Leg protection, Cricket pads?

[JeanryChandler]

Also, on the issue of gloves, I think you hit on a problem which is a big one for WMA people who do full contact sparring. Perhaps not as big of a problem as the padded weapons but still a problem. I have had a real hard time finding suitible padded sparring gloves. I think hockey gloves are way too bulky and clumsy and dont allow you to use your hands the right way, and welding gloves are too clumsy and not padded well enough. I have made some modified gloves of my own, some based on working gloves that I glued or sewed or taped foam too, some on lacrosse and motocross gloves that i modified in various ways.

I think though that as WMA continues to grow, you might see a Waster manufacturer or somebody like that develop some gloves specifically for WMA.

I understand there are some good law enforcement gloves available also but I haven't been able to get them in the budget yet...

Jeanry

[David_Knight]

I've had tremendous success with fingerless, open-palm MMA gloves from Century. The outside hand, knuckles, and 2/3 of each finger are fully protected, but I can still easily shift grips, thumb the blade, etc.

I've been using them for a few weeks now in both longsword and quarterstaff sparring and have yet to be struck and feel any significant amount of pain.

Besides, "what hurts, teaches." We have to learn somehow <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Casper Bradak]

I don't personally think you can ever go all out 100% safely. You always need control, even with well padded wasters. On some targets perhaps you can hit really hard, but if you can't pull the next blow, you have a lot of work to do. Padded wasters give you lenience in a great deal more intent (at least some do), but 100% is for pells, cutting targets and enemies.
For example, when would the back of someone's head come into play as a target that needs to be struck forcefully during sparring? Is there a single time counter where that target comes into play that only works when the blow lands with strength?
If a martial artist has no control, he has nothing.

[JeanryChandler]

For example, when would the back of someone's head come into play as a target that needs to be struck forcefully during sparring? Is there a single time counter where that target comes into play that only works when the blow lands with strength?

I'm not sure what is a single time versus a double time counter. But I know that there are many cases in sparring where I would need to strike the back of the head with force.

One example would be when I am passing through, or when my opponent is passing through. I often only have a quick opportunity for a strike at someone who is passing beside me facing the opposite direction, and if my blade is high, striking the head is the quickest way to hit them. If I hesitate or pull my strike I will either not hit them or I will miss the opportunity, and / or not be able to have my weapon in the appropriate defensive guard quickly enough after the opportunity has passed.

Furthermore, with a lacrosse helmet, there is virtually no chance of injury or even serious pain from such a blow.

Another time when I might hit the back of the head is when separating from a bind. In this case I may again end up beside or behind my opponent and this may be the only way to get them in that "sweet spot" moment before they react.

A third instance is sometimes when half swording and making a pommel strike.

These are just three cases which come to mind right off the bat, I'm sure there are others.

As for striking full force, when I'm using padded sparring weapons, I attempt to go full force. I wont always say we do, sometimes we get into sparring habits with familiar partners and relax a bit, but that is one reason we try to mix up sparring partners as much as possible and have new people come to practice. As often as not we do go at it 100% speed and force. I advocate this because I dont want to get in the habit of pulling my blows.

I believe if you get used to fighting always at a quarter or a half or three quarters speed, you cannot really learn how the counters and the strikes really work, because to me there is a WORLD of difference in fighting full speed especially with somebody who is a natural fighter and hits hard and fast.

I do not have the knowlege of WMA that you probably have, but I have been fighting with various types of weapons for twenty years. In this time I have faced many trained EMA fighters (and a few trained WMA fighters as well) who haven't done enough full speed sparring and it really shows. As I have begun to learn real WMA techniques I think this is even more true. What you can do easily in a drill at "half speed" is completely different than what you can do at full speed. A WORLD of difference. Thats not to say you dont need the drill to learn the moves correctly and the right form in the first place. It's just that is only part of the learning process IMHO.

Perhaps you are simply more skilled but at this point in my training I cannot practice at pulling my blows and still strike with real intensity as for a real fight. Maybe when I get to be more experienced I'll be able to do so, but at this point I use the padded weapons to open up the realm of facing an opponent at full speed, and full force.


