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This message is for John Whitman. I have been training in Krav Maga for about 6 years and have a blue belt in krav maga.
My question is in regards to sparring. I have done a lot of research on the role sparring in self-defense and all of my research has found that sparring is of actual little use on the street and can even have a WORSE effect than with no sparring for self-defense training. Why does Krav Maga continue to use sparring as a primary method of training?
It appears the most effective training comes from scenario-based training in which the ìattackerî wears a padded suit and the attack comes suddenly, sometimes without warning and is very dynamic. I have done some of this training myself and it is quite different from facing each other and going back and forth in a timed round.
Even at the Krav Maga summer camp this last summer, students were exposed to the ìbulletmanî suits and training methods of Peyton Quinn who has long been against sparring as a realistic method of self-defense training.
Below are just two of the quotes that I have come upon in my research:ìSparring creates a very false impression of what real hand-to-hand fights are like. In sparring, our mindset is the ìmindset of sparringî, and that is not the mindset of fighting and combat. Real combat is very quick and over in seconds. There is little back-and-forth sparring action at all. The person who doesnít hesitate, takes the initiative and scores that first telling blow and then continues that initiative with immediate and successive blows, will prevail almost every time. This is true even over more ìskilledî opponents. The good news is, when and if you fully realize this, it will dawn on you that youíre capable of defeating more skilled opponents too, once you disregard the model of the ìconsensual contestî of a ìfightî. When your mind enters into this consciousness, then you donít spar with anyone who truly threatens or attacks you. You do not wait for an ìopeningî; in fact, you do not wait for anything because you have already struck! And then you strike again and again until the enemy is no longer a threat to you.î – Peyton Quinn
ìSparring is NOT self-defenseî – Tony Blauer
Ken B.
i’m not john whitman lol but by you posting on a public forum instead of Privately messaging John i assume you wouldn’t mind if others give their input.
I personally have never seen sparring as a primary teaching method in Krav Maga. It’s secondary at best. Sparring IS extremely beneficial to understanding specific principals of timing, vision, ability to take a punch, movement… dealing with missing…
Tony Blaur would obviously say use a padded suit, because he sells padded suits.
Don’t get me wrong… Sparring should be performed (and is at my school) is every fashion. Meaning we don’t just \”box\” or \”kickbox…\” never almost never \”circle each other throwing jabs\”
The instructor works scenario based training with our sparring gear on.. we work reaction drills where a student stands, eyes closed, with their gear on, gets sucker punched (with control) by another student and learns to recover and counterattack while the attacker continues to strike after the intial blow.
Or we work 10 second rounds… or we can safely work movement from two attackers till you can get to an \”exit…\”
You quoted, \”in sparring we have the mindset of sparring.\” That’s something my instructor constantly mentions to help us fix 🙂 We don’t sit around throwing jabs… we train to engage, throw as many combatives as we can, as accurately as we can, then disengage. Its where i TRUELY learned to simultaneously defend and counter as well as TRUELY learned how hard it is to keep someone at arm’s length.
Remember… i FIRMLY believe that sparring is NOT self-defense… but i do feel it’s a part of it.
For those who argue it hurts people in the street… well someone should have told that to alllllllllll my friends who box/train MMA… who have defended themselves…
now you can say i’m lying… that my friends haven’t successfully defended themselves… that my friends don’t even box… that i don’t even have any friends 🙂 but i’m not. Sure they didn’t know when to tactically leave… but in their cases the only thing sparring hurt was their knuckles.
Again… i’m not saying lets only spar. I’m saying it says \”Krav Maga: Self Defense AND fighting\”
I have to agree with ALL the sentiments expressed here.
Sparring certainly isn’t self defense. In fact, when I introduce fighting skills to students, I usually begin by asking them if they know the difference between a Fight and Self Defense. A Fight means, all things being equal, I can either engage or run away, and so can the other guy. Self Defense, from our perspective, is when the other guy has already attacked and you are forced to deal with an immediate danger.
This is why we don’t do any serious sparring until a few belts into the system — or initial focus is on self defense.
