No.

Sparring and competing is completely different than defending yourself. The concepts are different. The strategies are different. The intent is different.

The people you have seen are not masters. They are not even close to being a master.

Sparring is fine. It has its place. It is just one of many tool martial artist use to train.

There are those that ignorantly believe are assume that sparring or some competition is anything like a real self defense situation. That is far from the truth. These are the type of ignorant people that believe that in self defense classes you only punch the air, etc. In sparring or a competition you have a planned schedule pretend fight. You know who you are going to pretend to fight before it takes place. In many cases you know some of that person strength and or weaknesses. You have time to prepare for those things. But a real self defense situation happens when least expected against someone that you most likely know nothing about. It is unexpected. You are caught by surprise. You don't know how many people will be involved or if they have any weapons. You don't know if they had any training or not or what kind.

When sparring or in competition you have rules. Safety of those participating is important. If it gets too dangerous there is someone there to stop it before it get out of hand to limit injuries. In self defense the only safety concern is your own. There is no judge, ref, or instructor to stop it.

When a loaded gun was put to my head from behind one wrong move would have cost me my life. I was able to take the gun and live to tell the story. I took a knife from a person. I could have been gutted like a fish. But I wasn't injured and the person was held and taken to jail. None of my previous sparring or competitions prepared me to face real situations. But many hours of repetitious drills and the different types of surprise attacks including those with multiple attackers in the dojo has helped me. There are no scripts i the dojo. We don't know who or how many attackers there will be. We don't know when or where the attack is coming from. We don't know when there will be a weapon. We make it as realistic as we can. But first we teach what to do to end the threat quickly. There is no waiting for the to make a mistake. There isn't that much time in self defense. It is not like some fight that you have because you are mad or someone disrespected you or you girl. When we spar afterwards we shake hand or even give a hug. You can do it again the next day. But in self defense if you mess up might not have a next day to get better.

They help the average person some who has taken up martial arts I think Mo. Many of those people have not been in a fight or altercation since maybe grade school or junior high and don't work in jobs and areas where they are forced to rely on their physical skills and ability on a physical level against someone else. For them facing an unknown opponent under controlled conditions is the closest thing mentally they can or will get. I think it holds some value mentally for them from the above standpoints as well as better teaching them how to hit or kick a thinking, moving, reacting person and what adjustments they need to make for that. At the same time it is not quite the same thing but is the closest thing that they will get in a lot of cases. That's why martial artists sometimes seek out training and experiences outside their comfort zone and main course of training is to enhance their current skills, knowledge, and ability.

I have stated before that the experience factor in dealing with people on a physical level is often overlooked by many. It often times is a huge factor if that initial technique that a person uses is not effective and either disables or drops the other person is what I have seen and found. Then they better be able to take shots as well as give them, have some kind of tolerance for pain as well as the knowledge, skill, and ability to deal with the ongoing situation at hand. That's not easily acquired unless a person is actually training in fighting and getting real contact and dealing with a person on a physical level in some way at a high level. That needs to include not just stand-up fighting but other aspects like grappling, wrestling, and jujitsu as well.

The other thing about your question is of course the situation of a basically pure stand-up art against a grappling art and who would dominate. That will always be a question when you have two fighting or martial arts collide and neither has anything else to rely on and use.

There is one other thing about all this that I think is an important thing to consider that needs to be mentioned. That is that if it just helps some of those that acquire limited experience and who have limited training to better deal with and survive a situation then that training and experience that they were given before was worth it. That in some ways is not so easily measured but is also a factor that should be considered in all this. Obviously though; those that work in fields, or areas that carry with them a higher need for training and experience should seek that out especially if they want to have a better chance of surviving a situation or dominating the other person on a physical level I think.

Competition helps you become an overall better martial artist if you train properly. It's not suppose to make you the best street fighter, nor is it going to prepare you for an MMA match. What it will do is motivate you to train. It will help you on timing and learning to deal with different people from your dojo.

Now with that said, some competitions are better than others. And as you've seen some styles are focused on more of the sport than on self defense. TKD is full of schools that are sport oriented and hence why it has a reputation for being "weak" or taught at a bunch of McDojos.

Just based on what you posted, I suspect your friend falls into that group. If he'd train in a dojo that focuses on self defense, and application of techniques he might be better able to deal with your attacks.

Sparring can help and is one of the best ways to get prepared for a real life situation. If you are sparring with the least amount of rules the closer you will get to real life. Now keep in mind that sparring and real fighting are worlds apart. But hard sparring will get you used to taking blows and giving effective blows. It also gives you an idea of how to best face differing styles of fighting. You aren't going to engage a TKD practitioner the same way you would a Boxer. Sparring is basically good for conditioning yourself for a real life situation. It's not perfect and just because you spar doesn't mean you will know how to defend yourself, but I can guarantee you that people who spar regularly are better at defending themselves than people who only do martial arts demonstrations.

Every good martial art school should spar. Once or twice a week is ideal. Your first friend is probably at a mcdojo, and there other at a better school.

Sparring is very practical for real life situations. After all, it's kinda as close as you get as a real fight. Tournaments can be a great learning experience to martial arts, especially sparring. It gives you the chance to fight someone from a different school or style and makes you think and work a certain way. When you spar with the same circle of people in your school, you get to know how everyone fights and how to beat them. But, when you are facing someone completely new, it gives you experience with quickly adapted to a firrerent fighter. The whole point of tournaments is not to win, but to learn.

