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Joseph O'Neill
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Alternatives to step sparring

Good Afternoon All, 

For some reason I have found myself today looking at the USJJF's (United States Jujutsu Federation) Goshin Jitsu no Kata (you'd think, working for the NHS, I'd have more to do).

It struck me that some of these are similar in style to Motobu's 2-person drills, as well as the 2-person drills which we take the kata to have been developed out of. I recall reading somewhere (correct me if I'm wrong) that Iain had used Motobu's drills in place of X-Step sparring, or had at least suggested this might be a valid alternative, because of them being closer than step sparring to real combat.  With that said, has anyone ever explored, used, or considered using, the partner drills from Goshin Jitsu no Kata or similar in place of step sparring as a more functional beginner's form of sparring to begin developing skills that would be used later? I definitely believe that there's some elements which would carry over well in them, and I don't disagree with the concept of beginner's kumite, simply the 3K execution of it. Additionally, there are still included in Goshin Jitsu no Kata defenses against "Karate-Style" attacks which would be seen in step sparring such as maegeri and yokogeri kekomi, which may be a useful link to the "modern" practice of karate - particularly regarding students moving to the practical sphere from a 3K background, where it would serve well as a transition into more grappling, limb trapping, etc. It strikes me that this might also be useful for clubs moving to a more practical syllabus, as there are similarities to both step sparring and the principles of kata-based sparring. As a final comment, I would probably remove the weapon defences from the set if I were to look at using these - with the possible exception of the stick defences - as I don't think I have the knowledge or skill to instruct these adequately, and I think there is potential to give people a false sense of security with weapon defences.

Thanks in advance for you thoughts,  Joe. 

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

One-step sparring is actually a good thing to do, and can be vital to developing good technique and movement, it's just become this bizarre ritualistic thing in most Karate (especially "3K" varieties) that renders it nearly useless. The actual original idea is buried there though, way deep down.

To make it useful you remove the dross that's accumulated by 1) making the ranges realistic 2) varying attacks widely 3) removing things like kiaing before attacking and other ways of further pointlessly ritualizing the drill. 4) Try to confine attacks to things which resemble habitual acts of physical violence, not counter-for counter scenarios of martial artists, or heavily stylized movements. 5) your movement should at the very least delay Toris second attack, which you can add in once a student has got the basic gist.

Here's an example: Uke attacks with close hook or round punch, tori defends with elbow block and simultaneous drive forward, punching withe the other hand. You can do either with tori stepping in, or start from close range. The next step is that Tori follows up their first punch with a second one to address whether your technique met the criteria you are looking for in your one step sparring ...what I've seen Rory MIller call the "golden technique". Speaking of which, I learned a drill from Rory and my own teacher Kris Wilder called "one for one" that is related, I can see if I can find instructions for it later, if not they are pretty simple to write out.

Ideally we are trying to isolate elements like these in one-step sparring:

Our movement should not simply defend and counter, but also change angles or otherwise move such that the tori must adjust something to get another good shot, we should have some kind of structure imposed on him - in the example given for instance instead of just blocking the punch we also drive in with our elbow. Our movement itself should be efficient enough to make it work at a decent speed. ...which is the whole point of "one step"..we are trying to be better than the Tori in one step. This is in contrast to the typical one step sparring which often involves a staccato block-then-counter scenario,and no second attack from Tori.

So the basic format of one step sparring (response to one attack focused on gaining advantage in the entry) is perfectly fine and useful as a launching point for Karate drilling, it's how it's typically done that makes it so useless. It isn't the be all end all, but at least in Karate as I learned it and teach it, it is a vital way drill to people learning to move with impetus, especially for new people. It is how we begin application training, and is one of lynchpins of doing everything else well – again as I personally understand Karate.

Another example/teaser of a more free form version:

Tori steps in with a front kick or a lashing/round kick to leg (both of which are on the lists one can find of habitual acts of physical violence)

Uke decides here what to do, there are a lot of options - he can try to stuff the kick with movement, use some sort of knee jam or spike, he can do a takedown, etc. The only caveat is that this is one step sparring. So for instance, uke cannot do three things to Toris one thing, he cannot evade, catch the kick and then do a takedown. Because uke is not superman (this is on contrast to traditional one-step sparring where this is often exactly what happens), and he cannot move at three times the speed of his attacker, his response must actually be faster and better than toris in one step.That's what the labratory experiment is meant to figure out – how to be better in one step.

On weapon defenses, most are useless, but this is something that can be figured out "full contact" without much trouble. Just get something knife-sized and soft-ish, have tori do a "grab and stab" by grabbing the head of uke and stabbing repeatedly towards ukes gut - as a starting point. It will become obvious really fast what can work and what cannot as far as "weapon defenses" go. Some stuff actually works, there are some typical limb traps, hand motions (believe or not, a variation of the 'x block' motion can come in handy here and there at close range), and body motions that seem to function, but most isolated "knife defense" techniques rely on so much fine motor skill and complexity that they are completely out the window. 

