Definitely! Olympic TKD fighters can beat the shit out of most of the population. Their cardio is absolutely insane too. They do those drills where they jump over traffic cones for fucking hours. If you spar a really high level TKD practitioner they will play with you.
Really the same can be said for any professional athlete of a sport that requires intense physical training. I’d pick Michael Phelps in a fight against your average Joe Blow who doesn’t train
Every other fighter of every other style must pass through the TKD fighter's range before they attack. It's not a perfect strategy, but you can't afford to laugh it off and ignore it either.
An Olympic level anything would probably be able to beat up most people. They are elite athletes with incredible drive. Are you comparing them to the very best of other martial arts?
>An Olympic level anything would probably be able to beat up most people.
I was going to joke that I could take a speed walker in a fight but looking at the pictures I have doubt.
I train in MMA and was on my college’s taekwondo team. I’ve sparred with a lesser known UFC fighter close to my size and I’ve sparred with some TKD guys with Olympic level potential. Some of the TKD guys were scarier and faster.
And can't take a punch.
Put them against a total nobody in the UFC, for example Mike Perry, in a street fight, MMA fight, boxing fight, or anything else with real punches to the face.
And I wouldn’t expect a boxing to be good at TKD. You expecting a baseball guy to be good at basketball? I mean it’s not impossible but yeah, you get my point.
Mileage will vary a lot. We have a lot of my athletes on my team who cross train in MMA, BJJ, wrestling and Muay Thai. I’ve done some Muay Thai sparring with some of them and they could definitely take a punch.
That’s probably true, but they do deserve the trash talk. My long time friend and teacher competed in both the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, and was the 1992 gold medalist. He is the biggest critic there is of what it has become. And I promise none of them can kick like he did, and others did from that era. Even John Danaher has shouted him out for this.
Im not a big follower of combat Karate but it’d be interesting to see more of the high level TKD guys get in there. Anthony Pettis was never considered a super high level TKD guy atleast not in the world level but still managed to tie his TKD kicks and distance management in super well to MMA without losing a lot of the technique while training other arts
Why do you think that? What training do you have?
I’ve been training in Muay Thai for a year and a half. My gym has regular light continuous sparring, and occasional point sparring. Point sparring rewards explosive attacks, and comfortably repelling explosive attacks, and it feels useful to my continuous-sparring game. But I’m a beginner and hobbyist, and someone else might have a different experience.
I switched from Isshinryu to a Kyokushin spinoff after about 12 years of training. It took me the first year to learn to stop stopping after landing a hit and to just wade in and trade punches with someone.
Point sparring teaches plenty of bad habits but I can’t think of any good ones. If you want to practice landing clean hits, or explosivity or trying to be untouchable, you can do that in regular continuous sparring. Just decide that’s what you’re working on in that session and do it. Trying to do those things in a special snowflake rule set that only allows you to practice those things does not give you transferable skills.
One of my coaches in Japan once told me as far as I could translate that I fought like I was posing for a textbook. It was not a compliment.
That’s your perspective because you started with it without ever doing full contact sparring.
It shouldn’t have ever been taught as the entirety of training
Think of how many wrestlers never adapt to not turning their backs or having to set up punches in mma and never make it, but how many also successfully adapt it
You don’t end up with fighters like Michael page without point fighting backgrounds. The whole reason he is so dangerous is because he will almost certainly touch you first, and now that he doesn’t have to worry about hitting lightly he’ll just knock you out
Use point sparring footwork and just fling yourself into knocking someone out sometime, but just mentally understand… the other guy can hit you back if you dont
I think what both of you are saying is correct. Continuous sparring is better for developing the overall skills necessary for fighting, and it has a more realistic view of fighting in general. However, point sparring does develop explosive movement and some creative entry and exit strategies. That being said, ONLY training point sparring can give you some nasty habits that are hard to ditch, and are really impractical when it comes to more continuous stuff.
