When do you stop a bout?

[James_Knowles]

the limit to let people spar before they step out

This is probably another reason to have one or more third parties observing. Not just heat exhaustion, but simple fatigue.

Unnecessary injuries can happen when you're tired. I received a broken finger (crushed) because my body was too tired to react on demand.

Being a martial art, it's entirely possible to happen when fresh even under the best of circumstances. However, I fully acknowledge reality in that situation. I was too tired and should have stepped out long before.

----

One idea is to watch the clock and rotate people out. This will give a small breather, and force one back into the analysing mode for a moment as they observe the others.

[James_Knowles]

One concern was that we were "stopping" too early. An arm cut would hurt the arm but if you never try to keep going even when handicapped you never push yourself into that sort of stuff.

I don't know how far to push this. If taken too far there's the temptation to play the "hit it you lose it" game.

Most of the range is not really "up close and personal" because we take the hit and restart.

I assume that this will change as you start to work in ringen am schwert, schwert nehmen, &c.

It may be beneficial to specifically focus on these from time to time.

Close-in work is not my strong suit, but I'm learning. I did some light waster sparring with a friend yesterday, and ended up getting thrown as much as I took him down. It's an improvement for me.
<img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />

[Ryan Ricks]

for me it was perfectly clear when to stop the bout. i called it quits when i was tired of getting beaten up.

hopefully i'll be much better when i go down next week or the 4th, or both

ryan

[Jared L. Cass]

While reviewing some of these "older" threads, this one jumped out at me. I believe that in acknowledging a "good solid hit" we need to keep in mind some of the modern safety gear many wear. It's been my experience that often use of excessively padded protection really screws things up.

A "good solid blow" may have been made, but because of the protective gear worn, it's barely felt and therefor ignored.

It's one thing if it's armored or slightly armored sparring being practiced, but for sparring used to simulate unarmored techniques, always keep in mind the protective effect (they're designed to reduce impact trauma after all) of such things as hockey gloves ect.

Historically (just my opinion), probably the most "armored" a person would be in an unarmored confrontation would be like we see Fiore: leather gauntlets/gloves and a gambesone.

Good hand shots (in my reconning at least) can be pretty frustrating when an opponent doesn't feel it due to the use of modern safety gear.

Just some additional thoughts to ponder and think about while sparring.

Jared L. Cass, ARMA Associate, Wisconsin