Feeling in a bit of a slump in your sparring? Perhaps overwhelmed or under-challenged? Sparring games, where you create restrictions and alternate objectives, can be a great way to up the strategic challenge and interest or allow you to focus on a smaller subset of skills. The first batch of games I'm presenting are all…
Read More... from Sparring Games: Alternate Target Objectives
Not at all. Whether you approach your practice as a martial sport or a martial art, defeating your opponent can be a useful measure of your ability. However, it's the wrong place to be looking until a fair ways down the path of setting a martial foundation. There are many techniques, tricks, and traps one…
Read More... from How Much Should I Worry About Winning At The Beginning?
At our rank exams, we evaluate students by how they demonstrate certain techniques alone and against a partner, as well as their use in sparring. Many students are most nervous about the competitive aspect and not being able to plan exactly what will happen in the sparring component. However, I see more students get reduced…
Randy's at it again. This time some really good notes on why sparring is important to the development of the Art. There certainly is a difference between the theory of the art and its practice (Capoferro talks about it thus too). The lesson that I want to point out is that putting your theory into…