How Does Sparring Fit into Self-Defence Training?
Sparring - going toe-to-toe with another person and having a (controlled!) fight - is perhaps one of the most quintessential aspects of any martial art in the public imagination, more so even than katas and flashy demonstrations of acrobatic skill (Chinese long-sword optional.) However, it is also one of the most off-putting elements of martial arts training for the novice practitioner. Additionally, there is a very reasonable discussion to be had as to how sparring fits into self-defence training from a philosophical perspective. In Krav Maga World, we aim to avoid violence wherever possible and end a violent conflict as quickly as possible should it arise, so on the surface it might seem that sparring is contrary to that objective.
The cold dread that the beginner student feels when the instructor claps their hands and announces that we’re sparring today is an intuitive one, and one that I sometimes still feel when I’m in a room of my peers and I know that they’re all much better fighters than me! Sport fighting, like boxing, Muay Thai and so on, is not my specialty, and some of my colleagues, who have maybe decades of actual ring experience, can often leave me feeling very exposed. So, I can entirely empathise with that deep feeling of fear and menace that comes with a sparring session. The bottom line is that you’re now thrust into a situation where you are having to hit someone For Real (even if not necessarily hard), and in turn they are seeking to hit you back. This comes into direct conflict with primitive psychological mechanisms wired deep into our brains to avoid danger and harm, but also the powerful social conditioning most(!) of us are raised with that says ‘never hit another person’. This latter point I have already written about, but both need to be confronted in sparring, and being able to overcome both is one of the key learning objectives of the exercise.
The key thing to remember about sparring is that it’s supposed to be a learning experience, and dare I say it, even fun! No-one is learning anything, or having much fun, if they’re getting smashed up and bloodied, and curled up in a ball just wishing the onslaught would end already. Sure, getting knocked around a little is inevitable, even beneficial (I’ll come to back to this in a moment), but there’s a world of difference between taking a knock that makes you think ‘I don’t want that again, but actually it wasn’t so bad that I can’t risk another one’ vs having a hit heavy enough to bring you down. I’ve experienced both in my time, but of course the novice trainee perfectly reasonably wishes to be insulated from the latter! It’s a fine balance, but one that is easily struck with a bit of due consideration, the first and most crucial consideration being the understanding that we’re all here to learn. This means abandoning egos and trying to show everyone how good you are by battering the newbies - all you’re proving there is that really you’re a bit of a knob, and frankly I don’t want you in my class. The session absolutely must be approached by all in the spirit of mutual learning, development and growth.
This aspiration is all well and good, but how does the instructor go about achieving this, while making sure everyone leaves in one piece and smiling? First of all, I tend to save sparring-focused sessions for our Advanced Class, partly because I want to keep my regular classes focused on the bread-and-butter of self-defence (which is ultimately my expertise and what you pay me for!), and partly because people coming to the Advanced Class will already have a decent skill-base with which to work from. Nevertheless, every one has their ‘first time’, and even with a foundation of knowledge, just going hell-for-leather in a freestyle spar is likely to be overwhelming. To mitigate this, one of my go -to regressions is what I call ‘asymmetric sparring’: simply put, one person only defends, and the other only attacks, allowing you to develop each element in turn without worrying about the other. Additionally, I might impose other ‘rules’ like no kicking, or otherwise restricting the strikes allowed, to simplify the decision-making. I’ve found this approach really helps to reduce the overwhelm when the spar becomes less restricted.
In IKMF Krav Maga, we also have ‘slow fighting’, which is exactly what it sounds like: a freestyle spar at quarter-speed, like you’re in the Matrix. By slowing everything down while maintaining correct form, there is ample time for each party to make appropriate defensive and counter-attacking decisions based on what they see, without the response turning into a panicked and ineffectual flap. Finally, in all bouts the two participants will slowly ramp up the speed and power of their strikes from a low base (even Slow Fighting pace if necessary) to a level that both parties are comfortable with. Sure, this might mean the more experienced party is working while below their limit, but that’s fine - see it as a chance to test some more high-risk tactics or practice techniques you’re less comfortable with. The more experienced you get - and the more you know the capabilities and tolerance of your training buddies - the more you can turn up the energy, though always staying under the ‘actually hurting one another’ threshold. We are training, not fighting for a championship belt, or for our lives.
Further, to keep our sparring practice rooted to our overall self-defence goal, I favour the use of MMA gloves in sparring over boxing gloves. This is possibly a slightly controversial opinion, but one I stand by, simply because with big boxing gloves, people will tend to hide behind them and rely on the size and padding they provide. This is fine for the ring, but in the street you won’t have your 16 oz. gloves to hand (pun intended), so developing the habit of hiding behind protection that in reality won’t exist is, in my opinion, an unhelpful one. Also, MMA gloves, with their open design, provide additional attacking flexibility, especially in the clinch, which again I feel benefits the Real Life habit-building. On headguards, I’m a little more conflicted. On one hand, the restriction to your vision and breathing can provide benefits in handling the stress and disorientation that comes with it (provided you have the skill and experience to manage this), but on the other, in my experience the presence of headguards seems to have a negative influence on control - even with the best of intentions, people will see a headguard and think on a semi-conscious level ‘I can hit him harder’. I tend not to use them, and rely more on building the energy slowly to ensure safety. Of course, mouth guards and groin guards are a must…!
Having covered the ‘how’, we must also address the ‘why’: what benefits do we gain from sparring when our focus on self-defence? The first benefit is on the mindset side, which I’ve already alluded to. We learn to overcome our fear of being hit, by taking a couple of knocks and realising that actually we’re not made of fine spun glass and can still fight on. We learn to stay focused and determined under stress and fatigue, persisting until the job is done (in sparring until the bell, and in Real Life until the threat is done and we’ve successfully made it to safety). Finally on the mindset front, we learn to override our social conditioning against deploying physical force, so that we can strike when it’s necessary to do so.
From a more technical perspective, the relevance of sparring to self-defence is in how dynamic and unpredictable it is. We operate from a basic premise of using overwhelming force until we can escape, not giving an attacker a chance to regain equilibrium, and we spend a good amount of our time practicing techniques in a somewhat choreographed manner, necessary to develop the appropriate muscle memory and principles. However, in reality, the enemy gets a vote; they mean to do us harm, will work vigourously towards this goal, and similarly they don’t want to be hit either, and will react to what we do in ways that preclude optimal use of technique. It is essential we learn to deal with this reality, and this is where sparring can really help us.
…And finally, sparring is just fun! Self-defence is a serious subject, but having fun in training is absolutely allowed!
All blog posts are reflective of the private opinions of the author, and are not to be considered as an officially-held position of any organisation, including the IKMF and Pentagon Krav Maga. Pentagon Krav Maga, the IKMF and the author will not held be liable for any action or inaction taken by a third-party as a result of this article.
