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Drew Loto
Drew Loto's picture
Introducing live training

You're teacher never encouraged live training, padwork, or sparring in your practice. As a result, now that you run your own club, you mainly focus on kihon, kamae, and partnered technical drills. But you've come to realize the need for live training for your students. Naturally, you have concerns. Without much experience with this type of training yourself, you are worried about being responsible for the safety of your students and your ability to guide them in development of their skills in this context. So, where do you begin? ...asking for a friend. ;)

Anf
Anf's picture

Well I'm not yet in a position to teach unsupervised, so my opinion might count for naught. But here goes.

I'd ask your friend if he knows anything at all about fighting beyond watching the MMA on Spike at the weekends. If he does, then he can probably figure it out from his own experience, with a little bit of research into the more technical aspects and insurance and such.

If he knows nothing about actual fighting, then he simply can't teach it.

From a students perspective, I've seen and been caught up in genuine violence. I'd spot in an instant if my instructor was talking rubbish on that front. I'd still respect him and value his opinion and guidance on technical stuff, but I'd soon walk away from a club that tried to teach me about real stuff if I knew they knew nothing of it. To that end, I'd encourage your friend to ask himself if he knows how to teach relevant 'live' skills or not. If the answer is yes, he will figure it out in think. If the answer is no, then perhaps he should focus honestly on what he excels in.

Chris R
Chris R's picture

I agree with Anf. I think a compromise might be to get someone qualified to help run the sparring classes? Also, if your friend is able to get some sparring experience and skill of their own under a qualified instructor, then that would also be helpful.

Sparring has it's own learning curve and is not something that just doing kihon, kata, and so on will prepare you for. I don't think anybody looks "good" during their first sparring session, regardless of what belt they have recieved beforehand. I think there is no way around the fact that you have to have experience and skill in order to teach sparring. 

Something else to consider is what type of sparring is going to be taught. For example, as a student I would not expect an instructor who teaches semi-contact sparring for the sake of "doing some fun karate practice" to have the same level of qualifications as someone who claims to teach something like "close quarters combat." I'm not saying that the latter instructor needs to have been in countless street fights, but in some shape or form they have to know what they are talking about, otherwise they could get someone hurt. This is also worth thinking about if you want to learn how to spar or get someone to help you teach it; most instructors will teach you how to spar for the ring, not the street, which is worth thinking about if your goal is self protection rather than combat sports.

That's my view on this, but I am not personally an instructor and of course anyone is welcome to disagree.

Les Bubka
Les Bubka's picture

First your friend needs to learn whatevere he wants to teach, best option is to find the club or instructor who train and teach stuff he is looking for. Join the club speak to the instructor of he is ok to guide your friend, invest in seminars with right people and then start slowly trnsision stuff learnt in to his club. Kind regards Les

Anf
Anf's picture

I know lots of people disagree with me on this point, and make good cases to counter me. But outside if the context of sport, I personally see very little value in sparring.

It's good cardio, and it's good for developing judgement and movement, but you can get all that from flow drills and one step if done properly.

Sparring rules invariably make sparring unrealistic. Most real fights don't last anything between 2 and 5 minutes. They don't start with 2 unarmed people facing each other waiting for a signal. And there are of course no rules.

The only way sparring could ever be realistic is if the rounds were limited to about 15 seconds with the objective being to knock your opponent down, stamp on him a couple of times, then run away before the police come. That's not going to go down very well in a friendly club, so unrealistic is the only option. That being the case, I can't help thinking that one step and flow drills, with realistic buy expected techniques is a better option outside of sport. If a technique calls for me to trap my opponent's arm with the possibility of popping several joints, but both my partner and I know what's coming, we can practice that fast and play around a bit. Such a technique might be banned in sparring because the high energy fast paced nature of sparring leads to the risk of misjudgement and injury.

JD
JD's picture

Hi Drew Loto,

It's an interesting and more common position for modern day instructors teaching ''Karate'' to find themselves in than you'd think! I myself when first learning Karate as young kid and through my teenage years, believed my Sensei was teaching me the ''be all and end all'' of fighting and self defence, after all he would often use the term ''Great for use in self defence'' when showing us a Gyakuzuki to the Solo plexus... unfortunately I knew no better, having no experience of the real nasty violence that happens out there in clubs, pubs and the streets. 

After being awarded my 1st Dan, I started to teach within my Senei's club and found I wasn't too bad communicating with youngsters and putting my point across for the adults to grasp, whether it be a Mawashigeri in lines or understanding timing in Kata.

Eventually as I got older and started my own class,  I did exactly what you wrote above... I taught the basics, 1 step sparring, Kata and Kumite as I knew it and had been taught by my Sensei. After a while I started venturing out on seminars held by people from Muay Thai backgrounds and close quarter combat ''real self defence'' backgrounds and realised that what I saw was a whole world away from the karate I knew and was teaching.

