Sparring is only one element of your martial arts training but one that will aid you most in developing the necessary skills needed to give you the best chance to defend yourself in a real fight situation.

Many martial arts schools these days go to the extremes of NO sparring because of

The head instructor/master says they don’t feel it has any purposeThey don’t want to pay for insurance to cover itIts too dangerousIts not real so what’s the pointThe style just doesn’t do sparring

These reasons just prevent students from having the complete training required in their chosen style and deny them the best chance of protecting themselves in the real world as they DO NOT have even the most basic skills to deal with a real fight.

The other extreme that has appeared in the last 20 years is schools that ONLY do sparring/ fighting practice without the principles of a real marital art. This results in

Brawling (ground and pound mentality) rather than real self defenceDamaging their bodies rather than training and strengthening their bodiesUnnecessary anger, violence and aggressionNo principles that are designed to develop the practitioner and make them not just a martial artist but a better person

This only aids in perpetuating the no brained thug that just likes fighting being associated with martial arts. Being a fighter and a martial artist are two very different things. By removing what makes some martial arts the art form that they are and just focusing on the brutality, that is sometimes required, you miss out on developing other areas of yourself that may help prevent fights rather than guaranteeing that they start.

So, if you chose a more balanced martial arts school to train at, what is the best way to test and train your skills?

Start slowly

People who love the thrill and physicality of sparring can push themselves too fast and cause serious injury that can take them out of the martial art for good. Acknowledge and accept your current level of skill (whatever it is) and only push past your limit when it’s just enough to make things uncomfortable. The same theory as exercise. If you become comfortable with your sparring partner or what they are giving you then you aren’t pushing yourself at all, push a bit harder. Push only far enough to gain a better understanding of your skills and limitations but not so far as to damage your body or discourage yourself from training more.

Work different aspects of your training, have a plan!

You can go and just spar without a plan to improve your skill and you will over time improve. However, you will improve in some areas and not others but you won’t know which areas you are lacking in. Focus on speed in your footwork or punches. Choose if you want to develop power under pressure and landing punches with power against someone who doesn’t want to be hit. Push your defences by holding your attack back and letting your partner hammer you. Or just on in proving a single exercise during the sparring session. This will require your partner to know what you are wanting to work on and to mix in situations where you can apply the exercise you wish to train. By going in to each sparring session with these and more in mind you will start seeing the gaps in your training and will be able to improve them one at a time.

Spar using what you’ve learnt in your last class

Many styles that do forms do not fight as they train the forms…. why is this? Basically, because they don’t spar with what they have learnt in class. Most devolve into a kick boxing mess that shows nothing of the years of training they have done. This shows they don’t know how to use the style they have learnt and this is why many do not do well in a fight, self-defence or otherwise. Learn an exercise in class and then try to apply it in sparring. You will, not may, you WILL suck at it at first. That is to be expected. This will help you learn what you can use in real life and what you need to work on. Just because you can’t do something from your style doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it just means you can’t do it (maybe now or maybe never). But by training like this you will see others being able to do things you can’t and you can either train to be able to do them or understand your limit and find something that works for you. Not everything in a style is going to work for you and there are some things you may like doing more than others. Some like kicking more and others are more defensive than attacking. This means some exercises and techniques are going to be favoured over others. This is natural.

Find the right partner

Sparring is a training exercise and as such, to get the most out of any sparring session, its best to find the right partner for what you aim to get out of each session. If you always spar with the same person you will never improve as you will get used to how they spar and will never really be pushed to develop further. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and by sparring with the one partner you will only be tested in what they can do.

If you want to work on your speed, work with someone faster than you. If you want to work on defence, train with a power hitter. Always try to get someone who is only slightly better than you or if they are significantly better make sure they have the control and skill to bring their sparring in line will your skill. There is no point sparring with someone who is better but can’t control themselves or has no patience for teaching as all that will happen is, you’ll get smashed, learn nothing, get disheartened and eventually lose interest in training.

Train against different styles

This isn’t always possible depending on the location of your school, the connection of the school and in some cases the style (boxers mostly train against boxers as that is what they are training to fight against). However if it is possible, training against people from different styles can be a great exercise in figuring out what weakness you have. It functions in much the same way as sparring against different partners but with the added unpredictability of an unfamiliar style that may perform better against your style. This kind of training should never be looked at as a way to find or prove weaknesses of a style but rather the weaknesses in yourself and what you need to learn within your own style. Most martial arts styles are complete in their own ways and for what they are designed to deal with but very rarely do people, especially at the junior levels, have all the knowledge of the style. This means you haven’t learnt the complete style at that point. If you find a weakness, first see if its with your skills and understanding and then find out if there is something more you can learn within the style that will help overcome that issue you have experienced.