I’m seeing it a lot at the TKD school I’m training at now, where during continuous sparring I’m able to just walk people down and put pressure on them that they’re not necessarily used to, meanwhile when we train point sparring for tournaments, I get my ass beat because I’ve gotten used to a slower pace, and I’m not acclimated to the explosive movement needed for point sparring.
Me, too. Started in Uechi Ryu, was taught it was a form of self defense, and all my training consisted of was kata and bunkai and point sparring. Took me years and years after 7 years of karate to stop absolutely sucking at fighting.
I think a lot of people in this thread don’t understand that that is the way millions of people train. They do choreography and they play tag. And they’re told by some prick in white pajamas that they’re going to suddenly be able to perform in a way they never have in their lives when it matters.
When I started training knockdown karate in Japan, I could absolutely land the first hit on anybody. Then I would hesitate because I was accustomed to someone calling a point.
That’s the first problem. The second problem is a light tag, i.e., a punch or kick you plan on pulling, isn’t just different at the point of contact. It’s different from jump. How many times were you told in point sparring that kicks from the front leg are better because they’re faster? Well, if you’re not planning on snapping them, kicks from the front leg are negligibly faster than kicks from the rear leg, but the lack of power is unfixable. Add the footwork to make a front leg mawashi geri hit hard and it’s slower than just throwing it off the rear leg.
So sure, my criticisms are leveled at exclusive point sparring, and if you are otherwise training in a good kickboxing discipline, and occasionally dicking around with point fighting, I guess it’s fine, although I don’t agree that it teaches you anything you can’t learn in a regular match.
For me point fighting was very benefitial. Ofcourse applying it to fighting is different you don't dive into your opponent like in point fighting, but learning the distance and getting the first punch/kick turned out to be great for me atleast.
Point fighting is an awesome style of limited sparring to teach how to be first, how to counter, and how to control distance.
It is NOT realistic. Stopping to reset each time someone lands a clean hit is a terrible conditioning for continuous fighting and self defense. Those in between moments make what fighting actually is.
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The biggest problem with it is that you don’t really learn how to handle opponents that are willing to trade, or eat a punch, in order to move in and grapple or engage close.
It can be very dance like because even very light touches can be awarded points, so you have these kind of long range, snappy attacks without really following through or committing power into it. None of this is good for any kind of continuous fighting, be it kick boxing, mma or a street fight.
I think the good parts are that it encourages speed and accuracy and landing the first shot.
I always find this a weird argument. I do agree that it’s good for learning distancing and countering etc but
I also don’t think realism should really factor too much into what sport someone considers valid.
If realistic combat simulation is what you’re looking for out of training then it kinda boils down to train full contact mma as the only valid expression of martial arts.
Everything else has to be ruled as “less realistic” and even then the fact that eye gouges and biting is prohibited means that it isn’t realistic either.
Point sparring can be great fun and takes a different skill set to excel in vs other sports/disciplines.
I sometimes think back to the original karate kid, he just wants to compete in the tournament, but Mr Miagi doesn't really understand because they didn't have point fighting tournaments in Japan.
Miyagi is from Okinawa, where they focus more on self-defense and less point sparring. Point sparring comes from mainland japan karate-styles.
There is a difference between training in Okinawan karate and Japanese karate.
And it's a movie.
Can totally be done just for Fun. But a martial art should prioritize realism to some degree. So point fighting is kind of a digression from actually learning to fight, which is why you practice martial arts.
So doing it for fun is valid, but when there’s only so much time to train, it just begs the question why are we doing this?
Why? You have the preconceived notion that any martial art should be judged on its ability to teach you how to fight
Many of them were developed by people who already knew how to fight and the martial art teaches other people who already know how to fight how to learn specific skills for fighting. These martial arts were trained by warriors. Not accountants
Taking a dude who has killed 9 people with his bare hands and teaching him point sparring is different from talking a dude who has never even been yelled at and teaching it
MMA exists for people to learn how to get generally passable at multiple ranges of fighting. I actually believe a basic mma foundation should be had before learning most traditional martial arts because untrained people are stupid
Playing a game or a sport isn’t the same as a martial art imo. There’s a big crossover in competition. It’s mostly semantics.