Jeanry

[JeanryChandler]

I've had tremendous success with fingerless, open-palm MMA gloves from Century. The outside hand, knuckles, and 2/3 of each finger are fully protected, but I can still easily shift grips, thumb the blade, etc.
I've been using them for a few weeks now in both longsword and quarterstaff sparring and have yet to be struck and feel any significant amount of pain.

Sounds great. I'll have to check them out. Are the available online?

Besides, "what hurts, teaches." We have to learn somehow

Pain I have no problem with. What I am keen to avoid is temporary or even permanent crippling or maiming, and even the potential liability that goes along with it.

Jeanry

[Matthew_Anderson]

I agree completely Casper. The worst injuries I've had were sustained with padded weapons and LOTS of protective gear. I know I can hit somone in the head hard enough to cause brain damage, even if they are wearing a lacrosse helmet. I don't need to do that in sparring in order to make it a realistic and effective training experience. A firm blow, delivered with good technique, proper edge alignment, and enough "time on target" is all that is required.

[JeffGentry]

Hey guy's

I agree completely Casper. The worst injuries I've had were sustained with padded weapons and LOTS of protective gear. I know I can hit somone in the head hard enough to cause brain damage, even if they are wearing a lacrosse helmet. I don't need to do that in sparring in order to make it a realistic and effective training experience. A firm blow, delivered with good technique, proper edge alignment, and enough "time on target" is all that is required.

I agree with Casper and sparring is all about control if you swing as hard as possible all the time i gaurenteen all your strike's are not controlled, and someone will eventualy get seriously hurt, i would rather learn to proetect myself by way of 100 minor injuries from controled strike's than from one serious injury from an out of control strike.


MO

Jeff

[JeanryChandler]

It's not a matter of striking as hard as possible, but rather as hard as necessary, and wherever necessary.

Are you honestly telling me that you should practice WMA and never strike anyone in the back of the head?

It's hard to understand what you mean though, ideas like what constitutes a 'hard' swing are so subjective it's kind of hard to know what you are talking about without seeing you spar, or at least seeing some sparring footage of some kind.

Inidentally, I also dont think a lacrosse helmet and gloves constitutes "a lot" of padding.

At any rate I stand by my comments, time will perhaps shed more light on this issue. In the meantime I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Jeanry

[JeanryChandler]

Just to clarify what I mean by striking hard...

In my opinion, you cannot deliver a 'haymaker' that could actually injure someone in a lacrosse helmet without telgraphing so much that you would be hit. I'm not talking about leaping up in the air and striking somebody with all your might when they are down prone on the ground or not aware of your presence.

What I mean is striking as fast and hard as necessary to hit while not getting hit back. I dont think that should include pulling your blow to ease pain, I think that is a bad habit. I think you cut and thrust as forcefully as you would in a real fight, or else you are not training for a real fight.


Jeanry

[Aaron Pynenberg]

I tend to agree with Jeanry, but hardness is very subjective, we have a new guy training with us. Tony is 6'4" and 320 lbs. He is a lineman with the Greenbay Blizzard, an arena football team, so you can imagine that he has a lot of power. I sparred against him last sunday, (I am 5'11" 185lbs) and I am here to tell you that he hits very hard. At the same time though he was not trying to injure anyone.

We tend to strike hard, but controlled and although we suffer alot of contusions, we rarely break skin or cause any lasting injury. We do mandate hockey helmets with gloves being optional. Which has served us pretty well.

When someone said "pull" thier strikes I cringe though because in my mind that implies that you are changing the range and extension in the arms and body to alter the impact of the weapon, which I agree is not a good habit to develop.

We have begun to differntiate between "freeplay" and "sparring" or "fighting" which all have diffrent meanings for us now- freeplay is very light working of the techniques, sparring is added intensity and more dynamic body movement and fighting is as hard as possible all techniques are included, even grappling.

[Casper Bradak]

It's not a matter of striking as hard as possible, but rather as hard as necessary, and wherever necessary.

There you go, that's control, not going out 100%.

Are you honestly telling me that you should practice WMA and never strike anyone in the back of the head?

