One must remember when one is sparring....

Angus · Black Belt

That it is not real fighting. A lot of our karate systems do touch sparring now and many people get overconfident. Sparring in karate is used to basically practice techniques and to judge distances. I've been getting smacked up in sparring lately, cos my karate is very poor... My fighting is good but my karate as awful. There is no competition that can judge how good a fighter u are, not even the UFC stuff. It's what u do in the street that counts. My old man and i were talking about karate and he said to me (me acting totally innocent) "have u ever been in a street fight? I hope not!" I was only barely able to control my laughter cos those of u who know me know what i get up to. I said "Yeah dad, only a couple though"... Hahaha, only a couple.

But back to the point, too many people think that if they spar really well then they have everything they need to know about defending themselves. They don't. Street fights are excellent ways of judging how good u are. Size, strength, speed, and technique are all important, not just a couple of them. I really suggest that everyone do weights training and try to get big. I've never seen a massive guy in a fight before cos nobody wants to fight them. Sparring them's okay but nobody wants to fight a big guy for real.

Anyway, tiem to cut some more wood... tata,
Angus

_________________
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

MuayTB1 · Brown Belt

Dude, I was boxing this black blet and man I didn't know he was a black blet untill he told me and showed me his school. People are turning into pussies. oops.

Taikudo-ka · Green Belt

On the other hand, I remember when I was at school there was a bully, who I think fancied himself as a bit of a martial artist, or "ninja" or somesuch, who started throwing punches, not serious but in that mocking way bullies do to kids smaller than them. I started blocking and none got thru. He backed off a bit and asked "hey, do you do martial arts?"
I reluctantly told him I didn't, but he backed off a bit after that, not sure what other tricks I might have if he annoyed me too much...
What I didn't confess was that I was just doing "wax on, wax off" from the Karate Kid

(Hey, this was the 80s and I was young, right)
Of course, now I have learned to block properly, and don't hurt my own arm doing so

Taikudo-ka · Green Belt

"People are turning into pussies"

When I was young I used to practise Kitten Style Kung-Fu...
The basic move consists of curling up into a tight ball and howling until the nasty people go away...
Later I learned that this was not the most superior Kung-Fu style...
Eventually, with my own rigourous training I was able to defeat even the largest and strongest opponents who still practised the old kitten style kung-fu.
I eventually became master of my own style. The basic form for this style consists of leaping 6 feet in the air and across the room, latching onto your oppoent with your legs, preferably immobalizing his arms in the process, then clawing out both his eyes, ripping out his throat, and then using your body weight and momentum to topple him to the ground. This I call Cat Kung-Fu...

KickChick · Black Belt

I'm sure that most martial artists are pretty much aware of the difference in spar/fighting and street fighting. When we spar at our school we have full gear on and head cntact is only agreed upon between fighting opponents (if they so desire to make contact its ok then)
Nobody has ever been seriously injured due to sparring.
Now last weekend at competion .... rules were changed seconds before start to change sparring from round robin to knock down for ages 11 and up. Many of our students who could of and should of KO'd the other participants held back due to the mere fact that we don't spar like that in class... they weren't used to knock down sparring! Here was their chance to connect and would never have to see the "victim" ever again! No not a street fight but hey!

[CT]pizzaboy · Green Belt

Sparring is just for fun. Fighting is for real. Mixed the two up in a real fight, and all the training you have done will be wasted because you'll likely be beaten. Here's a tip: when confronted, if you don't have in a mouth piece and you are wearing no head gear, that might be a real fight.

G95champ · Black Belt

The differance is like night and day.

1. Suprise when sparring you know who your fighting and pretty much what he does well and not sl well. Street fighting you don't know if you got one or 2 or 15 and how good they are.

2. Weapons are fair game. I don't care how bad you think you are a knife will still cut you and a bullet will still kill you.

3. Enviorment sveral things here. One lingthing. I would bet a fight on the street takes place at night more often than not. Thus seeing becomes harder. Weather you got to account for rain, mudd, and other things. Also what type of surface are you on. Falling down on carpet or wood floors are much better than on gravel or blacktop.

4. Dress or clothing. I don't care how many jumping or spinning kicks you can throw in class try them in blue jeans and boots.

5. Supervisors in class while sparring sometimes people get a bit hot but teachers and other students are there to step in. On the street once you are getting pounded you better hope the cops come by pretty soon.

Im sure they are more but these are the ones I make light of when speaking to people about karate.

Angus · Black Belt

very well put champ, very well put indeed.

Angus

_________________
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

bjjbarbie · Yellow Belt

im a 17 year old chicka dee!!.....so yeah i havent experience the old pub * fights!! : )
im sure i could manage myself.but i do agree that yeah it is hard to judge a person skill coz u turn up at tournaments and here are 6 year old kids with 2nd dan black belt!! ?? whats the go!! it seems like karate is very much turning into an advertising campaign : ("join here and get ur black belt in 12 months!!!) what a joke hey???????
:down:here i am training for 4 years and coz im in a very difficult style im upto blue belt and yet (not bragging) im aussie champ in point sparring and yet i got knocked out first round in every single contiuos bout i have been in!!
so yeah i agree with u ....street fighting is very much the real test....as belts are becoming seemingly a joke really!!!

redbutt · White Belt

Belts are only a joke if you are the type of person that thinks that because you are a black belt, you are the ****. What you need to realize...and it sounds like everyone here does, is that no matter how much you know, there is always someone out there that knows more than you.

Kumite is a great training aid, and it really shows you your weaknesses...if you can't score a point it'll be really hard to land an effective technique in a real situation. But, like everyone here has said, a real fight is a whole new world.

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