At STMA we have 4 main kinds of sparring:
Kali - kickboxing - unarmed - Vale Tudo
each of these has 4 phases to it.
Kali:
double stix
single stick
stick and knife
knife and hand
Kickboxing:
savate
thai
kickboxing
boxing
unarmed:
karate
chi sao
randori
ground TNS
VT:
this is a mix of striking and grappling
- in the unarmed phase this blends kb and grappling with strikes on the ground
- the the armed phase this allows a stick fight to go to ground
so the 4 phases are:
kb
groundfight
stick fight
stick ground
each of these sparring phases has drills which can be isolated
eg sinawalli with double stix
thai pads for thai
etc
For CRA we use hubud as our core drill. Though it is not sparring a such it can be done with stick, knife and empty hands and unites all the phases at this range and makes trapping functional as the range that sits between kb and grappling.
We currently practice the 9 CRA methods out of hubud:
lox
dumog
sweeps
tai chi
HKE
HIA
shime
tomate
kino
Numerada is the drill that takes us back to long range, both armed and unarmed and allows us to take control of the fight at the entry phase and then close to CRA to finish.
eg: Gunting against a punch flowing into CRA rather than from the continuous flow of hubud.
Back at the Dojo we work on the isolation sparring in a progression
A boxing match is split into rounds, each round lasts 3 minutes
In the "good old" days, matches were 15 rounds - this was shortened to 12
In a classic match eg Ali v Frazier "The Fight Of The Century" 3 minute rounds with a one minute break between meant a match would last for an hour
To train for a match, boxers would train in 3 minute rounds with one minute rests and an hour's workout could replicate a match - those of you who have trained at Boxing gyms will be aware of the four minute clock on the wall that buzzes and rings at the one and three minute mark
(if you meet someone who claims he's "a boxer" or who thinks he's "a boxer" and doesn't know about this clock, you know he's another "Walt" )
For our purposes, we still refer to a "round" and a "minute", though we do not want to spar for a whole 3 minutes, and each minute of the round will not be the whole 60 seconds, you may only use 40 or even 30 seconds of that minute, if that makes sense
So take an isolation such as JAB ONLY
- first minute I attack
- second minute you attack and I defend
- third minute we spar normally in that isolation
it is possible for the full sparring third minute to be the whole 60 second minute, the first two minutes being brief
We will apply this process to each of the isolations listed as we progress
And, as always, sparring is half speed and touch contact - you are not "competing", you are working together to develop and improve your skills
The next layer to this is to look at the isolations as they appear in different forms of competition and spar under those rules
There is also variety in protection used
Boxing
Kickboxing Full Contact
Low kicks KB
Karate Traditional points
Continuous
Knockdown
Semi Contact
Muay Thai
Vale Tudo
Boxing - amateur
Punches to head and body
Gloves, gumshields and headgear worn
Boxing - professional
No headgear
Kickboxing Pro
Punches to head and body - no low or leg kicks
Gloves, shin guards and kickers
Low Kick Kickboxing
Add leg kicks
Karate
Traditional Kumite
Punches to body - no face punching
Kicks to body and head
Karate pads - hand, forearm, shin, instep
Knockdown
Leg kicks added
Knees allowed in competition to legs and body, not head
Semi Contact Kickboxing - Freestyle Karate
Head and body targets
No leg kicks, sweeps allowed
Karate rules with face punching allowed
Lighter gloves, headgear, shins, kickers
Muay Thai
Add knees
Add elbows - depends on Association rules
Vale Tudo
No Rules - Anything Goes
Add strikes on the ground
Throws
Grappling
Once we have gone through the isolations in boxing and kickboxing ranges, things develop further
After Kickboxing Both
add knees and elbows
add takedowns and throws
add grappling
kickboxing v grappling
boxing v grappling
add knees and elbows
You cannot use knees and elbows in sparring - it either become too dangerous or you hold back so much it becomes unrealistic
So we spar normally for about a minute then go into a drill with knees and elbows, sourced from the Karate and Thai sets
Kyukushin Knockdown allows knees to legs and body in competition
Muay Thai has knees body, legs, and head - and then adds elbows to the punches
add takedowns and throws
We spar for a minute then add then drills with shoot and clinch and double leg, etc from the JJ Combatives - we do not tie up and start doing Wrestling if Judo style sparring
add grappling
We spar, add TD, then get the pin and stop there
kickboxing v grappling
boxing v grappling
Spar normally with the view that one partner is just striking, the other is looking to shoot and TD - then change the roles