I honestly don't see the need to forcefully strike someone in the back of the head. If it becomes a target, I'd just assume control my strike and not try to decapitate them. I never meant to imply that you should disregard any target.

In my opinion, you cannot deliver a 'haymaker' that could actually injure someone in a lacrosse helmet without telgraphing so much that you would be hit.

If you think a telegraphed haymaker will hit harder than a blow with good form, well, you still have a lot of work to do on your form.

I'm not talking about leaping up in the air and striking somebody with all your might when they are down prone on the ground or not aware of your presence.

What's the difference between that and the back of someones head? If you can place a good blow when they're at your mercy, why do it with great force?
It sounds like you associate controlled blows with lack of speed. The more control you have, the more speed you can safely use. And I'm not advocating hitting softly most of the time when you have the proper tools either, just properly. If you have to force a blow through a bind, either you are using the wrong technique against a hard bind, or you need to work more on your blade divisions.
We're already doing things rarely done originally due to their lack of foam wasters. Their methods seemed to work quite well for them. All you really need is placement, intent, control, and time on target. Padding allows more intent, but not full intent, and control always tempers (but shouldn't hinder) intent.

[JeanryChandler]

I think we may be arguing past each other, I would really have to see how you spar.

Yes I do personally think a "haymaker" could potentially hit harder than a controlled strike, but I strike very hard, very fast with good control. Ask Jake Norwood.

I dont mean things like blowing through binds either. I mean, striking fast to hit that exposed leg when it's out, twitching to that upper left shoulder when it is exposed, or executing a good tight mastercut either pre-empting or countering another strike...

As for the back of someones head, again, it often presents itself in a fight without necessarily meaning somebody is helpless. If you are striking from the side, the back of their head is a potential target... that doesn't mean they arent' protecting theirselves, nor does it mean that you have time to strike 'slow' or pulll the strike, because they are still actively trying to defend and / or strike back at you.

If it is an obvious coup-de-grace of course I will let it land softly...

Jeanry

[Casper Bradak]

I think we may be arguing past each other, I would really have to see how you spar.

Yes I do personally think a "haymaker" could potentially hit harder than a controlled strike, but I strike very hard, very fast with good control. Ask Jake Norwood.

Probably.
Part of the purpose of good form or a proper strike is the objective of making it hit harder than someone untrained just trying to hit their hardest. I believe you otherwise though.

As for the back of someones head, again, it often presents itself in a fight without necessarily meaning somebody is vulnerable. If you are striking from the side, the back of their head is vulnerable... that doesn't mean they arent' protecting theirselves, nor does it mean that you have time to strike 'slow' or pulll the strike, because they are still actively trying to defend and / or strike back at you.

I believe that it is often a target, and that you can often make it a target, while the opponent is defending. I still say that there's no real need to smash them though. If they're wearing a good helmet, and actively defending, sure, make some good contact if you want, but not unnecessary contact. But if you can place the blow there with more control, why wouldn't you?
Like I said above, "striking slow" and "pulling the strike" or controlling your contact are entirely seperate things. One does not need the other. That is an important distinction. All it takes is practice.
You don't move in slow motion when you're training with foils or wooden wasters do you? But you don't hit harder than your partner can take either.
Hitting really hard with padded wasters seems to be something a lot of people inexplicably use for bragging rights. Why? Who can't? Control is what takes skill.

[JeanryChandler]

You could be right... I strike as hard as it seems necessary, which ends up being pretty hard. I'm not trying to brag about it, just portray a clear picture of how I fight.

I'm not the one who can apparently decapitate people with padded swords <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

But i always did admire those samurai movies where the Master stops their sword just short of some guys neck in a fight, to show them they could have killed them but didn't

I have a long way to go in terms of skill before I get to that point.

Jeanry

[Jaron Bernstein]

When we do waster free play it seems a lot slower than padded sparring. Typically with paddeds we go all out, ringen included. I guess we need to work on our control to be able to do the waster free play faster. I am just worried that if we do wasters with the same intensity as paddeds, even "pulling" the shot at the last second, someone will get a concussion or broken bones.