How You Do Sparring In Different Martial Arts?

When you first get interested in the martial arts, there are a lot of things that confuse you, and you do not understand anything. This is because every martial art has its own unique terms and terminologies, some of which are unique with respect to other arts, whereas many of them are similar. Still, similar ones are not very common in our daily lives. So is the reason for the confusion of beginners in such arts. One of the terms that confuses beginners most often is sparring. Some take it as training, while others think it is the actual fight, and the confusion goes on. The sparring often changes its meaning when it is discussed with different martial arts. So, if you are a beginner, you need to clear this confusion. Let's explore sparring in detail with respect to other martial arts.

Sparring is a form of training in which you execute all your strategies, techniques, moves, and skills against your sparring partner, who is usually resistant in such a way that looks exactly like a professional match. So you are fighting against your opponent, but in a simulated way. Only the match is not real and professional. Except for this, everything is like a professional, and you are taking it like a real match. So, sparring is a simulated match that you do to improve your game.

The meaning of sparring is mostly consistent and the same in different martial arts, but similarly, they have. The rules for it and how you do it vary with each martial art. So with one rule or format, you cannot go with all martial arts. You need to learn and develop the sparring format for each martial art separately. So, what are the differences in sparring when you shift from one art to another, and how can you do the sparring? Let's explore in detail with respect to each art separately.

• In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the term rolling is more common instead of sparring. Both have almost the same meaning but a little bit of difference, as the rolling is often discussed only with BJJ and sparring with every other martial art. The practitioners do rolling to execute the techniques after learning in the class. So they are not doing just theoretical based learning but also implementing practically, which simulates the BJJ professional matches.

• The duration of rolling for BJJ practitioners is usually between five and seven minutes on average. Either partner submits to their opponent, and the game ends. The rolling continues unless any one of the players taps out and the other one gets a dominant position, catching the opponent in their trap. So this is how rolling happens in BJJ.

• First, you learn in class. The trainer teaches you everything about a particular technique, how you should do it, and the ways for executing it from various positions. You learn and understand that clearly, and after that, you proceed to implement it practically against your partner, who acts like your real match opponent. You don't spare any technique or move on them, and apply all your strategies. So you continue fighting like a real match with your sparring or rolling partner until you or your partner taps out. This is a proper schedule of rolling in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academies.

• The rolling provides the practitioner a very good way to execute and implement all their learning against someone. In solo drilling compared to sparring, you are not drilling or executing your moves against a real person. You are just punching the bags, which are also effective, but not like sparring or rolling. So you are learning and implementing at the same time because you have your coach with you who will guide you throughout your rolling and if you make any mistake, they will surely stop and correct you. This way, your game becomes better with time, and also you do not become pressured when you face a real opponent in a professional Jiu Jitsu match.

• The sparring in Muay Thai is not the same as in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The practitioners here learn and practice the strikes, knees, kicks, and also the clinch work. It is more focused on the strikes. You strike with power at your opponent at a time when you can submit them from a range that is perfect for you to be defensive and offensive at the same time.

• Muay Thai is not practiced without any protective equipment. Both strikers wear the gear for protection in sparring in Muay Thai such as shin guards, mouth guards or head gear. This protective equipment makes sure that the practitioners only learn and dont get their head or mouth or any other part of the body damaged.

• Moreover, the strikers are not so serious that they start taking the sparring as a game of life and death. They enjoy it, make fun of each other in a friendly way, strike each other in a fun way, and tease each other to keep the environment cool and everyone laughing. So the sparring in Muay Thai is more like a friendly learning, not a serious life and death situation.

• This helps the practitioners not to take the game as a burden. Rather, they enjoy it and spend their time with good partners. While keeping themselves full of fun, they learn the techniques and moves in Muay Thai and prepare themselves both for a self defense situation and a professional Muay Thai match.

