From: dsmythe@netcom.com (Dave Smythe)
Subject: Re: poor technique (actually, modified-technique)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 22:57:43 GMT

In article <63101@mimsy.umd.edu> tms@cs.umd.edu (Tom Swiss (not Swift, not Suiss, Swiss!)) writes:
>wrat@unisql.UUCP (wharfie) writes:
>>
>>	A tournament _must_ be less than realistic, or it would be 
>>actual combat and not a tournament at all.  There are different approaches
>>to make this unreality happen. [...]

>     Pads and/or armor.

In a recent sparring-technique class we were discussing the appropriate
degree of force when using gloves (which we were).  A paraphrase from
Grandmaster The': "There is no perfect protective padding.  If you have
a $25 helmet and I give you a $50 punch, $25 in change has to come out 
somewhere..."  We use pads to avoid cuts and abrasions to ourselves and
our partners.  You can easily still severely injure a person with a
relatively modest blow to the right place, even wearing gloves/pads.

If your fa jing is good, you can strike right through typical TKD-style
padding and do harm.  I inadvertantly knocked the wind out of a fellow
student in our school demonstrating this when he came armored in his
old TKD chest protector. (My point was that he needed to convince his
partners to take it easier on him while he was learning rather than to
armor himself; sadly I misjudged the force generated by a so-called
"zero-inch punch"... :-/ )

I've heard also that there was a brief experiment made to make professional
boxers wear leather helmets like olympic boxers.  The latter are playing for
points and only go 3 rounds.  The former are going to exhaustion for a
knockout.  What happened, supposedly, was that when there were no helmets,
the gloves would do less damage on head shots due to slipping on sweat.
Sure, you got more cuts and bruises.  With leather helmets, the gloves
would adhere more and much more force would be transmitted into the head
of the receiver of the blow, increasing the incidence (or at least risk)
of more severe head injury.  I don't know anything more specific; that's
just what I've heard.

>     Limited techniques and targets.

We do this.  If I can hit you above your eye with the heel of my palm, I
could have stuck my fingers in your eye.  If I can kick you hard in the
shin and thigh, I can kick your knee.  If I can grab your collar at your
throat and slam you into the floor, I could have grabbed your throat and
done the same.

The answer my senior instructors give when potential students ask if they
"fight full contact" is: "We go full contact against bags.  We reduce the
amount of force when sparring and modify the techniques for safety." [in
the manner I described]

>  Conditioning.

Agreed.  Also practice "receiving jing" or whatever the correct name is
for absorbing the force of your attacker for your use.

>We wear hand and foot pads, headgear and mouthpieces; women wear chest
>pads and men wear cups.

We wear gloves occasionally and ramp up the level of force a few notches.
All other times we go bare-fisted.  Men usually wear cups.  We all usually
wear mouthpieces.  The only time I don't is when sparring with a much
junior student, so I can tell him what to do, look for, what he missed,
what he hit, etc.  We also optionally use shin pads for our own protection
(against the occasional shin-shin sweep or well-placed elbow-blocks).

>No one
>engages in kumite until they reach green belt - about a year of training -
>so they have the necessary control to not hurt others and the necessary
>conditioning to be hit and not be injured.

We just slow it down so they have more time to think about what is happening.

D

-- 
========================================================================
Dave Smythe   N6XLP    dsmythe@netcom.com (also dsmythe@cs.stanford.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts