Not all chinese martial artists want to spar.

[It is Fake]

With all the Drama lately lets add some more.


Not all chinese martial artists want to spar. It's true enough in my school. More power to them, for 99% of us, this is a hobby.

Isol8d brought this up in the critique this forum thread. I think it is a topic that can be discussed.


I agree to a certain extent. I have no problem with hobbyists none at all. I have problem with hobbyists thinking no sparring=Self Defense.

No, I'm not going to get into the whole debate of what's the definition of Martial Art. We have enough threads on this in the regular forum.

[dwhomp]

I spar as much as I can. We spar in classes. We get together on occasion with other chi-munchers and spar.

And I am a hobbyist. (Fake, i think you an I already debated this a bit so if it is rehash, I can edit)

To me a hobbyist is someone who doesnt make a life directed around it. I work a full time job. I am a drunk and like to chase tail. I like to play poker. I like to train Xing-Yi. To me that makes me a hobbyist.

So me, my life every week is about:
50 hours job
10-20 hours Xing-Yi/gym/class
8-12 hours drunk tail chasing
Poker to fill in the blanks

If it was
60 hours Xing-Yi/gym/class
then i wouldnt cal it a hobby.

[It is Fake]

That's why I quoted Isol8d per his definition, hobbyists don't like sparring. I considered it a hobby until I decided to teach.

I no longer teach, it is a hobby again. A hobby is really no reason to think doing forms is going to make you able to do SD. This is a distinction rarely made by hobbyists.

My hobby is kung fu, therefore I don't have to spar but, I can use it to defend myself because, dwohmp/teacher spars.

This my problem.

Have fun, don't ever spar, don't claim you do Self Defense, it isn't an issue. Hell, I may even join you at some point.

99% of hobbyists live through their fighters/teachers then, claim there BB, then say they can fight. At least those I encounter. Hell my early years I thought the same until, I got popped in my nose.

[Southpaw]

It seems strange to me to have a hobby that you don't actual use.

So...say my hobby was ice skating. I spent a bunch of time picking out the right pair of skates, sharpening the blades, stretching & warming up...but I never got on the ice to actually ice skate. That doens't really seem like much of a hobby huh?

I guess an arguement can be made for training for simply the health benefits...

[It is Fake]

It seems strange to me to have a hobby that you don't actual use.

So...say my hobby was ice skating. I spent a bunch of time picking out the right pair of skates, sharpening the blades, stretching & warming up...but I never got on the ice to actually ice skate. That doens't really seem like much of a hobby huh?

I guess an arguement can be made for training for simply the health benefits...
My mom did this with Tai Chi she is now 62. She could never touch her toes. So, she gained better flexibility, balance (she is older), and isn't sedentary. I can see their hobbyist P.O.V.

I'm more in line with you wen it comes to myself.

[Boyd]

It seems strange to me to have a hobby that you don't actual use.

So...say my hobby was ice skating. I spent a bunch of time picking out the right pair of skates, sharpening the blades, stretching & warming up...but I never got on the ice to actually ice skate. That doens't really seem like much of a hobby huh?

I guess an arguement can be made for training for simply the health benefits...

It's just a cop-out, really. The entire phrase "I'm not doing this to become a cage fighter" or "I have a day job", while true for 95% of the martial arts-training population, is used almost exclusively by pussies trying to justify putting the bare minimum of effort into their training. How many times have you heard "I'm not trying to become a 300-pound steroid monster" by the asshole that chats on his cell phone in the gym?

Under normal circumstances and in a normal hobby, I would say that if these people want to short-change themselves, so be it. It's not my problem and in no way affects my training. Except...it does. The naturally violent nature of martial arts lends itself to a certain backlash, an inherent (and oftentimes justified) fear of training too hard for fear of injury. This fear splinters off into the myraid issues the martial arts face today, virtually all of which have been addressed at this site eleventy billion times.

If you have one fifty-year old accountant with a bad knee sitting out of sparring at the end of class, he's not hurting anyone. But what if he doesn't have a bad knee and just wants to pretend "being fifty" is an injury? What happens if that accountant is middle-aged and starts saying "Oh, I'm just here to have fun and increase my flexibility! ;)"? Now what if you've got several middle-aged accountants that signed up for a glorified yoga class? And they're talking, unionizing, spreading ideas and feeding a self-perpetuating cycle of victimhood and self pity founded on the delusional belief that only professionals should take pride in their work? Now the school's owner, facing a large group of students disinterested in any form of challenge, has to alter his curriculum to accomodate them.