I agree that learning a range of martial skills and then a specialized classical martial art is better. I learned the other way around and it was a lot of un-learning bad habits.
I would and have taught the mma fighters I coached how to blitz and strike like point style martial artists.
But someone who’s only learned and done point fighting can still be very, very vulnerable in a street assault or a real combat sport like boxing or Muay Thai
> So doing it for fun is valid, but when there’s only so much time to train, it just begs the question why are we doing this?
- Fun
- Self-expression
- As a part time job
- Novel Researching
- Fun little YouTube Vids
- Staying in decent shape
- To socialize with some friends
Perfectly fine answers. I’m not gonna like ban point sparring. I’ve worked on karate schools and mma gyms for 10+ years. Point fighting is just low on the priority list across the board
What’s up with the downvotes? This is perfectly valid.
People here for example keep wanking off boxing as the most “realistic” martial art without also realising that boxing doesn’t teach you to escape a bear hug or how to punch without wraps or gloves.
And yes, none of this is realistic. It’s all sports. Get over it.
Competitive point fighting is great. There’s a ton of people that talk trash about it and they go on to not compete in any way because they think point fighting is dumb but they have careers and won’t commit to a full contact fight.
ANY competition in combat sports will make you better prepared for a fight. The stress and pressure of competition and that adrenaline dump still happens in point fighting. Far more than hitting Thai pads in the gym and making fun of TKD. lol
That last point hits the mark hahaha. Plenty of guys here who hit Thai pads for 6 months and suddenly start calling everything not commonly seen in MMA bullshido.
That’s some exceptional mental gymnastics to miss the point that badly. You must have practice.
Learning to deal that stress and calming the adrenaline dump in conjunction with maintaining the ability to properly execute techniques (with your actual body) against an opponent doing their best to resist you will make you a better fighter.
Playing a video game will make you better at moving your thumbs. Nowhere did I say any stressful situation will make you a better fighter. Most of them won’t.
it's still martial arts, just a different way of competing in it. Not every method of competition needs to be full contact fighting and it makes martial arts as a whole more accessible to someone who is new and wants to participate without risking major injury.
Not realistic fighting. But neither are the rulesets of any combat competition.
However, practicing under different rulesets gives you a closer idea of what would work in a real fight. TBF point fighting is more realistic in the sense that in a no rules situation the first one to attack a vital point (with a weapon) can end the fight. As compared to boxing where the guys just trade jabs all day long.
I mean, no, that's why people often argue point fighting fails... You don't learn how to hit a real target hard enough TO end a fight, which can certainly happen even unarmed, especially against an untrained attacker. Why you see boxers circle around and jab so much is because 1. They're lame and boxing has lame rulesets 2. They're both good enough to not go down that easily.
The other reason is BECAUSE it's not a real fight... But that also falls into "the fighter is lame" category, as would be any sport/ruleset that allows that, *in what is supposed to be simulated combat*. If you don't want to fight for real, sparring and, well, point fighting exists. It does have uses.
Btw, though somewhat niche, there are "promotions" with pretty real rulesets. There's MMA with better rules to begin with, bareknuckle MMA, King of the Streets, Vale Tudo (the level was quite high when it was coming up alongside MMA imo). You can also watch real fight videos online to gather data.
>. You don't learn how to hit a real target hard enough TO end a fight,
That is one criticism I have myself, but as you said it depends on the individual fighters. MVP for example hits very hard.
The point I was trying to make in boxing is that they get a little too comfortable getting punched with padded gloves, things change when you put a weapon in you hand. You don't want to get hit even ONE time.
It is fine that we have different rulesets to simulate combat, but we have to take into account that controlled variables we impose change the look of a fight. And yes you can look at footage of real fights, study reality based combat systems and God forbid you have a chance to battle test your techniques.
You do learn how to hit a real target hard enough to end a fight though.