I have done a fair amount of this kind of work with my students, what I've found is that as far as "weapon defense" techniques go, we were best off taking what we already knew in our Karate and applying it to a live scenario. Predictably, the things that work ( I have to say here, "works" is a relative term when defending against a knife - it is a huge disadvantage) were based on principles we already knew, applied in a different scenario. So no specific techniques were needed. I guess you could fashion a "set" based on this experimentation though, hopefully heavily vetted.

I wouldn't worry about not having expertise, so much knife defense (and even worse "knife fighting") taught in the martial arts is dangerous garbage (sorry to be so frank but seriously, talk about a thing that could get someone killed) that you are better off taking your basic skillset and simply doing some honest experimentation to figure out this kind of material. Just my two cents of course.

It's funny, one thing I've learned over the years I've experimented with weapons stuff is that as a Karateka I simultanouesly over estimated and under estimated what I knew. Anything I thought would function as a discrete "defense" tended to work poorly, but the basic physical skillset of Karate is pretty powerful, and when adapted to this kind of situation in can function better than discrete defenses anyway..if that makes sense.

I wrote this all right after waking up, hope it makes sense.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Found the info on the One-Step drill:

https://ymaa.com/articles/2016/09/drill-the-one-step

I've learned variations of this from Kris Wilder as well, this drill is related to one step sparring directly, in that it is a continous version of the same principles, done slowly.

Rory's drill completely lacks realistic timing and speed (as he acknolwedges), but it is the single best drill I've found to feel responses based on Kata technique happen "naturally"..which of course translates to more dynamic work eventually. This little article has a bunch of good training nuggets in it.

Here's the "Golden Technique":

e wrote:
The golden move is anything that prevents damage to you, causes damage to the threat, puts you in a better position and puts the threat in a worse position all with a single motion. If every action does all four things, you will do very well.

This is the same thing one -step kumite is intended to do, which shows how far the typical version has been removed from it's roots.

Joseph O'Neill
Joseph O'Neill's picture

Thanks for the replies Zach, and the great link. 

I probably should have been clearer in my title, my issue was only with the 3K style of step sparring which develops no discernable skills, not all forms of step sparring. Obviously if we were to break Goshin-Jitsu-No-Kata down into it's individual techniques, we would still be doing step sparring, as we would if we used Motobu's drills, or cam up with our own. Apologies for the lack of clarity. 

Zach Zinn wrote:
To make it useful you remove the dross that's accumulated by 1) making the ranges realistic 2) varying attacks widely 3) removing things like kiaing before attacking and other ways of further pointlessly ritualizing the drill. 4) Try to confine attacks to things which resemble habitual acts of physical violence, not counter-for counter scenarios of martial artists, or heavily stylized movements. 5) your movement should at the very least delay Toris second attack, which you can add in once a student has got the basic gist.

I think G-J-N-K does this fairly well, to be fair, particularly if you break it down into it's constituent techniques. The range is better, there are grabs, hook punches, low kicks etc to defend from, and most of the responses from Tori are active, rather than passive blocking, waiting, then countering. 

Zach Zinn wrote:
Found the info on the One-Step drill: https://ymaa.com/articles/2016/09/drill-the-one-step

A really interesting article, and for those who like me struggle with visualisation, I managed to find this demonstration on YouTube: 

 

I find this a really interesting take on step sparring, and to be honest I don't think the speed is as much of an issue as a learning tool. If you explain to someone that what they're about to spend a minute doing would in reality take place over maybe a tenth of that, I think that would be a great eye-opener about how fast combat is and how difficult accuracy is because of that speed. 

My problem with this would, I think, come with more beginner students who don't have as large a vocabulary of techniques to draw from, and therefore may find themselves constantly putting themselves in poor positions because they don't know any better.

This I think is the benefit of scripted techniques over something freeform initially - to build that base knowledge before expecting it to be applied. Obviously we as karateka have kata to draw individual and groups of techniques from, but I know there are some places which don't teach kata white belts, instead focussing on basic technique development, so earlier students may not know how to connect techniques to each other?

What level would you begin to expect students to train with this method of one-step?

Thanks again,

Joe. 

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Ah ok, I get it now..are you talking about Goshin Jitsu No Kata from Judo?

Rory uses the one-step even with untrained people, when I've done his seminars it was the basic drill. I myself have done the drill with people with no training, and sometimes beginners suprise you. So my students do it from the beginning, it is a great way to introduce people to moving with a partner who aren't yet used to any speed, dynamic movement, or heavier contact.

A lot of times the people with the larger vocabulary of techniques do worse in this drill because they are intellectualizing it whereas the beginner just keeps doing some simple thing that actually works pretty well.

