Zyaga Writing about whatever the hell I want, cuz it's the Interwebz!

Application – The Goal of All Goals

Too many schools seem to be focused more on traditions and promoting health over everything else. While traditions are fun to learn and being in good health is always a great achievement, you can take things too far and forget about the real goal: Application.

In so many schools today, no matter the style of the school, there are too many places that very lightly focus on application which is a huge part of learning. The schools will promote friendliness(which is always good) but only very light sparring if they allow sparring at all(some schools actually don’t allow sparring!). The problem lies in the fact that no matter how much you practice at something, unless you actually do it, you’re not going to become good at it. Allowing students to go “slow-mo” and apply techniques to other students is a good way to generate confidence and get them into the feel of things, but it shouldn’t be a replacement of real sparring.

A lot of schools consider sparring to be when they put on an enormous amount of pads, such as the head, chest, hand, leg, etc gear and then still simply putting no force behind the moves that are being thrown. Generating a more life-like situation is one of the best ways to get as close to having the same feeling as you would in a fight, yet know you’re not going to get too injured. Pain is simply an indication that something has gone wrong. That’s your bodies way of telling you. Without ever feeling at least a small amount of pain in practice fights, how can you expect to be fully prepared in a real fight?

What is light sparring to me? Light sparring to me is when you simply use fingerless thin gloves for the hands(like MMA style), a mouth piece, and possibly a cup. When you fight with these conditions, you should predetermine exactly how “rough” you wish to go with the other person you are sparring with before beginning. A method that works often is to throw a kick or punch to them, showing them how hard you want to go so they know how much power to put into their hits. For light sparring, the idea is to end up with only bruises and sore spots. A factor of how light your sparring is, depends on your conditioning. Those who are not conditioned will need to go lighter then those who are.

The idea is to feel more like you’re in a fight because you don’t want to be hit. It’s not too painful, but you’re not just tapping each other on the shoulder, so to speak. I find that when my instructor shows me something and then me and another student mimic it back and forth on each other just to learn the movement, it’s usually pretty simple to get the movements down decently. Yet, when I enter into a spar it’s a hell of a lot harder to throw the movements into other combination’s on a whim. That’s part of the reason you can’t just practice it back and forth, because doing something planned is totally different then doing something on the spur of the moment.

It’s not to say that body pads are a bad thing, you just have to realized they have their place. I believe body pads can be good for when you go all out. Wearing all that gear allows you to put a lot of force behind your hits. Yes, you’ll get hurt, but not bad enough for it to ever be serious(most likely). As Bruce Lee once said:

If [a martial art] is a sport, then you are now talking about something else; you have regulations, you have rules. But if you are talking about fighting – as it is; that is to say, with no rules – well, then, baby, you had better train every part of your body!

If you’re not strong enough to take the blows directly to your body, then how would you expect to take them in a real fight? Obviously, no one ever starts out “super conditioned” and is immediately ready to begin taking hard blows, but that’s what you should be aiming for in the long run. Conditioning your body is a very serious part of any Martial Art. If your body has muscle but isn’t “pain conditioned”, you’re going to have issues. That is the reason that many Martial Artists have their bodies trained by other students using things such as rods(really tough sticks) to slap against different areas of the body to build up its tolerance. There are many ways to condition one’s body, but the overall end result should be the same.

Just remember, no matter how long you practice a move/technique/combination, whether it be weeks, months, or even years, if you cannot apply it in a real life situation, then it’s of no real value. That’s not to say that the move/technique/combination is worthless, but that the time you spent merely mimicking a move and never putting it to the real test, has been wasted.