Absoluetly not! Dont fool yourself! Martial arts competitions have nothing to do with real world self defense situations. A street fight is nothing like a mma competition or karate tournament.

There are probably a few reasons why they spar very differently.

Maybe your "non competitive" friend is afraid of being struck and in turn is not as aggressive during sparring. Or maybe he is unsure of how to utilize his techniques without using his full strength and hence hesitates in fighting back. I think sparring (both full and semi contact) and competition helps in that sense.

That being said, The mindset during sparring and the mindset during real life conflict are worlds apart.

Amituofo.

Sparring is playing, is not self-defense or street-fighting. There is a big misconception among some practitioners with no real experiences and while it is a bit funny, we need to come and say the truth if we want to help......

Sparring has little to nothing to do with what it can be considered to be great self-defense....(vastly outnumber, hit and not get hit, do it with ease, control the situation (not only physically or necessarily aggressively), do well before and after, use materials and the scenery for your own advantage, e.t.c) Sparring is training for distance, timing, and movement..That is sparring....

Having said that, sports competitions and sparring can give the practitioner some more human contact, some more giving, avoiding and receiving, some more timing and distancing, some improvement of technique while moving, and that may helps for self-defense as well...

However is not the A-Z to self-defense, is basically a fun way to train, while at the same time is very overrated by teenagers, and that many times leads them to the exclusion of many other aspects of self-defense, both technically and mentally as well....

Competitions and real fights are different because you're no long safe within a ring and it's rules. When you're out there while you're doing whatever those flurry of kicks are called a knife can greet your feet.

I know how tkd users do things and as someone who have experience against your brethren....it's pretty much crap UNLESS you use your poomsae. Without poomsae you're nothing. No offense, you asked the question. The more you kick the more you're teaching me how you fight. Using the forms in a fight is more subtle but if you go about hopping around and throwing those chain kicks it'll be pretty easy to figure.

I'm not saying I can beat you or anyone I'm just saying that I have experience against tkd users I have many Mexican friends who do Tkd and take part in competitions. I keep telling them "if you're a tkd user then use tkd, sport and martial arts are two separate things"

I think that depends a great deal on how you actually approach competitions.

If winning under a single rule-set is your only goal then you're not expanding your ability to respond outside those optimal situations, I'm not against that, some people can get so damn good at Boxing for example that they can use it in almost any situation simply because they're so much more capable with those abilities that they can completely control most fights and fighters with that skill-set alone but you have to remember, people who can do that are the absolute cream of the crop - Boxing will make you tougher and more athletic and about as skilled with dealing in punches as you can possibly be.

My personal belief and sort of addiction is training to compete in as many different competition formats as I possibly can. I was nothing special at Knock-down Karate, never did better than third in the tournaments but I know I can last against that kind of fighter. I'm a pretty average Boxer but because I've gotten into the ring and done it I know I can trade punches with a classy Boxer for long enough to employ other methods. I absolutely blow at grappling only BJJ tournaments but because I've faced those same people in MMA competitions as well I know that with just the addition of strikes I'm harder to beat, with the addition of a standing and clinching game I will beat them. I use competitions to force myself to adapt to new situations.

Competition is great because it exposes you to people and methods from outside your own club, it's a great exposure method - It's up to you how far you want to take that piece of knowledge.

Sorry if the question doesn't make sense, but I've kind of noticed this a bit, I have one friend whose a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and when I spar with him (Using my wrestling) I'm able to easily get ahold of him and control him, he usually goes to classes and just participates in demonstrations and that's how he received his black belt, and another who is a blue belt in TKD and participates heavily in competitive matches and when I spar with him, he's a lot more aggressive and more athletic and it takes a lot more effort for me to take him down and actually control him, and some times might overwhelm me and neutralize me before I clinch him. So my question is do you think actual sparring, tournaments/competitions prepare a martial arts practicioner for real life situations? I've seen a lot of videos of Masters being dominated by MMA fighters, and I think it's more of that they're body is in shock because they didn't prepare for a real life situation rather than the moves working or not. That's why I think Boxing, Wrestling, BJJ, and others are useful because in teaching the moves they get you guys to go live and practice the moves for real situations.

Sparring is fine, but not competing. Competition gives you too many bad habits.

It doesn't help with your martial arts unless you're training to be a competitive fighter.

Hey,

I recommend this family self defence program that teaches how to win and dominate a violent situation on the street or in your home http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=563

Cheers ;)

Teachers that discourage competition usually discourage it because they're afraid their students will meet more students from different schools and find out how bad a school they're actually in.

bs, you've never seen a real deal black belt in Korea. you really 'think" you can move your entire body faster than a trained man can move his fist, eh? :-)

If your only goal is to score points, win a match, or find favor from a bunch of judges, then you couldn't be further from being prepared for real life situations. You are not practicing a true martial art if these are your goals.

Competitions? Not so much.

Sparring? Absolutely.

Remember folks: We extract our techniques from kata, and use these techniques to varying degrees in sparring.

Everyone repeat

sparing is only one component what matters is how you train and if you dont train forms right they wont work either.

even mma has bad gyms. i guess this is what kw means by aliveness training at an mma which was pathetic contact