Sport vs Survival

Each month in Blitz, experienced martial artists and instructors debate topics of interest to martial arts students and instructors. This month, we ask: In an environment where most sparring is done with a focus on sport-fighting (e.g. point-sparring in karate clubs, or grappling under BJJ or judo rules), are students able to develop sport-fighting and street-fighting mentalities and abilities simultaneously, or will sport training inevitably undermine their street effectiveness?

Stefan Fischer, ranked 5PG Master in WingTsun under Germany's Grandmaster Keith Kernspecht, has 37 years of martial arts experience, 19 in WingTsun. Fischer's Sydney school and affiliate clubs around Australia teach WT ‘anti-grappling' and defences against many common MMA techniques and tactics for the purpose of self-defence.

You get good at what you practise the most, so if your priorities are in sport fighting, you base your sparring on your style's particular rules. If you want to compete in grappling tournaments, you will focus on grappling and submissions. If you train for MMA, you will need to add striking, kicking and takedown defence to it, as well as taking into consideration the weight class, number and duration of rounds, and possibly the style of your next opponent, when planning sparring sessions.

If you train mainly for self-defence, your training routine should contain a lot of scenario training and roleplays that involve as many different locations and environments as possible, a lot of verbal aggression and de-sensitation training, sucker-punch set-ups and confrontations with armed attackers - which are all things you would hardly find in your regular sparring session.

You will also have a different set of techniques and strategies you use on the street, depending on the situation and level of threat. Punches, kicks or knees to the groin and strikes to the eyes or throat may well be necessary to successfully defend yourself against a stronger attacker. However, all these techniques must be practised a lot to become second nature, and have to be implanted in your subconscious so they are still available when under pressure or when surprised.

Overall, I believe sparring certainly prepares you for some aspects of a street fight, like getting hit, fighting back, timing, pain endurance, etc. On the other hand, it can also instil negative behavioural patterns you should try to avoid in a street confrontation - for example, taking your opponent to the ground. So, naturally, sparring will not prepare you as well for street self-defence situations as scenario training will. Likewise, focusing on scenario training when preparing for judo, MMA or karate competitions, for example, would also not prepare you adequately.

As our priority in WingTsun is self-defence, we only have a limited amount of sparring, but rather put a lot of effort into scenario training to prepare for the unique requirements of a self-defence situation.