BTW, we’ve had people criticize us for not sparring early enough!
Sparring certainly has its place in training: it induces a different kind of stress, it forces us to deal with an opponent who may be thinking tactically, or with multiple opponents who are working together, etc.
BTW, I often do drills that compensate for the \”sparring v. fighting\” mindset. In my fighting classes, I sometimes do 10 Second Rounds, where you have ten seconds to get in and fight, then you break, find a new partner, and go again immediately without a \”hello\” or a glove tap. This, and other drills, remove the sparring from the fighting.
We used to do a similar sparring drill when I studied Krav in Atlanta. Students got into a circle with one student in the middle. The instructor would point to one of the students in the circle who would jump in and spar the one in the center for about 10 seconds. While you were sparring the instructor had already selected the next person from the circle to jump in. Usually the guy in the middles didn’t know who the next person would be. After about 10 seconds, the instructor would yell \”break\” or \”next\” and the person in from the circle would retreat and the next person (all fresh) would immediatley jump in for their 10 second round. This would go on until everyone in the circle had jumped in and sparred the one in the middle. Then the one in the middle (totally exhausted by now) would join the circle and the next student would be in the middle. And the cycle was repeated until each student had their turn in the middle. This was a very tiring and stressful exercise for the one in the middle.
John,
I have attempted to email you twice regarding an earlier post. Each time I got an error message after two days saying my email cnould not be delivered because it was in the que too long. Has anyoe else experienced this problem? I do not have that problem with any other email I send out.
What do you think the problem is?\”Why does Krav Maga continue to use sparring as a primary method of training? \”
Dude, who in your 6 years of Krav training ever made this claim? I’m a brown belt, trained in Krav schools from Long Island to NC to L.A., and have never heard this.
If you’re saying it’s merely implied, distinguishing b/w sport fighting and real fighting boils down to the instructors. They should be the ones who clearly describe the difference, and strengths and weaknesses b/w sparring and non-sparring.
For me, sparring, in conjunction with other modalities of training, ensures providing all the benefits while addressing the short-comings of pigeon-holing any one training paradigm.
\”It appears the most effective training comes from scenario-based training in which the ìattackerî wears a padded suit and the attack comes suddenly, sometimes without warning and is very dynamic.\”
Quite frankly, the tone of this statement leads me to assume an agenda (dramatic or otherwise).
While this is indeed a very effective training method, I’m uncertain if it is definitively the MOST EFFECTIVE method. For one, such a claim relegates the merit of Krav scenario drills, Geoff Thompson methodology, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, shockknife training, etc.
Ultimately, if you feel sparring is unnecessary for self-defense, no one is forcing you to do it. If you feel sparring hinder the skills necessary for self-defense, then talk to your instructors about it. If still not satisfied, then open up your program w/o sparring.
Brad:
Try another email service, perhaps with a less hostile tone. Sr. Whitman is good at getting back to people in a timely manner.Brad,
I’m not sure what the problem is. I am receiving emails from many other parties. I have had one other person tell me recently they couldn’t get through. It turned out there was a virus on their end. Please try again.
Thanks!
Pulling up quotes doesn’t necessarily prove your point. I could pick some that say sparring is the greatest, from people who know what they’re talking about (Lynn Thompson, Mark Hatmaker). That wouldn’t prove anything either. Everyone agrees that live training is the way to go in this thread. Sparring is a form of that, if not the \”best\” for whatever your reasons for training are.
Sparring,
Great post and responses!
I have written about this before and it is a very interresting topic. The critique I have always maintained about sparring is that it often builds bad habits in students. Punches are thrown and defended in a different manner when gloves are a part of the equation. Additionally false confidence is something that should be guarded against.
I mean encouraging students to stand and go toe to toe is wrong. Before any of you say anything I have spent time in other systems that also have the same problem. Krav is no exception. BTW I also feel the same way about \”ground work\”. To encourage a student to attempt arm bars an RNC’s in \”self defense\” is stupid.
Sparring does have merit though. To hit a live target is always beneficial but the distinction should always be made between the fight and self defense. Truly as Krav practitioners we should not be looking for a \”fight\”, that means our self defense would have failed.