It's a frightening scenario, and as outlandish as it sounds, it's been happening all over the country. Of course most people do not train to be a cage fighter, and most people do work 9-5 jobs and can't afford to be injured. But using those ideas are crutches instead of realities leads to half-assed training, which in the end, benefits no one.

[Tom Kagan]

The single most fundamental defining element of a fighter is the sheer hunger to close the gap.

This hunger is independent of the exercise of better judgment; Its pangs cause such an aching desire to want to go forward even when to do so isn't tactically or strategically a great idea.


Fighters want to fight.

Some fighters can't gain control over the hunger.

Not every Martial Artist is a fighter.

Some non-fighters have learned to eat a little bit even if they are not feeling the hunger.





... And, some people subsist on "junk food". :smile:

[Scott Larson]

I think these are two different issues. It is one thing to not want to spar, it is something completely different when someone doesn't want to put effort into training.

[Scott Larson]

Great analogy, Tom.

[Goju - Joe]

What are we calling sparring?

Is someone who sits out out of a class that has hard contact sparring worse off than someone who does tippy tapp point sparring?

Is doing slap chi sao better than good pad work?

These questions keep me up at night.

[Teh El Macho]

Ok, what about the person who's taking, say Muay Thai, and does all the rope jumping, calistenics, bag work, pad/mitt drills, and conditioning like everyone else, but doesn't spar? Is he learning anything? Is he not "training"? I have a feeling this is not a clear-cut yes/no question.

On the other hand, what if a person goes to a BJJ or Judo school, does all the calistenics, body conditioning and drills, BUT skips sparring? In this particular case, one can categorically say that person is not learning or training, no matter how hard the "warmups" are (which can be as fucking hard as sparring itself.)

This person is not learning anything and he is not training. In these type of cases, it is impossible to learn without sparring. No way jose. Never.

[Neildo]

Wait, i thought kung fu was all about whupping the ass. wtf is this shit?

[Scott Larson]

Ok, what about the person who's taking, say Muay Thai, and does all the rope jumping, calistenics, bag work, pad/mitt drills, and conditioning like everyone else, but doesn't spar? Is he learning anything? Is he not "training"? I have a feeling this is not a clear-cut yes/no question.

On the other hand, what if a person goes to a BJJ or Judo school, does all the calistenics, body conditioning and drills, BUT skips sparring? In this particular case, one can categorically say that person is not learning or training, no matter how hard the "warmups" are (which can be as fucking hard as sparring itself.)

This person is not learning anything and he is not training. In these type of cases, it is impossible to learn without sparring. No way jose. Never.

This is very interesting. I agree with most of what you are saying, but I wouldn't say the person is learning nothing. I would say that at some point that one would have to spar for it to be a complete martial art. Without that you can't put the word "martial" in it.

[Ronin.74]

The single most fundamental defining element of a fighter is the sheer hunger to close the gap.

This hunger is independent of the exercise of better judgment; Its pangs cause such an aching desire to want to go forward even when to do so isn't tactically or strategically a great idea.


Fighters want to fight.

Some fighters can't gain control over the hunger.

Not every Martial Artist is a fighter.

Some non-fighters have learned to eat a little bit even if they are not feeling the hunger.





... And, some people subsist on "junk food". :smile:

Tom's analogy is excellent, just switch the word "non-fighter" for "hobbyist" and it would be even better.

When I was younger I sparred full contact kickboxing. No headgear, no shin pads (we wore the little booties! Fortunately no one kicked with their shins), and usually no cup. We had boxing gloves, mouthpiece and our padded boots. At that time I was trying to be a fighter, I did a little amateur KB in the ring, but mostly just hard sparring. After about 8 months of hard sparring 3-4 days a week, I noticed that I started to stutter when I talked. Being a college student I decided that I didn't want to be a fighter anymore, so my sparring days became very far and few between.