That's the strength of it, in this drill (like real encounters) you are constantly in weird positions, you can't do "setups" and must react without preparatory movement. Again that's the real strength of this drill, when "Kata" comes out in it it will essentially be "spontaneous bunkai" (as spontaneous as you can get at this slow speed at least).

Anyone can do the drill, they just have to understand that "one step" means one step, you cannot set anything up.

I do remember Rory syaing something about the drill that has turned out to be true in my classes over the years that I've used it:

It is really easy for Karateka to think they are grapplers doing this drill. This drill makes grappling seem more interesting than striking, so as Karateka (unless you want to simply explore grappling more) you have to remind yourself to adhere to your main skillset, and not immediately jump into takedowns. On a related note, this drill becomes something different when you try to "win", versus when you remember it is a self-defense drill.

I'd encourage anyone to do it though, there are no preequisites for the drill and it builds skills immediately.

Joseph O'Neill
Joseph O'Neill's picture

Hi Zach, thanks again for the further information,

Zach Zinn wrote:
Ah ok, I get it now..are you talking about Goshin Jitsu No Kata from Judo?

Yes, but the USJJF use it in their Dan gradings too, apparently, which is where I found it.

Zach Zinn wrote:
Rory uses the one-step even with untrained people, when I've done his seminars it was the basic drill. 

[...]

I'd encourage anyone to do it though, there are no preequisites for the drill and it builds skills immediately.

I'll definitely give it a try once we're allowed to breathe sweet outside air, then! A further question if you can answer it, based on the comment about not trying to "win," but it being a self-defence drill - are you allowed to extract yourself, or do you have to stay in the melee for the full length of the drill?

At those of Iain's seminars I've been to the bunkai has tended to include disengaging with the enemy and retreating, which makes sense to me tactically, is this also the case with Sgt Miller's drill? If not I feel like there's a prompt for people to mainly try to just get and keep a dominant position, which in my mind is counter to good physical protection. Thanks again,

Joe.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

You decide as the instructor what the parameters are, but sometimes it's a learning thing to simply have some implicit parameters and not tell people either way. So, for instance, you can set the goal of getting to a certain area of the dojo, put weapons/objects all over the place, etc. You could have people play certain roles or not.

When I did one of Rory's seminars (this was at least 10 years ago, but I imagine what he does is still similar) he actually seem to imply that part of the teaching of this drill is students understanding that their desire to "win" was hampering their ability to adopt a self-defense mindset, so in one case with one of the drills he actually said something like "you know, you guys can run if you want". There were other scenario where escape, shielding someone else, etc. were the objective.

If you are interested in the drill I would buy Rory's Drills for Sudden Violence book, it has a place of honor on my bookshelf/playlist along with The Way of Kata, Kata Based Sparring and other resources I turn to often.

The one step is really eye opening, it can sometimes show you what your "natural" inclinations are in way that other stuff can't (in my experience of course). As an example, on a training level I love leg kicks, both lashing/round kicks, and joint kicks, stomps, etc.. Within the bounds of safety I would use these sparring, doing open-ended drills etc., a low round kick I would think is a "go to" technique for me, I have a pretty decent one too, lots of work on the heavy bag, etc.

Turns out not so much, I almost never do them in this drill. For some people it's the opposite, they immediately have a sense for where to use stomps and such.

I have also tried an "escalated" one step, where basically you both move at the same time and on the same "beat". It's difficult because both people need to go about the same speed and not try to adjust after their initial move. With sufficiently advanced people it's a fantastic drill and probably the most accurate simulation of the kind of erratic phsyical movements and weirdness that exist in real world chaotic confrontations. Doing the drill like this is closer to unscripted one step sparring as it should be in Karate, I think.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Remembered something else related to your questions as far as beginners go with this drill. The issue with beginners is not that they don't know techniques, but they (sometimes at least) just don't have any sense of realism in movement at all. In a drill like this that's really problematic because they will take the safety flaw in the drill (timing and speed) and they will use it to "win" in ways that would not work under any speed and pressure. For this reason I sometimes stick a beginner with an advanced person to be safe,  I often do the same for sparring or live drilling, only in this case it is more about doing the drill properly than safety, which is really not a concern with the slow version of the drill.  

B Bates
B Bates's picture

Hi guys,

Thought I'd jump in on this. I think this might relate to Joe's origional post. When I moved away from a 3k syllabus I wanted to find a more practical way to apply kihon ippon. I started this by simply changing the range, I played with the JKA style pre sets and found that lots of it worked really well from clinch/grappling range. I did find however that the progression from solo kata, to compliant bunkai practice, to less compliant, to non compliant bunkai a far more useful way to spend our time so in the end I dropped step sparring and the idea of reinventing it. Attached is a little of what we experimented with, there were other sets but we never got round to filming it after dropping the idea. 