Sparring is only another tool for learning and developing your martial arts skills. As with everything there are limitations and risks. Its up to you what you want to get out of your training and understand that sparring is only one part of your training. Just because you spar a lot doesn’t mean you can handle a real fight; it just gives you a better chance. If you want to spar more, plan a way to get the most out of it and make sure those you train with have the skill and understanding to help you achieve your goals.

Keep an eye out for a future blog about ways to test your skills in sparring and sparring methods that aren't going to give you the benefits you think they do.

Power Within Wing Chun is very happy to announce our new Elements (kids) class at Westmead, Thursday afternoons from 3.45pm - 4.45pm. This gives kids a chance to work around their Saturday sports commitments and still be able to train. We have also started a new kids class at Epping. Our first in the area. Wednesday from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.

Come by for a free trail lesson and those who sign up on the day of their trail lesson gets 5% off automatically.

Balance can only be found within yourself, by yourself. No one can find it for you. Even if you do the same style as someone else, you have to find your own balance if you want to be the best possible you.

This series is designed to show that balance is different for each person, even if you are doing the same style as someone else. First copy the style than find the balance within yourself so you can get the most out of what you have learnt.

Everyone in our Lineage is trying to head towards the direction Chu Shong Tin and Sif Jim Fung pointed us towards but we are all finding our own way there. That all we can do. Wing Chun iss a journey that we chose to make and we can only walk our own path. The only way to be successful is to find a balance within ourselves that gives us the strongest chance of reaching our goal.

We hope you enjoy the series. More and different designs will be coming in the future. Keep an eye out for it soon. Grab one of the new designs today. Which one fits with your balance. Let us know in the comments below.

This series was done by an Australian female artist for us at PWWCApparel. Check out some of her other work at https://www.redbubble.com/people/chunder/portfolio/recent

The Annual Granny Smith Festival in Eastwood was our 3rd appearance and our must interesting.

This year we tried something a little different. We wanted people to interact more and ask us

questions and to walk away having learnt something that can introduce them to Wing Chun.

So we came up with the Wing Chun Wheel.

Basically we had several Wing Chun exercises on the wheel mixed with a couple of give a ways. The movements we easy to perform and lots of fun. Even though that one something small had to do a Wing Chun exercise. And it was a big success with both kids and adults.

We had people come by and try out a little Wing Chun and hang around asking questions and getting involved which is a nice change from previous years. It showed us that there is a real interest in not just Martial arts but also Wing Chun. A big shout out to Chloe Our Elements student, for demoing the exercises and showing the kids there is nothing to be afraid of and surprising the adults with her skill. Excellent work, Thank you very much!

We again had our #IGOTMUGGED mugs out and were popular with everyone. We had a few people win them on the Wing Chun Wheel. Here’s just a couple of our winners.

With every Granny Smith we are learning and getting better. People seem to be engaging with us more and having more fun. That’s what Wing Chun is all about. Learning and having fun doing it.

We hope to have an even bigger turnout next year. For all our students that showed up to help, Thank you all very much. For our friends that came by, it was great to see friendly faces and to catchup.

2018 Granny Smith will be even better. Maybe even a Demo again, we shall see.

Sparring is an important part of any martial arts regardless of the style or where it originated from. However due to how things have changed in the martial arts world and the world in general, many students choose not to participate in sparring to the point where many schools no longer offer sparring or worse call into question the point of sparring due to their inability to properly utilise the advantages that sparring offers both teacher and student. Sparring is another training tool that may enable you to better defend yourself in the real world.

So why is sparring important?

Speed

When most people talk about speed they comment on how many punches or kicks they can do in a minute or demonstrate a complicated series of movements in front of beginners and because they don’t know any better they comment on how fast the movements are. This is not what is meant by speed. Having fast punches and kicks is very important in a fight but only if you can do them under pressure and whilst you and your opponent are moving. This leads to the real meaning of speed and that's the speed at which you can move yourself to the most advantageous position to execute any attack you need to and move on without getting hit by the counter attack. This is where most people fall short. They can get in to a good position but get hit in the process of getting out of the line of fire or worse get hit before they can execute their attack. Just because your punches may look fast doesn't mean you are fast.

This real lack of speed cannot be improved without sparring. Sparring aims to put you in a position, though relatively safe, that puts you under the stress and pressure of someone trying to hit strike. From the moment you get hit the first time everything you think you know disappears and confusion and uncertainty sets in. Speed decreases and your ability to move fast in to the best position to attack becomes much slower if not completely disappears.

