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Sparring: what is and its purpose

Kung Fu sparring: a realistic view

Sparring is the most realistic simulation of a real fight (read The 6 types of martial clash) but it happens in a safe, respectful and controlled way (read Dojo (guan): rules, respect and etiquette).

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

In relation to our approach to martial arts, we have 2 options:

If we (legitimately) want to practice for health, fitness, wellness, cultural reasons (etc.), the practice of sparring can be avoided
If we want to truly learn how to fight, we must consistently focus on the practice of combat

The choice is ours but we must rationally understand that, without ever facing a free and uncooperative partner, it is impossible:

To learn how to manage a complex self-defense situation (read Why martial arts do not work: 5 reasons)
To deeply interiorize the techniques we study (read A scheme to quickly learn any kind of technique)
To compete in sportive contexts (read Why do traditional martial artists fail against sports fighters?)
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Kung Fu sparring: the premises

In our school, we have several types of sparring methods and each of them has different purposes but before analyzing them, we want to rapidly list the fundamental conditions to start:

Respect – Respect and consideration for the safety of our partners must replace the desire to prevail; to cause harm to those who train with us is a serious humiliation of our martial dignity (besides being useless, dangerous and stupid, it is a lack of physical / mental self-control, read also Revenge and resentment, knives taken from the blade side)
Sharing – In sparring, we are all on the same team, there are neither winners nor losers; there are only precious errors, lessons and experiences to which we must give meaning (to evolve and understand ourselves, read Measure ourselves with errors); a sparring session that ends without having taught us anything is just a waste of time
Friendship – Before and after the fight we exchange a gesture of respect and friendship (we will see how this happens in 6 Dragons Kung Fu); this should not be seen as a meaningless ritual but as a voluntary mental conditioning (read also Fighting and mind control: the anchors) that must remind that between us and those we are facing there is no other cause or end different from the study
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A note by Master Kongling – Over my career, I have seen and participated in many sparring sessions but in most cases, I have seen poor analysis and silly competition. Done in this way, sparring loses 50% of its effectiveness. On the one hand, the beginner must have the humility to ask for advice, on the other hand, the expert must not bask in his / her superiority but must put himself / herself in a position to be defeated (through handicaps, revealing his / her methods, giving advice, etc.). If we do not think this way: to the beginner, being beaten will only bring a lot of frustration, to the expert, the easy victories will only fake his / her preparation.

How to safely perform sparring

Safety rules:

Basic technical preparation – In our school, sparring is not allowed in the first phase of learning (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///); in addition to this, those who are not able to practice controlled fallings (breakfalls, read The falling techniques (breakfalls) [MINI-GUIDE]), to keep the guard up (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///), to execute / defend basic striking techniques (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///) cannot participate
Basic physical shape – Who has a large balance deficit (read How to improve balance: tricks and exercises), a too bad physical shape (read Physical conditioning: how it works), recent / chronic injuries or a too delicate structure cannot do sparring; it is not a matter of sex, age (read also The right age to start practice) or constitution, we simply need to reach a basic acceptable condition
Mental requirements – Who is not able to maintain a basic level of concentration, to resist low-level pain (read Acceptance and prevention of pain), to control anger, competitivity or who has something against his / her partners cannot practice sparring; until our mind has become clean, quiet, humble and disposed to learn we cannot participate
When to stop – At the first sign of discomfort, pain, extreme fatigue or excessive tension, sparring must be immediately interrupted; the goal is always to preserve quality and safety (both in a real battle and consequentially much more among teammates); sparring is meant to be performed to grow our martial level but if we badly hurt ourselves we will not be able to continue training regularly (or worse); on the other side it must also be said that if we fight without energy we risk wasting our time (it is always a bad idea to get used to express low-level performances during combat, it is a negative self-conditioning, read Training in negative; there are a lot of other exercises to work on psychophysical resistance)
How often practice sparring – If sparring is done in a very light way by conditioned practitioners, there are potentially no limits (even daily in extremis); if the type of contact is heavier (or the contenders are beginners) we can do it 1-2 times a week, every 2 weeks or even once a month; for example, we could make a monthly intense session and more frequently the less intense ones (it all depends on what our goal is, a competition, self-defense, etc.)
How to prepare the body for sparring – In order to avoid unnecessary risks, sparring can be done only after a good warm-up (read How to correctly perform warm-up) and a correct stretching (read How to correctly perform stretching), preferably at the end of a complete training session (with few forces at disposal and under the stress of fatigue, as it was at Shaolin Temple in ancient times)
The level of technical application – The techniques that we can perform must stop where their complete application would mean to end the sparring with damages; the idea is to (try to) avoid everything that will not disappear (in terms of physical limitations) within a few hours, after the end of a light session (eg. some bruises are not a big problem, an overextended arm, it is) and within 1-2 days for the most intense ones
3 people – Let’ not perform sparring without a third person present who can help properly or stop the ongoing confrontation (there are a lot of unexpected things that can happen, damages, quarrels, etc.); the third person (normally the instructor) is the chief and decides when the fight starts and when it stops, immediately, without any possible discussion (our ears must always listen and obey his / her orders)
In which cases sparring can be interrupted – While we do sparring, we only are us, our opponents, the supervisor and the scenario, nothing more, nothing less (we do not stop and we have not to be distracted); the fight freezes when one of these 3 entities asks for a break (tapping on the floor, on our body or by voice); the only acceptable case is when a fast technical analysis is required (but even here it must be a matter of a few seconds because otherwise, the bodies cool down, in all the other cases the fundamental step of the discussion must be after)
Protections – In general, we try to avoid too many protections, in any case, their presence should not alter in any way the attention to our body and to the opponent’s one (the idea is that our defense should be the same whether we are protected or not); depending on the level of contact and on the type of sparring we opt for, we evaluate the right protections
Who cannot do sparring – Additionally to what we already said, let’s never spar with people who we do not know (it does not matter what they say); they could be physically unprepared, unable to control themselves, with hidden pathologies that we cannot see (etc.); in other words, can participate in this type of martial training, only those who have demonstrated that they have the right requirements (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///)