These days I don't spar very often. I do some light - medium contact occassionally and some timing. In timing your making contact as if your hitting a 2 yr old, but I generally push my partners to hit me much harder than others, becuase I feel I get more out of timing that way. I have gloved up and gone full go in recent months at the request of my Baji instructor, but it's not something I do regularly.

I think all students should have to do hard sparring at least on a short term basis just to get a feel for it. After which I think you will get stuck with one of 3 kinds of people. Fighters, Hobbyists, Larpers

Fighters will do hard sparring and like it.

Hobbyists try hard sparring and decide it's not for them. Having done hard sparring and survived, they are not really afraid of it anymore. If necessary they can step up and spar, they just prefer not to. They should still do some sparring even if it's light contact or just timing. But they are not fighters, not because of fear but just because of their personality.

Larpers will want nothing to do with sparring. They will see full contact hard sparring and immediately decide they want nothing to do with it. These students will only be interested in forms and theory.

The Larpers are fine with me, they help pay the bills so the Fighters can continue to have a place to train. What is not ok is when the Larpers start to believe they are as skilled and deadly as the fighters simply because they train in the same facility.

For the record, I am a hobbyist.

[Guizzy]

Ok, what about the person who's taking, say Muay Thai, and does all the rope jumping, calistenics, bag work, pad/mitt drills, and conditioning like everyone else, but doesn't spar? Is he learning anything? Is he not "training"? I have a feeling this is not a clear-cut yes/no question.

On the other hand, what if a person goes to a BJJ or Judo school, does all the calistenics, body conditioning and drills, BUT skips sparring? In this particular case, one can categorically say that person is not learning or training, no matter how hard the "warmups" are (which can be as fucking hard as sparring itself.)

This person is not learning anything and he is not training. In these type of cases, it is impossible to learn without sparring. No way jose. Never.Indeed; I very much agree here.

A punch, whether or not there is someone to recieve it, stays a punch. The resistance of a person to a punch can be replaced by a bag or a pad. Of course, if I were to judge if that alone is a good training methodology, I'd say it's not, but the tools are still being trained.

Grappling without a partner is... Probably a major sign of mental illness.


---

My opinion echo yours; it's their choice not to spar, and if they don't want to spar, their bad. Even light contact sparring would make a dramatic difference in their training, but hey; who am I to judge.

But on the other hand, I can certainly feel the results of this approach. My school would spar much more if my teacher was not worried about keeping the newer, weaker and less "hardcore" students. I'd say less than 10% of newcomers train with us for more than 6 months, where they barely start seeing real results for their efforts. This is mostly due to the harshness of the training when compared to the people that are attracted by the "kung fu" name. Honestly, I haven't heard of anyone leaving us because they thought our training wasn't useful or wasn't hard enough. Any less students (which could be prompted by using more time for sparring, and an increase in the contact level) could mean that the school is no longer viable.

At the very least, at my school, students have to show they are able of sparring during their first grading. They have to show they are able to spar bareknuckle safely, because the first grading is mostly the part where the students truly interested in learning how to fight are weeded out. And after that grading, the students left know what to do and are encouraged to spar more outside of normal classtime. And personally, I live pretty far from my school and can't exactly stay long outside of our classtime.

So if I could, I'd force them all to spar.

[Ronin.74]

Ok, what about the person who's taking, say Muay Thai, and does all the rope jumping, calistenics, bag work, pad/mitt drills, and conditioning like everyone else, but doesn't spar? Is he learning anything? Is he not "training"? I have a feeling this is not a clear-cut yes/no question.
On the other hand, what if a person goes to a BJJ or Judo school, does all the calistenics, body conditioning and drills, BUT skips sparring? In this particular case, one can categorically say that person is not learning or training, no matter how hard the "warmups" are (which can be as fucking hard as sparring itself.)

This person is not learning anything and he is not training. In these type of cases, it is impossible to learn without sparring. No way jose. Never.

This is a good point. At the Muay Thai gym I trained at in Korea we had a guy that didn't spar. He came in did all the training, pads, bagwork, clinchwork, but no sparring. He one day decided to enter an 8 man Muay Thai tournament. He lost in the finals by decision. He definitely was learning even without sparring. Of course the argument can be made that had he sparred he would have had easier fights and possibly won the decision.