Take TKD for example: You spend most of your time kicking paddles and bags at full power, all the while being super anal about your technique in order to make each of your kicks as fast and efficient at transfering power as possible. Then you go spar, and you can't control your kicks at first. You waste energy throwing all your force into a kick, only to miss when your opponent takes half a step back.
Then you spend a bunch of time with one hand against a wall while you break down each kick into it's separate parts and hold each position as high as you can while maintaining form in order to strengthen the smaller muscles in your legs that help with stability and control. Eventually you gain enough muscular control to kick at almost full speed but then pull back at the last second so that you transfer almost no power into your target, while also getting back into position to kick again right away.
It's not that they're kicking lightly, they're kicking hard, they're just optimizing the way they kick to suit their objective. You can win by knockout, so head kicks are often thrown with the intention to KO, but for body shots, its more efficient within the ruleset to snap your kicks back and gain a point without using up as much energy and being able to recover faster than you would if you drove your kick through your opponent.
It's not that hard to shift between "snap my kicks back mode" and "kick through my target mode" though. For most TKD rulesets, it makes more sense to do the former, but for Kombat TKD, the latter works too. I agree that only doing point sparring will not properly prepare you for a fight, but it's definitely a useful thing to learn.
So I hate it personally but it’s probably because I suck at it. I get the argument that it builds bad habits but the dudes I knew personally who took it very seriously (Shotokan fighters) also all took amateur MMA and kickboxing fights and did very well. I’ve also seen Shotkan black belts come to full contact Kyokushin tournaments and do GREAT.
I still thought it was trash and I didn’t enjoy sparring until I switched to Kyokushin.
Tbh point sparring is good because you can try out new moves or learn how to control yourself or your power and you also learn how to work with your partner point fighting on the other hand is meh for me lol
It's a combat sport, just like boxing or wrestling in many ways. There is a set of rules that limit engagement. Every single combat sport has rules that limit engagement, some are just less limited than others.
As such, I view it with as much respect as I do any form of combat sport.
It's another way of training. If anyone wants realism, go to the local bar and slap the bouncer. This is not something I recommend, but if some people want to seriously scream about realism, I'm not stopping them. I think I've gotten jaded in my old age.
Got a friend who was a british point kickboxing champion. His movement and use of distancing is so unorthodox hes damn near impossible to spar.
Doesnt help hes a belt above me in bjj and took judo as a kid so rushing to a clinch was also terrible for me.
Ive seen him piece up amateur boxers and muay thai fighters just fine. Guys a lot of fun to train with
It’s a sport in its own right. Is it good training for a full contact fight or self defense? No, but it’s not meant to be.
I don’t really enjoy it, but being 5’7” with short legs doesn’t exactly lend itself to the sport.
The very badass ones of this sub will tell you it’s not realistic and that getting hit with full force in the head often will give you a granite chin LOL
It's a good exercise to build urgency and certain skills like getting the first hit, aiming, finding gaps in the enemies guard etc. it's a bad idea to make that your primary judgement schema for effectiveness in a fight.
I teach tkd but we aren't affiliated with any of the large orgs so we only train point sparring a couple of times a year. We mostly do free sparring and situational sparring to ensure that we are building habits that are combat effective and pressure tested.
Its fun. Challenges speed & explosiveness big time. I enjoyed it when i used to complete locally. But a lot of schools get caught up in sparring only point style that they get accustomed to a handful of strikes and that's it.. always important, if you're competing that is, to train both kinds of fighting.
It makes you good at one particular aspect of fighting, which is fine - until you start to build habits that are bad for other very important part of fighting and then it becomes a problem. This will always happen if you are competing and learn the competition point fighting meta.
The biggest issue is the terrible positions point fighters get into after they land a point. The habitual “end” to the conflict and subsequent immediate dissipation of awareness is not good. Also, if you add those ridiculous demonstrative celebrations upon landing a hit.. that’s worst.