This issue is always a touchy one because there are instructors and students who really believe that sparring is \”like a real fight\”, it’s not. All you need to do is watch a real attack and you will understand how much different they are. So in the end the sparring has very little to do with \”self defense\”and certainly more to do with a \”fight\”. Fight being defined as a mutual combat situation. Ok?
Again the size issue is one that has to be mentioned here. In our self defense scenarios, choke from behind, headlocks, sneak attacks etc… Size is not an issue and a smaller person should certainly be attacked by larger person. However in sparring what benefit is there? None! Why in hell would a person giving up 40-100lbs willingly stand in front of an opponent and throw with them? There is no excuse for this mentality at all in a self defense system.
I know. I know. Size doesn’t matter right? It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog right? Blah blah blah blah!!!! Nonsense! This is the type of crap you start to hear from students who get a lot of \”mat time\” or \”ring time\”. This has no place in the street and that is how people get hurt. Because the moment someones fist crashes into your teeth, or a bottle is bounced off of your skull all the \”mat time\” in the world won’t help you. These are the training scenarios that we should examine. So there should probably be at most an 80/20 rule. 80 for self defense/20 for sparring.
I do believe sparring can have benefits. The suit training is great, but it isn’t 100% realistic either, since the attacker is padded up and thus doesn’t feel any pain and can only guess as to how he would react if he were hit for real.
So, all training is staged to a certain degreee. The only real training you could have would be to put yourself into situations where you will get into a real fight (or just tempt fate – walk through a gang infested area at night, see if someone jumps you). While that kind of training – if you survive and stay out of prison – would be the most realistic, it would also be the most foolish and dangerous, so one has no choice but to find safe alternatives to recreate scenarios without seriously endangering the students.
Sparring can help to train your vision, fight under stress and fight through pain, so it does have benefits.
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GiantkillerSparring can certainly be a useful tool. I think that the two most valuable things it teaches are what it feels like to get hit ( even when you are all \”geared up\” ) and how to recover and continue to fight when your initial attack fails and you have to keep fighting. It is a SERIOUS mistake to think that sparring translates directly into realistic street fighting, where size, aggression, terrain, and your ability to both inflict and absorb pain matter. However, I think the way that sparring is worked into our Krav training is fantastic. It’s a great way to improve your timing and ability to hit a moving target. It also allows you to receive instant feedback on your weaknesses regarding stance, movement, and defensive blocking techniques.
My view is simply this – sparring is fun. I really enjoy it, I get to try stuff that I would not try in any other situation. The folks I get to spar with all have some sort of experience outside of KM that makes it very interesting. Of course it is not real, heck I don’t want to hurt these people, I need to keep them around as training partners :wink:, they are also my friends….
Sparring is nothing but sport, however, as in most sports, it encourages tactical thinking, demands fitness, and presents personal limitation challenges. Those pieces do contribute to our ability to defend ourselves.
An interesting factoid about sparing:
Thedore Roosvelt was very \”into\” the sport of boxing and did it in his youth and cotinued working out and sparing throughout his life, even while he was President. While he was President during a sparing session with a young Secret Service officer, Teddy took a shot to the head and it damaged his retina and he became blind in that eye. Out of concern for the young man he never spoke of this during his life.
Thanks John,
I’ll give it another try after I check my computer for viruses. although I do have a good vorus protection software installed.A couple of things :
1. A curious opinion from Tony Blauer since he markets his suits for MMA
2. Sparring is not either or type of thing. Simulating attack scenarios is a good teaching tool. But one must know how to execute attacks and defenses against a live resisting opponent in a more controlled setting like sparring before they do all out fighting with weapons and multiple attackers. For example in \”Animal Day\” Geoff Thompson does a lot very intense fighting with his students. But he mentiones that most of them are advanced fighters already before they go all out.
3. Sparring is a tool. It’s part of the total picture including self defense training, condtioning, psychological preparation, verbal de-escalation and most importantly awareness.
4. I am curious as to why after 6 years you all of a sudden decided to question this particular aspect.
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