 

Just to add I have also done Rory's one step drills and they are great fun and I found them of huge benefit.

Cheers

Brian

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Yeah, when I responded to this I probably should have mentioned that I have actually never done 3K Karate, so I do not have knowledge of these Ippon Kumite sets that soemone from a Japanese style would. I did something similar in the 80s, you could argue "3K" mentality informed a lot of Karate back then, but the sets I learned were really easy to transition into something functional, and I am not sure they fit the idea of "Ippon Kumite" that one might have in say a JKA school. I apologize for taking the thread in a direction that maybe wasn't intended by the original post. I just think the very notion of what 'ippon kumite' is meant to do is perhaps widely misunderstood. Personally, doing a one step drill (I would call it "entry") is IMO a pretty basic core skill to Karate, but how it's done is everything.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi All,

Just a minor point of clarification:

Joseph O'Neill wrote:
At those of Iain's seminars I've been to the bunkai has tended to include disengaging with the enemy and retreating, which makes sense to me tactically …

Joe obviously knows this, but readers may not so I just want to clarify that a vital part of disengaging is ensuring that the enemy / enemies are not able to give effective chase. It’s therefore not just disengage and retreat … but disorientate / incapacitate (i.e. aggressively do damage), disengage and retreat.

Itosu refers to this as, “Enter, counter, withdraw” and that the model our drills follow. Just thought I’d clarify as the point is prone to misunderstanding. Damage has to be done but, because the aim it to avoid harm to ourselves (physical and legal), we seek to escape once that damage is sufficient to preclude effective chase.

Beyond the themes of this thread, but there’s also a whole host of other things around ensuring escape is effective too. Sadly, most reduce it to “run-away” which is a little like telling someone to “fight” and then stating that their martial arts training is complete. Escape is a set of skills that need taught and practised.

All the best,

Iain

Joseph O'Neill
Joseph O'Neill's picture

Hi Guys, 

Sorry, haven't checked this thread since I last posted due to work, some great extra information since!

Zach Zinn wrote:
You decide as the instructor what the parameters are, but sometimes it's a learning thing to simply have some implicit parameters and not tell people either way.

...

part of the teaching of this drill is students understanding that their desire to "win" was hampering their ability to adopt a self-defense mindset, so in one case with one of the drills he actually said something like "you know, you guys can run if you want".

This is a great aspect I hadn't considered - learning often sticks best when it's discovered by the learner (with guidance from the teacher, of course), and this would I feel definitely get people moving towards figuring things out for themselves which we definitely want to develop as a skill in people. This could I suppose also be accomplished with a debrief style "okay, what was your aim during the sparring, did you acheive it, why not?" and also asking why that was their aim given the context if it's something unsuitable (i.e. I often go into randori in Judo with a goal to hit a certain technique, but this would be inappropriate in this context). 

Zach Zinn wrote:

If you are interested in the drill I would buy Rory's Drills for Sudden Violence book

I will look it up, thanks!

B. Bates wrote:
I played with the JKA style pre sets and found that lots of it worked really well from clinch/grappling range. I did find however that the progression from solo kata, to compliant bunkai practice, to less compliant, to non compliant bunkai a far more useful way to spend our time so in the end I dropped step sparring and the idea of reinventing it. Attached is a little of what we experimented with, there were other sets but we never got round to filming it after dropping the idea.

This looks really interesting, and I can see it being really useful as a transition piece, but also having a lot of use as an introduction specifically to clinch fighting. I think this would fit well alongside Iain's playing for grips drill where he adds in strikes, too. I agree with Zach's initial post that there can be utility in step sparring if done well, and I think this would be a fantastic alternative, particularly to a club heavily steeped in 3K. 

Iain Abernethy wrote:
Joe obviously knows this, but readers may not so I just want to clarify that a vital part of disengaging is ensuring that the enemy enemies are not able to give effective chase. It’s therefore not just disengage and retreat … but disorientate / incapacitate (i.e. aggressively do damage), disengage and retreat.

Yes, I should have been clearer in my choice of words, I definitely meant more can we use striking etc to facilitate escape (and then escape), or for the purposes of the drill do we have to continually be going for attacks (which seemed flawed to me from a self-protection point of view). Zach has addressed this in his response, in that we can decide. Despite being my 1st (and only) language, English is my 2nd language, so apologies for the lack of clarity!

Zach Zinn wrote:
I apologize for taking the thread in a direction that maybe wasn't intended by the original post.

Glad you took it in the direction you did, Zach, seeing other people's interpretations of step-sparring is illuminating, so if anyone has other variations they've seen/used/created, I'd love to see those too. Your response is exactly why I'm here - sharing knowledge and learning!

Thanks again everyone, Joe.