Kumite or Sparring

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

"What is it good for or what is it NOT good for is a better question. Rory Miller is one of my go-to sources for understanding violence, especially the kind I would need for self-protection for self-defense. Along with Marc MacYoung and a dozen or so others these guys KNOW what they are talking about and what they teach so I suggest to my readers, "When these guys speak, listen-UP!"

Mr. Miller was asked, "What don't you like about sparring?" His response, "However, sparring has a bunch of bad habits, even for combat. And for self-defense, almost every aspect is a bad habit." - Rory Miller, Chiron Training on Patreon. 

Now, to know exactly what Mr. Miller’s telling us we would need to visit Patreon, join his group and then follow it up with the research on this particular subject. The true tragedy is that the mind-set of karate-ka tends to keep them away from these reality-based teachings for conflict and violence because of dissonances created over time in that same dojo environment. Now, if you teach and practice for philosophical or sport reasons ONLY then by all means continue on BUT if you are doing it or teaching it for self-defense, the legal stuff, etc., then you would want to reach out to Mr. M and Mr. MM, etc., to get a truer, reality-based and proper training regimen. 

In karate circles kumite or sparring is a major tool to train and you must ask yourself, "What is it good for, i.e., sport, combat, self-protection or something else. In my view I would say it is good for:

1. Triggering an adrenal reaction.
2. Teaching how humans deal with conflict.
• Note here I am talking about how we do our best to avoid actual fighting and use such tactics to try and persuade the other guy to not fight through a type of posturing.
• This is why you see the “bouncy-bounce” actions along with moving in and out, feinting, and trying to score points for what ever reason.
• Also, although I used sparring as a part of the training in the dojo I never advocated it as being for combat, sport or self-protection for self-defense because it teaches bad habits for those skills. 
3. It does provide aerobic benefits when two folks go at one another moving in and out trying to figure out how to score points.
4. It is also a means to make contact, i.e., hitting and being hit assuming the dojo is doing self-defense and then tend to hit with effort, power and force up to a point. 
5. It promotes movement skills so long as the proper type of movement is engaged and not just the forward-backward movement found in most dojo. 
6. Teaches one to read others and act accordingly and this part also requires a reality-based feed rather then the typical back-forth bouncy-bounce tagging you find in most kumite or sparring. 

(Note: there are more things you can learn from sparring but as to its use, without considerable modifications, for protection and defense - not so much. 

It MUST be completely understood that sparring or kumite and both sport and “The Way (philosophy)” DO NOT PREPARE YOU FOR conflict and violence because that is a whole nother thing altogether. I refer to this side a bit more through my blog and tweeting, etc. 

If you really desire to modify your training to best handle self-protection for self-defense (legal term) then I suggest you start with the references listed in the below bibliography. 

For reference and sources and professionals go here: Bibliography (Click the link)