using it. If you practice a lot of full out hard sparring because you erroneously believe that wearing headgear is going to protect you from incurring brain trauma, then yeah I totally agree with you. If you wear it but still exercise control in most of your sparring/drilling and practice mostly “technical sparring” with only engage in occasional hard sparring to test where you truly are or to help build mental and physical toughness, then I think it can be a very useful piece of protective gear and you aren’t as likely to take too many unnecessary hard blows to the head.
In regards to style, wearing boxing gloves, full headgear and shin guards can be great for improving one’s striking arsenal. That can be modified/appropriated to different applications (for instance, the way you slip a punch is different for a MMA/RMA focus than for a pure boxing/MT focus), and you do have to be careful not to develop bad habits that you might be able to get away with in a certain context, but that could get you into serious trouble in your primary arena of application. But, just like I feel that MMA fighters and RMA fighters can benefit from Gi grappling, no Gi submission grappling, Judo, and straight wrestling, even though none of those are exactly the same as MMA or RMA grappling/ground fighting; I also feel that sparring full contact kickboxing/MT style can help to hone certain skill sets which will benefit them in MMA/RMA. They of course have to also train in MMA gloves (and no gloves if it’s RMA) too, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.