• The sparring in boxing focuses on three major elements, which are the footwork throughout the match, timing, and the precision of your punches. These three are the elements on which your boxing revolves. If you are lacking any of these elements, then you cannot be a good boxer. These are the absolute basics, and that is the reason boxing sparring is focused mainly on these elements.

• If you are a beginner in boxing, you will think that only the punches are the constituent of boxing, and if you know boxing, you can defeat your opponent very easily. This same thought is common among the fans who watch boxing passionately. But fortunately or unfortunately, that is not true. You have to rely on many other things to give yourself a perfect boxing game, and one of those other things is footwork. The footwork is so crucial that your punches cannot land perfectly on your opponent, even if both your timing and precision are accurate. Even if you throw them with your full force at the right time and in the right situation during the game, you can fail by making a tiny mistake or ignoring a single element in boxing, and that is the footwork.

• So the sparring in boxing is designed so that the boxers learn and focus a lot on their footwork technique. They continuously try to improve their footwork by working on different strategies and utilizing different combinations of techniques. They try to improve their punch and their punching power by changing their footwork and see which one gives the best result. They indicate their own mistakes in their footwork, and this helps in developing their game. When you are practicing the game with all its major elements, then the chances for you to become the best in your game increase to a major extent.

• The boxers continue their sparring for a duration of two to three minutes for each round on average, after which it ends, giving one of the boxers a victory for that respective round. The next round begins, and the sparring continues, leading to an improvement in their game.

• MMA is the mixed martial arts that does not focus on only one aspect, instead emphasizing multiple elements in its sparring. Such multiple elements include the grappling, like the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, striking, like you do in Muay Thai, and various other elements from many martial arts, like the takedowns, submissions, kicks, knees, throws, all included in one martial art, and that is MMA. This is one of the reasons most people consider it a pecvdrfect martial art for learning self defense.

• So the sparring is not unique because it is a mixture of martial arts, and the techniques you practice in it are borrowed from other martial arts to make a unified martial art. Sometimes you will observe that the sparring you are doing in MMA resembles boxing, and on other times you will think that it is similar to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

• Your focus during sparring in MMA also becomes a mixture. You do not focus on one element throughout your game. In one round, you might go with the striking only, but in the next round, you switch the striking with the focus mainly on grappling. So it all depends on the situation of the sparring you are doing, and also the class in which you learn about the particular technique.

• Taekwondo is another martial art that involves sparring as its common form of training. In this martial art, the two main elements that are focused upon are kicking and footwork. The kicking sparring can be linked to the striking in Muay Thai, and the footwork can be related to the boxing sparring. So it can be called a mixture of two different martial arts, sparring.

• But this is not the only case. It also has something unique, and that is the forms of sparring. There are two forms of sparring that are widely practiced in the art. One of them is point sparring, and the other is continuous sparring.

• In the point sparring, the sparring partners make only a light contact. They are not continuously closer to each other, trying to strike their partner and leading the game. They only come together for a short duration of time and then suddenly move away. In such a short duration of time or a light contact period, they try to hit their partner with a technique that can give them the upper hand over their partner. If they are successful in this, then they win the round; otherwise, the game continues like this.

• In contrast, in continuous sparring, you don’t make light contact with your sparring partner. Instead, you make continuous contact with them and spar continuously by trying to execute one technique after the other. So they have continuous contact, unlike point sparring.

• Two different forms of sparring give the practitioners chances to better execute their techniques and learn different things in a unique and versatile way. This change tests them in different conditions to see whether they can execute a technique or not.

• In the same way as the practitioners spar in taekwondo, karate also involves sparring in two forms. One of the forms is point sparring, and the other is continuous sparring.

• Just like in Taekwondo, the point sparring in karate involves the quick and explosive exchange of punches, kicks, or strikes. It gives a very short time to each sparring partner to showcase their striking skills. It has a limited time for contact and is not prolonged.

• On the other hand, in the second form of sparring, which is continuous sparring, the practitioners continue making contact with each other. The contact is prolonged, not a short one like the point sparring. They have more time to implement a range of techniques or strikes that they have learnt in their class.