Reflexes

Reflexes are often linked with speed and that is correct but its linked in the wrong way. Just because you have speed in your attacks does not mean you can respond to a threat and respond appropriately to defend yourself with the right movements and with power. Reflexes must be trained so that reaction times improve and so that you can react with the right response needed for different possibilities. This is not the speed of the limb but the speed at which you react to and process incoming information. This reflex reaction also is impacted when under stress. You can only see if your training is actually improving your reflexes when you spar and pushed to respond. Especially when you are forced to respond to something you weren't expecting. This is the job of your sparring partner. Remember that a real life fight is unpredictable and can happen when you least expect it. So if you cannot respond whilst sparring when you are focused and alert then the chances are low that you will respond when you are relaxed and complacent in your day to day life.

Focus

Focus on a stationary object or when doing one exercise at a time is a good thing and for most requires time to develop. It takes even more time to develop focus that is useful in sparring that can translate to a real fight. Being able to maintain focus on when to hit, how to hit while avoiding or deflecting your opponents incoming attacks is very difficult. It's even hard trying to maintain it through fatigue and after a strike to the head that scrambles your brains or a body blow that knocks the wind out of you. Add on top of that the potential life threatening situation that a real fight presents and focus become very difficult.

This kind of focus can only be achieved through sparring and even then only the kind of sparring that pushes you to your limits. The other thing that mustn't be ignored is that when you lose focus especially during sparring or a real fight then your ability to deliver a power strike is also greatly reduced. Power in your strikes and deflections comes from your ability to focus on delivering you power to the right target to cause the maximum desired result. No focus, no real power.

Deals with Adrenalin

In a real fight adrenalin can be an advantage and disadvantage. Adrenalin increases blood flow, pulse, alertness, strength and reduces the ability to feel pain. All of these can give you an advantage so long as you can control the amount of adrenalin. Too much and a person can lose control and push too hard injuring themselves or go from self-defence to attacker due to the levels of aggression increasing due to the adrenalin.

Though sparring is far from the same level of intensity or threat of a real fight, it gives you the chance to experience what happens to you during a situation that increases your adrenalin levels and learn how to deal with them during a fight and how to come down from a fight. Most people will enjoy the high but not understand what's happening when they start coming down. Commonly your hands will shake usually with a feeling of weakness, a sudden sleepiness can occur with possible fainting and in some cases extreme emotions that most commonly results in crying. Hand shaking and feeling sleepy will be the most common to experience after sparring. With practice of calming down and adrenalin control during sparring practice this can be controlled and the length of time these effects last can be decreased.

Finds your weaknesses

If for a second you think you’re great at defending yourself in a real fight, sparring will very quickly dissolve any notions you have of any great martial skills that you think you possess. Being good at doing techniques, exercises or drills does not automatically mean you can handle yourself in a situation where someone wants to hit you back or worse. When sparring, each person should be looking to have their strengths tested and weakness uncovered. This is the only way to know what you are capable of and find ways to improve. Get rid of your ego and learn the hard lessons now rather than when it's too late.

The closest thing to the stresses of a real fight without the potential of life threatening harm or legal prosecution is sparring. Of course, there are different levels of sparring that have varying degrees of usefulness but even the most rudimentary sparring practice for the untrained can highlight their limited skills and make them understand their limitation unless they are given a false sense of their skills.

Sparring enables a person to see how hard it is to defend themselves against a determined attacker and hopefully, if they are intelligent enough, it can give them pause enough to not get into a fight in the first place and appreciation of their own limitations and well-being. You can only get that from putting yourself into a situation like sparring that is able to push you to a point where you are truly challenged but in an environment that will not lead to anyone being seriously injured.

The worse thing a sparring partner can do is go easy on the person they are up against. The person will learn nothing. Obviously, don’t go all out on a beginner, figure out what they are capable of and push just past that, so they are challenged and forced to adapt and learn to improve. Of course safety is important in training as the training should not make it so you can't defend yourself because you have caused permanent damage, but being pushed in sparring is the best and safest approach for someone who wants the best chance at being able to defend themselves.

There are many other areas in your training that sparring helps with such as fitness, stamina, conditioning and technique refinement but these are the main ones and the ones that are most applicable to a real life situation. Keep these in mind and train them as often as you can as they will be the skills you need when trying to apply your training to the real world.

Keep an eye out for a future blog about way to test your skills in sparring and sparring methods that aren't going to give you the benefits you think they do.