Ok, the thing I think is important is that a lot of people tend to forget their training under pressure. It’s not that they don’t remember how to do the strikes, just the reaction is lost under pressure. The surprise of having an attack come at you can stun you into inaction. I know this because even though I know how to swim, if you throw me in a lake, I will probably drown from sheer panic.
In sparring, although you know you are going to be attacked, you still have the pressure of not knowing exactly what the other person will do. So you train yourself to counter instinctively by sparring. Then, if flight comes to fight, you *hopefully* will react in a more instinctive way.
Another thing, (we worked on this in class yesterday) spotting opportunities and targets on your opponent. When you do drills you are told where to strike and how many times. In sparring you have to learn to improvise. Which you need to do on the street or in the ring.
In addition to Laura’s good answers (especially for someone who has never sparred) I think there are a few more reasons…
You need to know how much you can take, what it feels like to get hit, learn about disorientation and the fact that nothing ever goes as planned.
Learning to react properly to the unexpected, how to recover, and how tiring it is. Also that because of adrenaline and becoming tired stuff starts to happen, your area of vision closes down, your hands begin to drop, etc. Awareness of what is around you, things on the ground and other attackers. Most importantly though though it impresses upon you the never give up stay in the fight part of self-defense no matter what is happening.
Wow um both Laura and BboJ both summed it up quite good in their answers. I agree with what they had to say all the way. With sparring it teaches you to cover yourself when attacks are coming and teaches you to be quick on the offense before that other guy gets it in. Sparring in class with an audience I think helps to prepare you for fighting in tournaments where there is a big crowd watching you and you won’t feel so under their pressure. Especially when you are training for an upcoming bout you want to be most prepared for the time in the ring and rounds.. So you simulate your sparring as if you were actually in the fight. That way you can train yourself to have the endurance to go for two or 3 minute rounds at full pace for however many rounds are going on. Sparring teaches you to react naturally to an attack and uh… as Laura said brings about that reaction of fight or flight syndrome which I don’t think anyone at Brand-x would do. I think it also teaches you to have an aggression factor more than an average person, and some people have more than others but I think sparring definitely emphasizes it.
Sparring is the closest thing to a real fight you wanna get involved with. You have to deal with stress, fatigue, and getting your bell rung! Everything changes when you spar. Your form goes to garbage, you’re wheezing for breath in 2 minutes, your hands aren’t up by your face, and the last thing you’re thinking about is inside defenses….unless you have previous sparring experience. Sparring adds a large measure of realism to your training. (coming from someone who hasn’t been to sparring in the last six months :oops: )
You guys are too kind. Sparring and Crossfit both open release channels from the spinning electric sphere of energy in my core to the rest of my body. I feel connected with myself. When I’m not training at Brand X, I can trigger a dump of happy chemicals in my brain just by thinking about training. Especially sparring.
LD I know that tingley feeling your talking about. Whenever I’m down and out, I just think of a form or tech or hitting a bag non-stop as hard as I can….awwwww I feel better!