There are many reasons you should spar in any martial art you are interested in. It has a lot of benefits, and it improves your game to a great extent. The following are some of the benefits of sparring in all martial arts to make you realize the reason for doing sparring:

• The most important benefit of sparring is that you are implementing what you learn daily in your classes. If you are not implementing practically everything you learn or are being taught, then what is the use of taking classes? You will not be able to gain anything from taking classes in your martial arts academy.

• Learning is important in every field, but only learning won’t get you anywhere. First, learn, then practice it like you are executing it against your opponents in a real match.

• So the sparring gives you the chance to get what you truly want to achieve. The goals for joining the martial arts classes can be many, but to achieve them, you need to learn how to practically execute the techniques.

• For example, if you are learning the martial arts for the purpose of self-defense but you are not executing any of the techniques or skills you learn during the class, then what would be the result? If you encounter a street fight situation, you will not be able to execute anything you learn because you don't have any practice. So this is where you can benefit from sparring, and it is most important.

• The most important thing to go into any competition is to prepare yourself mentally. Your mind should be ready to face your opponent. You should know what you are going to do in a fight. You should already have a strategy in your mind to fight with your opponent. Moreover, you must have a step by step plan on how and what you are going to do with your opponent in a fight. So this is the mental preparation that you need to have for stepping into any competition.

• Not only does the mental preparation include that you need to be confident enough about yourself that you are going to win and succeed in your competition, so that you do not fear and get nervous during the competition. But how do you get all such mental preparation from?

• The answer is sparring when you talk about a martial arts competition. No other way or technique can give you more or better mental preparation than sparring. So, sparring is a must for you.

• The reason sparring is so important in developing mental strength and preparation for professional martial arts is that it puts you through the same things that you face in professional matches. So you are practicing for what you will be doing afterwards in a real fight. When you keep doing such exercises then you become better in your learning each day. Your mind develops it into muscle memory. So it becomes your part, and the next time you need to execute such a strategy that you have been learning, it won’t take you any longer.

• With the continuous sparring or training, you know what you need to improve. You become well aware of all of your best techniques in which you are very good at and the worst techniques in which you are not good and cannot execute correctly. So sparring helps you know all such techniques, and they are categorized. So you keep two options with yourself.

• One is that you should improve such techniques in which you are not very good, and the other is that you should focus on executing only the good ones. So both are good options and have their own pros and cons. So sparring helps you to become physically prepared in terms of your techniques and moves, besides mental preparation.

• The techniques, moves, and skills all should be learnt and understood, but these are not enough to make you win the match. If you think you have learnt and also practiced all techniques and now you are able to win any fight, then you might be wrong because the techniques are not the only thing you are executing against your opponent in a match or fight. There are other things that also play a bigger role.

• These include unique positions or situations you have never seen before, the techniques, throws, punches, kicks, or knees that you are unfamiliar with, the strategy that you have to suddenly develop during the game, and the tactics you have to use to make them lose the match. So these are the things that you can only learn during the match or when you are fighting. The sparring simulates the match and fight, so it teaches you all the things that you cannot learn in a theoretical lecture. Therefore, the sparring helps you learn and win the real fight.

Sparring is just a martial arts match, but without any competition. It has a lot of benefits that highlight it as an important element of martial arts. The basic purpose, meaning, and way of doing the sparring remain the same and consistent in all forms of training. But with each martial art, the techniques change, and so does the sparring. However, if you practice sparring in any martial art, then doing it in other arts becomes easier for you after learning. So if you are a beginner or at any other level, and not doing sparing. It adds value to your martial arts game, helping you to improve.

There are many reasons you should spar in any martial art you are interested in. It has a lot of benefits, and it improves your game to a great extent. The following are some of the benefits of sparring in all martial arts to make you realize the reason for doing sparring:

• Practical Application of Learning

• Mental Preparation

• Physical Preparation

• You Learn The Real Fight