Also be sure to check out my posts on Sensei Kruczek's
Okinawan Karate-do Institute (OKI) Blog
And stop by my friend Matthew Apsokardu's
IkigaiWay - Martial Arts Blog

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Open Sparring Event - The Winter Warmup

Me (left) trying to kick Josh (right) in the head--he was closer when I started the kick :P
Last Saturday, February 9th, my dojo hosted another open sparring event. These events happen a couple times a year and we open our dojo to martial artists of any system or style to come in and spar in a friendly, ego-free environment. So far, we have always had a decent turnout and everyone always has a good time and gets in a good workout, although we would love to have even more people come in. In this case, we had several students from my dojo, a Taekwondo black belt that trains with us regularly, some people from Tiffany's (my sensei's girlfriend) dojo, a karate instructor that my sensei knows who also brought one of his students, a kenpo practitioner who has attended all our previous events, and a couple of his friends.

Me (left) sparring with one of our teen students, Rachel (right)

During the event, I got the opportunity to do some continuous point-style sparring with a 70+ year old Nanadan (7th Degree Black Belt), which was an interesting experience because I felt like I could have overwhelmed him, but any time I hesitated he would pop me in the nose with a backfist or in the groin with a front kick. When sparring people from Tiffany's dojo, I always have a hard time because they practice a lot of strikes from unusual angles, their tempo is always unusual, and they are very fast, so I had some trouble with them but also got some good pointers. Mr. Getz, the Taekwondo black belt that trains with us, is always a challenge because I tend to get into a kicking war with him (which is a bad idea :P) so we also threw in some hands-only sparring. Mostly, though, I was able to do MMA-rules sparring with just about everyone. Josh, the kenpo practitioner who comes to all our open sparring events, is a great person to do MMA-rules sparring with because he is very skilled at all ranges. In the process of all of that sparring, and two rounds of grappling afterward, I discovered that I have REALLY lost my grappling endurance, so I will need to work on that!

A full set of photos can be found here!


Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

4 comments:

  1. Great idea. I've often dreamed of having some sort of cross school interaction at my dojo. Do you have to offer the participants any words of warning beforehand, or are they all pretty good controlling their fighting urges? How do you keep it cooperative rather than competitive?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Thanks for the comment, Kamil! When we organize these events, we provide a full set of expectations and rules through an Event Page set up on Facebook, which you can take a look at here: https://www.facebook.com/events/387657107995302/

      In addition, before we start sparring my sensei explains that everyone is at different levels and everyone has different goals when sparring. In this explanation, he tells everyone to communicate with their sparring partners so that the contact and intensity is at a level both parties can agree on. In the three events we have had so far, we have only had one instance of someone losing control, and we broke that up quickly. It's certainly something that can happen, so it is a good idea to have at least one person at a time sitting on the sidelines to keep an eye on everyone and make sure no one gets out of hand.

      Delete

  2. These kind of open days are crucial to our practice. The thing is that Martial Arts has both a spiritual and practical side. The practical side includes health and 'fighting' and for sure the best way to be an all-rounder is to practice with different people from different schools whenever possible!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. I wholeheartedly agree! Thanks for the comment!

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)