Then the next step for me was to answer the same question you asked above, how do I incorporate ''real self defence'' into my classes when I have no experience, let's face it, you can't know what you don't know! 

I started watching and studying real fights, both on video and by the accounts of those with good amount of exposure to real violence. I soon started piecing things together and finding patterns in violence, then I started to learn practical fighting methods by various karate and non karate instructors and created a collage of effective strong techniques that work under pressure and don't rely too much on strength but more leverage and natural body mechanics, most of my techniques, regardless of where I gained them from, are found in the Kata's with the bunkai Iain teaches (could of saved myself time and hassle if i'd of known).

Getting to understand the physical, I wanted to understand the mental and verbal of confrontation. Mentallity has a huge (often neglected) role to play when combat/self defence is concerned... as an analogy, I see the physical technique as a car/vehicle, doesn't matter how fast that car/vehicle is, if it doesn't have the correct fuel it's not moving anywhere properly... the mentallity behind the technique is the ''fuel'' to drive the car/vehicle forth, whether it be aggression or remaining calm it seems the 2 work as a unit, so I incorporated drills to train exactly that.

Last of all was the avoidance of situations and verbal disuasion of an aggressor or street muppet! I got most of this from bouncers, bar staff, police and professionals like Geoff Thompson, coupled with my own experiences. So (again) I incorporated drills to train exactly that.

So to consolidate the above into something simple and understandable, you need to at least know the following and make sure it's tested material from quality sources!!

Physical techniques 

  1. Standing fighting - karate, Muay thai, boxing etc...
  2. Vertical grappling - Iain's practical karate bunkai, greco-roman wrestling, judo, krav maga etc... 
  3. Ground fighting/grappling - BJJ, Judo, catch wrestling etc...

 

Important note : The floor in real self defence is not where you want to be, priority is to get up and get gone! Still... good to train floor work to know how to escape/avoid if stuck in that likely position.

Awareness (zanshin) drills : Create scenario's and how you could avoid them. You can do this anywhere and everywhere!

Verbal drills with partners : Get your partner to be the aggressor and try to talk him down whilst assessing means of escape.

Verbal and physical : Threat imminent, use verbal to distract and deceive... then pre-emptive strike, starting to tie it all together.

Find and create drills that consist of all the above and you'll have a good foundation from which to progress from. My next step was to get my fellow 1st Dans and train the above, we use head gear, gloves and protective equipment to pressure test what's effective and come as close to the real thing physically and verbally as possible without resulting in serious injury. It's super important to control such training and make sure all safety precautions are assessed before, during and after! 

Our insurance covers us for Karate and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA training and sparring, but not competition) it's important to know where you stand and what you're covered for in the unlikely event a claim should arise, however if ran carefully with necessary safety precautions, this should never be an issue.

To become proficient in self defence it takes training and time, this post is very basic, the amount of detail out there is incredible and like most good things... doesn't happen overnight.

After learning, training and pressure testing all the above, I set an odd class for ''practical training'' or set mini courses on weekends for my pupils in hope to show them more relative self defence and usable techniques than I was taught. This is how I dealt with the question you asked, hope the post helps, if I was you and wanted to give your friend the best advice... tell him to buy Iain Abernethy dvd's, look at this website and point him towards the British Combat Association for quality world class tuition and reliable self defence, good thing about Iain's bunkai and practical karate is it's in keeping with what a karate ka already does... in essence - keeping it real! :)

All the best to everyone for the new year ahead,

Rei! 

Drew Loto
Drew Loto's picture

I feel it unfair to borrow everyone else's wisdom without throwing my own hat in the ring. So here it goes. To address the introduction of padwork first, one must first understand one's goals. It is a poor choice to want to incorporate padwork simply because "all the cool clubs are doing it." Pad drills designed for sparring will have a different flavor than drills designed for escape for example. If your goal were to teach the ability to inflict as much trauma as possible, your drills will look different than if you wanted to practice awareness of your surroundings. If you've never hit anything but air in your life, you should definitely spend a good deal of time practicing your strikes against pads, bags, makiwara, etc. before attempting to teach others. But I believe an instructor can incorporate this type of training without the need for additional instruction, seminars, or the like. I tend to agree with many of the solutions raised in regards to live training. Linking up with people who actually have experience in that kind of training is necessary both to understand exactly what it is you don't know and how to implement such training safely and effectively. Ego can be a really dangerous thing in this space if you fail to realize you are a student and beginner yourself, if you don't take it slowly and if you are not open to learning as much as you can.

JD
JD's picture

Hi again,

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by ''live training'' and ''for the safety of your students'' lead my to believe you wanted more realistic methods for fighting etc...

If you just want to train a bit harder with more resistance, then practicing how to do some basic strikes yourself against pads and showing them to your pupils after you get comfortable with the correct form and technique is fairly straight forward and common.

