Thoughts On Sparring

I’ve been wanting to put down some thoughts on this subject for a couple reasons, and now seems like the right time.
I had the opportunity sometime in the past couple months (so as to not point any obvious fingers) to attend a class at a school. It might have been my school, or yours, or anyone’s. Where it was isn’t the point.

During sparring, a higher belt was rolling around with complete disregard for anyone else. Most schools I’ve been to have the unspoken rule that when you bump into a higher belt during sparring, YOU move. I get that. But this was bordering on ridiculous. On a fairly crowded mat, this guy was all over the place, feet flying as he passed his opponent’s guard, heads knocking as he threw people around, etc. You get the idea. Not only that, but he was going HARD. With everyone. To the point where people were yelling out as they tapped, because he was hurting them. Lower belts. Even the same belt as him.

There was obviously a pretty high reverence for this guy in the gym – he was ridiculously talented, that was apparent. And he definitely had the skill and the control. Like I said, he was a higher belt. So why, then? I just didn’t get it, and I was really disappointed, to be honest, in his professional disregard for the welfare of anyone else on the mat.

Having been the guy that gets the accidental neighboring knee to the face, and caught many a flying foot during sparring, I have to say that a lot of that is avoidable if you display any respect at all for the other people on the mat. Not completely. I got it. But mostly.

Which brings me to my point. There have been a host of recent discussions on sparring speed. I think the most recent was a couple weeks ago with a posting that Allie put up, and it developed a lot with some of the additional comments.

There were some fiery opinions put out there, mine included, and I wanted to lay out why I think and do what I do.

Thomas commented (at bottom) very frankly, and put his thoughts out there – which I appreciate – about how at his school, part of sparring is learning at what point you should tap. I agree. He conceded that there is a responsibility on both parts to control the safety of reaching that point, but that’s he’s not afraid to pop – not injure permanently – an elbow to prove a point.

And more importantly, he’s saying that this mindset is encouraged. From that perspective, he’s saying I’m not going to learn how far I can bend that arm until it goes just a little too far.

It goes further than that, though. Apparently, there is a “tradition” of sorts at the school that newcomers receive “the welcome,” which involves getting tooled by a bunch of people on your first visit, to show you that jiu jitsu is as badass as you think it is, and you are not as badass as you think you are. From what he said, it stems from the perception that initially, his school was viewed as lesser, and so people from other schools would come over and intentionally try to tap people from there, viewing it as some sort of victory.

I am not a black belt. I am not an instructor. I do not own my own jiu jitsu school. And I have not attended classes at Thomas’ school. I can only speak from my own limited experience, which is about two years of doing this sport with some of the most professional people I have ever met.

And so, on that note, I have a series of points I’d like to make.

First, I have never experienced ANYTHING from ANY school I’ve attended that even remotely resembles “the welcome.”

Maybe that’s because I don’t go to schools to tap people. I go there to learn. I go in respectfully, and humbly, and I don’t try to prove how awesome I am to anyone. In return, I have been embraced as part of each school, because I am part of the larger jiu jitsu family.

Call me crazy. I’ve posted several times on the quality of people I’ve met, and the family atmosphere everywhere I’ve been.

I don’t know what the atmosphere in that region of the country is, but last time I checked, this wasn’t 1950s Brazil, and the jiu jitsu guys weren’t having to defend their turf against the Luta Livre guys any more.

An instructor has a responsibility to his students. Absolutely. Unequivocally. And if a visiting or new student is going rough, or deliberately embarrassing people with no training value to it, then I think the instructor should resolve the problem professionally, not by sending his goon squad after the guy. ESPECIALLY pre-emptively.

But honestly, I think it goes back to a mentality we all have about sparring.

Sparring, to me, is not about winning. That’s how I was brought up in this sport, I’m proud to say. And it was a hard lesson to learn, I’ll admit. We’re all – mostly – competitive, and sparring represents the closest approximation to a fight or a match. So you CAN get the FEEL of winning in a sparring match. I’ve mentioned before that when I started – like many of us – I was in it to win it. All the time. And I was wrong. In fact, rereading that post, I say it over and over.

But that’s not the point. Sparring is about trying your skills. Maybe you’re working one technique, or one concept, or just seeing how things go. But I can count on one hand the number of times in two years where I can say I went fully 100% in sparring, and then it was agreed on by both parties. I spar to LEARN, not to win. I want to see what you’re going to do, and come up with something that I can do in return.

I don’t need to pop your elbow to prove that I can do it. In fact, I think it shows MORE dominance if I get you all the way there, and then let you go when you don’t tap. I’m unclear as to how that benefits either one of us if I take it an inch further to get you to tap, outside of padding my ego. Thanks but no thanks. I’m confident enough.

And if you want to come over to my school and tap me and then brag about it? Go right ahead. Tap me 50 times in a minute. Good for you. I’ll tap. Happily. And take a picture with you afterward. I’ll concede the fight before we even start. Because when it comes down to it, let’s see how that goes for you at the Pans next year. Or Mundials. Or whatever tournament you choose. Maybe you win. Maybe I win. I’m not overly confident in my abilities. But until we do it in a tournament, we’ll never know, either of us. Because that’s where you’ll see everything I’ve got. Not in sparring. I’m not sparring you to “win.” I’m sparring you to learn. And if you tap me 50 times, I’ve learned a hell of a lot.

And back to the point about the higher belt in the beginning. We all aspire to those higher belts. I respect and admire those people for having the strength, perseverance, and technique to attain such a high level in this demanding sport. Once you get to a certain level, I’m not sure what you’re proving by giving a painful beatdown to a lower belt. I’m not saying don’t trounce me – absolutely kick my ass. Please. I do learn from that. But you don’t need to hurt me to prove something. Believe me, I get it. I know exactly what you’re doing when you toy with me, or give me a position that I wouldn’t have been able to get. I KNOW how good you are. That’s WHY I want to roll with you.

But when I see a guy like that hurting people, including others of the same belt… I don’t want to roll with him. And I don’t think anyone else does, either.

I’m not really sure how to end this post. Like I said, I’ve had these thoughts bouncing around my brain for awhile now, and it feels good to get them down. Obviously, there are some VERY different opinions out there, and I’m absolutely open to debate, and even to changing my mind with some good justification. All I know is what I know.

For the record, I want to say that I’m not trying to single anyone out – school OR individual. I bring up Thomas’s name appreciatively because he has the pride to attach his name to his opinions, and I thank him for that. I think this is an important debate, and I respect and applaud his input.

Comments welcome, encouraged, and appreciated.

UPDATE: Allie has since posted an absolutely brilliant explanation of the whole "welcome" business. If you made it all the way through this, you NEED to read her post.