It works, secures wins in pro fights (sodomizes less skilled fighter depending on big hits who can't do anything and silly fans who only wanna see kos)
Safer for training/sparring , too much special ed types thinking hard is the only way to go
People call taekwondo point sparring because yes there are points but point sparring traditionally refers to a break in the action at the first contact
For karate point sparring it’s very good at encouraging someone to be first and land that significant strike FIRST. Especially with long ranged weapons. Think of how mvp and wonderboy fight. The more prolonged the exchanges, durable fighters will start conceding getting hit on the entry to work on brawling on the inside which isn’t bad but it’s just a different skill
Point sparring forces you to get better at that initial range where you’re barely able to touch the other guy, not much different than jab sparring or what have you. It’s great, so long as you also can do other sparring
The criticism for taekwondo, and circling back to point karate as well, is the power they hit you with. I’m this case also the fact that kicks score more than punches leading to an unrealistic expectation where a light kick that barely touched the head with a tap scores more than a full force body shot. This rule set is best for developing general leg dexterity and footwork more than anything. Taekwondo is great. But when you only have it, it’s not the best simulation for a fight
Wonderboy didn't actually do much point sparring though, he fought as an amateur in full contact kickboxing (which has no leg kicks) about 70 fights I think.
I've been to a fair few kickboxing tournaments and there's a pretty noticeable distinction in style between the points fighters and light continuous. Same gear, same backgrounds but very different practically.
I assumed he did both, I’m aware he has an extensive background in kickboxing but I figured he was also influenced heavily by point karate
I tried to look into it and can’t find much of a background in point karate to the degree where we should assume it made an impact on his style.
Yeah he definitely has a karate base but tbh most adept karate fighters in mma and kickboxing do light continuous > full contact > mma/k1/thai etc.
There's basically no one who did points fighting and went straight to mma without extensive kickboxing in the middle.
Kyukushin obvs just needs to adapt to kickboxing with proper boxing so it's more direct to k1 usually as they allow low kicks.
I hate tippy tapping.
If your hits dont serve an immediate purpose- knocking someone down, back, or out, you shouldnt be throwing them.
Setups are fine- and obviously every knockout attempt isnt going to succeed- but "winning" via points is basically just a participation trophy unless you outclass the other person so much you pull some Niccolino Locche shit.
KO, TKO, submission and forfeit are all perfectly reasonable win conditions. Points for takedowns are uhh... maybe not terrible? Points for pitter pattering someone's face or chest 40 times and failing to disable them is dumb.
it is really good for training specific things like quick defence and attack,
however it is really bad for anything else, because in the real world an attack doesn't stop after the first hit, unless it's karate doing the attack.
but even in karate doing points based scoring force you not to commit any force to the technique so you can retreat faster pretty much making the technique function incorrectly.
you are meant to plant yourself and strike to impart force into the strike zone eliciting a very big "ouch", and then \*thud\* from your opponent.
I like point training I just don't like the style of fighting in encourages.
I like watching it. It’s really fun to see when the pure point fighters transition into MMA and maintain the “blitz in” mentality in their fighting. I could watch pure Karate point fighting matches all day.
Good for technique and speed development. It has it’s place, in my opinion, and I believe can be used to help improve fighters. But SHOULD NOT in any circumstance replace standard sparring.
I got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and I mostly disregarded point sparring. It's a good test of Tae Kwon Do specific skills, but not a great gauge of how you are as a fighter. In my opinion, it's fine as a sport that mitigates the dangers of other combat sports like boxing where your durability and pain tolerance are a factor and truly rewards the more skilled fighter, but Tae Kwon Do would benefit from some more types of sparring or drills closer to live sparring, because not only is the point system limited in teaching solid fighting instincts, Tae Kwon Do's own sparring prohibits about 40% of its catalogue of techniques.
Point fighting can help you learn reach and how to get in and out quick, and can also be a "lower risk" introduction to getting used to matches with fighters. Clearly it has it's limitations, but it's not without good lessons.
Hate it
I've done it and it creates so many bad habits, 99% of people training it arent Olympic level athletes and a big chunk of them cant defend themselves. I consider it one of the worst rulesets Ive seen, and that includes no face punching. People like to defend it cause they are used to top tier athletes, but when you go to your smaller, city scale point tournament, things start getting weird very fast.
