How do you approach sparring?

[supacomboy]

How do you approach sparring in practice? What objectives do you have going into your sparring session? Do you go into your spar with specific techiques you're going to work on and try to make them work on your opponent OR do you just try to find what techniques work on that particular opponent OR do you just going into your spar trying to take control over your opponent OR anything else?

[GaryRichards]

I have different objectives when I spar. Sometimes I work on one or two techniques, repeating them over and over trying them in every situation possible to see where the work. Sometimes I try different theories, like movement for defence or stopcutting. I also try different mental approaches; aggressive, defensive, screaming, laughing etc, just to see how its effects on my opponents. I guess the most important part of sparring for me is to see what works and how. Winning or losing doesn't matter to me so long as I find something I have never seen before. . . . Oh, and I've found laughing works better than screaming

[samsuh]

As a relative beginner (about 7 months now), I try to concentrate on specific techniques. Generally I know the type of mistakes I make and try to use sparring to correct them and improve them. Additionally, I try to work on speed.

[Kumdostar]

speed percision and to wear the person out before i do

[b8amack]

I use techniques I'm weak at, and I also tend to work on defense a lot during daeryun. Nothing more pathetic than someone who just hits mori during practice. Sometimes I let them get the mori easily so that when we do in-house shiap, they think I'm weak there, and I get an easy victory.

[friedkimchi]

i jus see what his habits are n what he does alot so i know how he fites. so basically i'm jus blocking most of my guys's hits. I get to know his speed and what to watch out for. After about 30 seconds i'm ready to start facin him

[clemilizovame]

when i spar someone near my own rank i focus on things i messed up on last time and when i spar people lower than myself i focus on my weaknesses and making my opponent pay for any mistakes they make so that they know they messed up and they work to improve it.

[b8amack]

I also work a lot on suppressing "tells," lately. I'm good at keeping my eyes neutral, but I still broadcast with my shoulders and breath too much, I think.

[admiral turtle]

I usually try to predict my opponents to improve whatever intuition I have. I always try to fix my mistakes of course.

[EvottechitBic]

i jus see what his habits are n what he does alot so i know how he fites. so basically i'm jus blocking most of my guys's hits. I get to know his speed and what to watch out for. After about 30 seconds i'm ready to start facin him

-DUDE. thats a good idea for tourney, but not for sparring. In sparring, you are suppose to make mistakes. u cant just read the dude for 30 seconds. thats a waste of time to if you do that in a tourney. When i spar, u should try to gain power over the opponent. Thats the thing thast going to let you win the tourney. Because if you give off the sense to the opponent that you have the power. now that sounded cheesy. If you have make your opponent feel uncomfrontable. When you sparr with ur GJN, he makes you feel uncomfrontable and he makes you SCREW up, and takes advantage of you mistake. heh that was a long paragraph. well i hope this helps whoever reads this.

[focus]

i know im doing multiple things wrong while sparring, but only concetrating on fixing one or two things... i hope during the spar my partner will show me something wrong. i used to try wierd or new techniques in the beginning, but after some time i just did whatever came. oh for about a week i also concetrated on the line, and came out with impressive improvements/results, maybe this was one of those things i thought iwas doing right but wasnt, but holding the line and judging if my partner was ignoring the line, helped alot during that short period of time

[FJstan]

I have a more defensive approach, I'll wait for the opponent to start and then i will think of an counter attack. This approach is not very consisitent since I rely on my reflexes alot. I will anticipate alot of the time and get lucky.

But when i'm determined, say going for moori, i will plan it.

Another approach i think works best for sparring is the mental game, kiup (scream) can sometimes put the opponents off guard.

[Bruce W Sims]

In GOM-BOP we don't have sparring, but do have paired work. One of the bits I stress often and regularly is that one must learn to attack the person and not the weapon. Too often, when people do paired work, there is a kind of "agreement" between the two people to make their weapons meet in some vague space between them. Instead, what I stress is that people actually work to strike-down the other person, forcing them to use their skills in such a manner as to not be struck. The resulting dynamic tends to be very different than what one gets from simply banging swords MOK GOM together. FWIW.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[gator9999]

I got yelled at for this yesterday. we were doing hyung and our instructor made us stop blocking to check our attacking accuracy, as soon as we did this my technique cleened up dramatically

[The Rose Knight]

Sparring is not tournament but practice, so I don't focus on dominating or overwhelming my opponent.

My objective is to try new things, work on things I'm weak in, and maintain those things that I am good at. Also, my objective is to provide my partner with the opportunity to do the same.

If I'm sparring with a low belt student however, I tend to try to pace it so that they can exercise techniques and practice new things. I will usually specifically work on new things with a low belt. That way, I get to benefit from practicing a new technique and my partner gets to practice without feeling like a high belt is just there to mop the floor with them.

Daniel