Point sparring

OneKickWonder · Purple Belt

For a long time, I thought point sparring was erm, pardon the pun, pointless.

My long held view used to be that a real fight doesn't stop the instant a judge raises a flag thingy. Free sparring made more sense. Still unlike a real fight, free sparring does at least emulate the bitter struggle to some extent, and the chaos.

But now I find myself thinking a little different about point sparring. I'd love to hear opinions on this.

Watching free sparring, especially the kids, there is sometimes the tendency to not try too hard to get one through. I'm not talking about full contact.just demonstrating the ability to land at good one if needed.

Or to put it another way. I think some people lack the determination to win. And free sparring does nothing to encourage that determination because unless knockouts or submissions are allowed, there can be no winner.

Point sparring on the other hand has a clear winner, and if it has one thing in common with a real fight, that can happen in a very short time if you make a mistake.

What do others think?

singularity6 · Pre-Black Belt

Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

To me, point sparring is clearly superior when it comes to sport martial arts. Most of us don't want to get pounded or choked at all. I think point sparring also has advantages when it comes to teaching focus and strategy. You need to follow a set of rules, think on your feet and keep your cool all at the same time, and there is significant merit to that.

Free sparring can be fun, and since you're not worried as much about points, you can explore various strategies. Fewer rules could also mean less to worry about. In our class, the only rules we have are "strike below above the belt, and use control." Strikes to the head, chokes/locks and throws (when mats are out) are all allowed.
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Himokiri Karate · Member of the Month

Full on sparring is important in the beginning. But later on you need to learn to tame your technique. I have seen from combat gyms guys wailing on each other with haymakers which is not good. But at least they know what getting hard feels like.

Point sparring is good because it consciously forces good technique since that is the main emphasis. But they also don't do well with composure if they get hard. I guess both have their advantage and disadvantage.

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hammer · Green Belt

Just doing point sparring isn't good...you never know how effective your techniques are, and too often you race to get the one shot in.

Just doing full contact isn't good...all you do is learn how to throw techniques out there and you will get hurt too often.

We do a lot of light contact with occasional ramp-ups to moderate contact (depending on the sparring partner).

Kyokushin isn't about point sparring so we don't do that, but I can see its usefulness for speed and strategy. Doesn't take as much thought to just go in there and slug it out.

XtremeTrainer · Yellow Belt

One of my biggest gripes about point sparring is how inaccurate it can be as to who scores or doesn't score a hit. Take fencing for instance, in fencing when you score a hit its electronically registered through their machine but with point sparring there is no such system. Determining who scored or didn't score a hit is entirely up to the judges, what they see and what they decide on. You might score a good clean hit and the judges didn't see it so it doesn't count as a point. Or, your opponent might not score a clean hit but because of the angle of view the judges might think its a clean hit and count it as a point for your opponent. You're never supposed to argue with the judges even if they're wrong and judges can be wrong. That is my main gripe about point sparring.

OneKickWonder · Purple Belt

bushido_man96 · KF Sensei

Free sparring is useful for learning and practicing strategies. The two sparring can agree to working on certain attack/counter strategies, and get lots of reps in doing it, without worry about the "break/point" stopping the match. This is super good for training. It can also be a great way to warm up or just blow off some steam with a buddy. Its great for drilling.

Point sparring is important for applying the strategies you work on in the stressful environment where failure can happen.
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sensei8 · KF Sensei

Point sparring is another tool for the student to utilize. However, for any tool to be advantages for the user of the tool, proactive seriousness must be garnered effectively.

Nonetheless, if the tool, point sparring, in this case, is only being used to earn a tournament reward [trophy and the like], and to not improve the MA betterment of the student, then that's the damaging side affect of point sparring.

Imho!!

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MatsuShinshii · Black Belt

CTTKDKing · Orange Belt

I'm a little late to this thread but as i train with and help coach with the point sparring team and also take Muay Thai sparring classes to aid in my training, I figured i'd weigh in.

I'm a big fan of the traditional martial arts but the way they are taught in most places in the US, is lacking in certain ways in a lot of schools.

I view BOTH free sparring and point sparring as necessary tools if you want to be rounded (as well as grappling but we aren't discussing that here). Free sparring to work on strategies in a more "fight like" way as well as learning to take a harder hit, combos, etc., and point sparring for working on landing that precise high speed strike and learning to rapidly exploit openings. Point fighting is a bit safer and lighter contact than most continuous systems, so a lot of our lower belts try that before jumping into something heavier duty like Muay Thai or MMA sparring. This is awesome because many people in continuous fight only schools that teach traditional arts, wont spar because they are intimidated by standing toe to toe with someone and slugging it out, or they don't start it until they are like brown belts, so in my school they are encouraged to start with the point fighting and then add more in as they are comfortable. This gets them learning to use their moves in real time a lot earlier than in a lot of other schools that i've visited which means that their techniques they are using in the regular karate classes will be that much more effective, that much earlier which is quite important. It's one thing to practice something like a Kanpo defense technique in class with a person where it's pre-choreographed out but it's another at speed where the person isn't attacking in a predetermined way.

All of it is useful though and can be learned from. They are just different tools on the Swiss Army knife that is the martial arts. For me, I did WTF TKD competitions for a number of years back in the early 2000's which is hard/full contact and continuous sparring but with certain restrictions, like no straight punches to the face and no grappling or take downs. Jump to the school i attend now after moving in 2012 and here i train in my school's karate system as a primary, as i mentioned above, and then i participate in Muay Thai sparring classes once a week as well as a point fighting class once a week.

After years of training this way, as well as an occasional sparring match with people from our MMA team, my abilities have become extremely well rounded compared to where i was when TKD was the focus. We have a lot of MMA and BJJ guys that think karate is a waste or a joke, but for those of us that have put in the time on the mat for our karate system and practice both types of sparring, it shows and the people who are purely on the MT continuous sparring side of the coin usually have to take back their sentiments after experiencing it first hand with some of our senior belts.
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