A note by Master Kongling – A small story. About the protections, I remember that during a Kudo lesson, the instructor told me something that soon made me leave the course: “Do not defend your head, you will have a strong protective helmet and the regulation forbids to rage with the ground and pound”. Of course, from a sporting point of view, the tactical reasoning was rational and valid but I was looking as much as possible for pure combat (read What is the difference between real fights and combative sports?). I was very sorry to leave because the level was good and the practice very intense but that was not what I was looking for (read Master Kongling: my experience with Kudo).

How to obtain the best from a sparring session

To obtain the highest results from this practice it is important to:

Give meaning to the struggle – In each sparring session, we must ensure that our companion always has a chance to learn something, no matter who is better and who is not (it is not being passive, egoist or superficial that we can grow); the constant research of improvement is the key to learn something (beating a newbie without giving him / her opportunities only increases our ego, in other words, our stupidity and this is something that we will pay in terms of delusions in the moment of need)
Change as much as possible the partners – We should not train always with the same partner (if it is possible, read 5 effective ways to find a training partner); we have to try with those who are stronger than us, those who are like us and those who are less prepared (if we act intelligently, in all three cases there are ample opportunities for learning)
Imagine the combat as real – Being sure not to risk our lives should not put us in a fictitious state of counterproductive tranquility; we have to defend at most all the vulnerable parts of our body exactly as if we were struggling for our life
Let the adversary feel the techniques – The attacks have to come to their target, they should not be caresses but at the same time, they must not be too harmful; we must learn to retain the strength and not the attack onrush; the same things happen for things like joint levers (read Chin Na), we have to gradually and slowly increase the tension, without dangerous explosive movements
Work both on quality and quantity – Less power more speed, more softness less rigidity, more mobility less economy of energy, more tactics / strategy less instinct, more precision less randomness, more testing less linearity; this is not a real combat, it’s a training to it (we have to force our stamina, experiment with technique, etc.)
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A note by Master Kongling – 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s sparring sessions (after a certain level) are famous for being very long but this must not scare us, on the contrary, this should be something that makes us feel safer; the reason is in fact that we want to teach to fight until the last energy at our disposal and to build real combat stamina. The worst types of struggles we prepare for (read Self defense, martial clash and war clash) are so disadvantageous that our preparation must be very sharp. For example, in a self-defense context, we will never be in the ideal conditions of a training session (read Self-Defense: is it possible to always be ready to fight?), so (at least in our intention) nothing that happens to us in a real scenario should be able to last longer than what we are prepared to face (elements like tension, fear, adrenaline, etc. will still make us consume many more resources than we expect).

Final notes

A few conclusive thoughts and ideas:

At the end of sparring (with respect, patience and a constructive mindset), it is a good practice to discuss what, in terms of effectiveness, happened (positive and negative, let’s be humble, friendly and let’s try to stress our limits / faults and not the ones of the others)
If our opponents are not able to apply any technique / blow, let’s stop, let’s (humbly) give them some useful advice and let’s start again (but without lowering our level of struggle, this would damage us and them)
Sparring is a group study, it is neither a sports competition nor a real fight (the sooner we understand this, the sooner we will become real martial arts practitioners); in Kung Fu, as everyone should know, the real enemy is within us and not outside (our pride, fear, etc.)
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In the next article of this series, we will start to see the first type of sparring (read Sparring type 1: slow motion fighting).

In-depth video courses

Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu exercises – The exercises that will allow you to acquire real martial skills (sparring included)
Advanced speed and reflexes training – A video course about how to train to become fast (specifically in combat terms)
Basic free hand fighting techniques – The fundamental fighting techniques of 6 Dragons Kung Fu
Self-defense: not violent self-preservation – Everything we can do before recurring to violence
Self-defense basics: how to – The full path toward 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s S.A.F.E. method
DIY training tools for martial arts – Build the only targets that we can hit at full power and even with lethal intent
Advanced combat tactics – Strategy, how to build an advanced-level game

In-depth articles

The fighter and the warrior – What is the difference between a fighter and a warrior?
When a belt becomes a blindfold – Why is so wrong to connect the martial preparation to the achieved degree

Question

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

Based on what you read, do you feel like practicing sparring?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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