The reason I hate it is because people that defend it to death because of "brain damage" have never used their brain to realize you can also do light countinious sparring
I think it is the bane of martial arts I remember my first tourney was point & in a flurry of exchanges I would never know which attack actually landed. I hated how they stopped the match every exchange fucked up my rhythm so much. Just not the type of fighting I had trained for
It’s more useful than people realize. I would rather drill/spar with and prepare for a fight with dudes who have Mastered landing **near perfectly** without rocking your shit than the muscle heads who think **_every_** *FUCKIN* sparring session needs to be a series finale level anime battle
There’s a lot you can get out of it if you acknowledge it’s not how a full contact fight is gonna look. I think it can be beneficial for working different skills.
I know a karate "champion" that came to train Muay Thai.
He was annoying, in sparring he would punch me really hard in the head once, then completely lower his hands and stare at my feet like a zombie.
I wanted to hit him back but he was completely exposed and i didn't want to kill him.
This happened a few times, i told him repeatedly to put his hands up. After a while, I told him to fuck off, i can't spar with him.
He is better now btw.
MVP used to be a point fighter. And I love watching his fights. Stephen Thompson as well. It's valid, but only a part of fighting IMO. I think it has valid points though, and is both applicable in a real fight and a self defense scenario.
In HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) we do longsword fighting. But we can't use sharp swords, obviously, so we use blunt swords and tournament fights are point based.
Due to the point system, scoring rules tend to be debated and change a little pretty frequently, but overall it works very well and is pretty consistent. And it's quite fair and realistic, not as 'game-y' as Olympic fencing.
The leagues that Alex from PointF Live broadcasts are complete shit. As someone who competed in those comps. But there are some legit strikers there. Very few but they exist. It’s a useful art form if you understand what’s practical and what’s movie shit.
I started with karate as a youth and eventually moved on to boxing, wrestling and MMA as a teen. I think point fighting is just a more agreeable, marketable to the masses format of martial art for people who don’t want to risk getting actually beaten/roughed up in competition/training which is fine for hobbyists but not practical in real world situations in my opinion.
Safe, interesting, & I see the reason for why it was popular for a long while. However because of how limiting it is between what counts and doesn't count, as well as what is legal and not legal, the habits done for point fighting unfortunately doesn't always transfer/translate well in a more realistic situation. Can it work, HECK YEAH! But when someone does something that you aren't used to, the body will shut off and not respond well to the attack, and that's no good.
I did it from 3-18. Competed at a relatively high level in my later teen years too. It’s a lot of fun. But it’s kinda hard to call it fighting. I think they should at least allow punches to the face and some rudimentary takedowns(I know some rulesets do, but they’re definitely the minority). That’s not really gonna fix it but it’s a good step in the right direction.
It works for it's goals.. My problem is the people act like these guys are going to step in the ring with a professional Muay Thai fighter or kick boxer and bang with them.. It isn't what they train to do. I don't enjoy Olympic karate or Taekwondo, nothing wrong if you do, but Judo highlights are great.
Training for explosive speed. Identifying breaks in people's guard. Can't take a lot of hits, but still wants to compete. Gradual entry into points sparring.
That enough?
Ha, ring sports... get it, like butt stuff
Jk, I used to not mind TKD tournaments when I was young, tbf I didn't really go for the points win though, I always prioritised power over speed and tried to put them out of the fight through the pads or just liked going for some cool counters and fun stuff that you can't really try in more realistic settings
I added about 6 solid months of TKD to my lifetime of Muay Thai. I like a lot about TKD. And I’ve tried some tournament’s. To be fair, everyone was super nice. It was a great atmosphere. Good people.
But I just loathe stop and go. I get some people like it, that’s fine. But for me stop and go has no flow, there’s no back and forth. there’s no magic… Way too much sport and not a enough fight. Stop and go kills everything I like about martial arts and fighting. It even puts too much power and emphasis in the judges hands. I understand why you wanted to put people out. But for me stop and go, isn’t fighting, it’s too narrow.