I would never advise learning over the internet for the majority of martial arts technique, but if it's basic strikes you're looking for, there's plenty of professionals on youtube showing correct execution you could learn from, better still is Iain's striking DVD's you can instantly download on this website, they can give you ''live'' drills and effective striking techniques for pads etc... that are safe to teach and practice for both sensei's and pupils alike. If you're ''without much experience'' it's best to check and have quality reference.

Another good piece of equipment is a ''wavemaster'' it's a free standing pad that screws into a base you can fill with water or sand, easy to get out and put away, also means you don't have to drill walls to use, unlike a heavy bag. They can be expensive new, but reasonable second hand on ebay, i have 2 wavemasters and let my pupils get stuck in from time to time so they're able to feel resistance when striking. 

Ultimately the best thing your friend can do is put on a pair of focus mits with a partner and get to work experimenting and going at it in order to learn, so he/she may teach students in class.

All the best,

Rei.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Anf wrote:
I know lots of people disagree with me on this point, and make good cases to counter me. But outside if the context of sport, I personally see very little value in sparring.

I would be one of those that would strongly disagree with you. If we want to apply anything in a live environment, then it needs to be practised in a live environment. No amount of set drills can substitute for that.

There are many different kinds of sparring of course. The kind of sparring one would do for sport is focused on achieving result in sport. You can spar for self-defence though. We do it all the time. You just make the objective and the format match self-defence.

All the best,

Iain

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Drew Loto wrote:
Without much experience with this type of training yourself, you are worried about being responsible for the safety of your students and your ability to guide them in development of their skills in this context. So, where do you begin? ...asking for a friend. ;)

You need to learn it yourself first, and then slowly introduce it. These old podcasts may help:

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/content/kata-based-sparring-revisited-principles

https://iainabernethy.co.uk/content/kata-based-sparring-revisited-structure

To echo what has been said above, making connections with groups and individuals who have the skills and experience you need is a must too. They can then help guide the process.

Above all, don’t rush it. Start gently and move slowly so the students gain skills and confidence. If you throw them in at the deep end all they learn is that they can’t do it and they don’t like it. Step by step and they learn to love it!

Well done for sporting the flaw and seeking to correct it too!

All the best,

Iain

Wastelander
Wastelander's picture

As others have said, you really need to do two things:

1. Gain the knowledge/experience for yourself

2. Work your students up to it through progressive steps, rather than throwing them into the deep end

There's not really any way around these two steps. That said, you can approach them in a wide variety of ways. No matter how you train, you are going to have flaws built into it, because you CAN'T train 100% identically to the way you expect to fight. There would be too many injuries, legalities, and costs invovled. That's why you have to make compromises, and you have to incorporate a variety of training methods in order to overlap those compromises. For example, the makiwara will help you develop structure and the body mechanics for powerful punches, but it's a stationary and flat target. You can switch over to a heavy bag to get a somewhat moveable target with a lot of surface to strike, so you can work more combinations and movement, but it it's a vague blob of a target, so you don't get to work specific targeting. You can switch over to something like a Body Opponent Bag (BOB) that is shaped like a person, so you can work the targeting for your strikes in greater detail, but it doesn't have any arms or legs to block or attack you back. You can switch over to padwork drills so you can hit things and also have your partner do some blocking and attacking back, but you don't get the same impact feedback and have to make targeting and range adjustments because you are hitting pads held on hands instead of the actual targets on your partner's body. You can switch over to partner drills to develop the correct timing, distancing, and targeting, but you are practicing pre-determined techniques and have to tone down the power or use placeholders for safety, so you don't severely injure or kill your partner. You can switch over to various types of sparring to get practice with freeform attack/defense, but you still have to keep the power at a safe level, and replace some of the more dangerous techniques. All of these training methods have benefits, but they all have flaws, and so training in a variety of them can help fill in the gaps.

Anf
Anf's picture

Hi Iain. I'd agree with you about the value of sparring, if practical sparring was the norm. Sadly I suspect you are in a minority by tailoring your sparring rules to a particular goal. I think most have a one size fits all, loosely sports oriented arrangement from which they never deviate.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Anf wrote:
I'd agree with you about the value of sparring, if practical sparring was the norm. Sadly, I suspect you are in a minority by tailoring your sparring rules to a particular goal. I think most have a one size fits all, loosely sports oriented arrangement from which they never deviate.

That’s a fair observation and it's true that sparring is only as relevant as we make it. However, that lack of relevant live practise leaves any approach fundamentally flawed in my view. So, I would say that sparring is an absolute must and one of the most valuable forms of practise. That’s why I find myself at odds with the statement that “I personally see very little value in sparring”.

Doing no sparring is bad. Doing irrelevant sparring is bad. Doing relevant sparring is priceless.

All the best,

Iain