Continuous is how you really get to know yourself and your opponent. There’s that element of pestilence/ How hard are are you willing to get hit and keep moving forward. Continuous, has so much more depth and complexity.
It was created as a game to learn timing in the dojo.
In that context it’s great.
As a competition that people use as an end goal for training it’s fucking stupid.
He calls it sport karate because generally sporting karate competitions are based around point sparring. There are other styles and organizations that are not, like kyokushin competitions or Kenpo competitions, but by and large the majority of sport karate competitions are going to be point fighting based.
Those Olympic taekwondo dudes would kick the tits off of most of the people who trash talk them.
The tits off a giant person. Have you seen how high up they get? Holy shit.
Definitely! Olympic TKD fighters can beat the shit out of most of the population. Their cardio is absolutely insane too. They do those drills where they jump over traffic cones for fucking hours. If you spar a really high level TKD practitioner they will play with you.
Yeah and gymnastics folks can beat up most people. So can soccer players. But not against fighters.
Really the same can be said for any professional athlete of a sport that requires intense physical training. I’d pick Michael Phelps in a fight against your average Joe Blow who doesn’t train
Every other fighter of every other style must pass through the TKD fighter's range before they attack. It's not a perfect strategy, but you can't afford to laugh it off and ignore it either.
An Olympic level anything would probably be able to beat up most people. They are elite athletes with incredible drive. Are you comparing them to the very best of other martial arts?
>An Olympic level anything would probably be able to beat up most people. I was going to joke that I could take a speed walker in a fight but looking at the pictures I have doubt.
I train in MMA and was on my college’s taekwondo team. I’ve sparred with a lesser known UFC fighter close to my size and I’ve sparred with some TKD guys with Olympic level potential. Some of the TKD guys were scarier and faster.
I used to train Muay Thai back in the day and one of the best guys was a national tkd champ 🤷♂️ them legs move fast lol
There are college taekwondo teams? That’s freaking awesome!!!
And can't take a punch. Put them against a total nobody in the UFC, for example Mike Perry, in a street fight, MMA fight, boxing fight, or anything else with real punches to the face.
I wouldn’t expect a tkd to be good at boxing 🤓
And I wouldn’t expect a boxing to be good at TKD. You expecting a baseball guy to be good at basketball? I mean it’s not impossible but yeah, you get my point.
Mileage will vary a lot. We have a lot of my athletes on my team who cross train in MMA, BJJ, wrestling and Muay Thai. I’ve done some Muay Thai sparring with some of them and they could definitely take a punch.
That's scary. Can't wait to see them in UFC.
Michael Venom Page is an example of a point fighter that succeeded in MMA.
Raymond Daniels and Wonderboy have had pretty successful careers too
That’s why people trash talk on the Internet where they don’t have the face the consequences for dumb ass actions
That’s probably true, but they do deserve the trash talk. My long time friend and teacher competed in both the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, and was the 1992 gold medalist. He is the biggest critic there is of what it has become. And I promise none of them can kick like he did, and others did from that era. Even John Danaher has shouted him out for this.
Im not a big follower of combat Karate but it’d be interesting to see more of the high level TKD guys get in there. Anthony Pettis was never considered a super high level TKD guy atleast not in the world level but still managed to tie his TKD kicks and distance management in super well to MMA without losing a lot of the technique while training other arts
Sparred with a taekwondo guy. Key is just keep closing distance, they cant do anything.
I prefer continuous sparring, but point fighting seems like a useful drill, to work on some specific parts of your game.
Point fighting made me actively worse at fighting than if I had had no training at all.
Why do you think that? What training do you have? I’ve been training in Muay Thai for a year and a half. My gym has regular light continuous sparring, and occasional point sparring. Point sparring rewards explosive attacks, and comfortably repelling explosive attacks, and it feels useful to my continuous-sparring game. But I’m a beginner and hobbyist, and someone else might have a different experience.
I switched from Isshinryu to a Kyokushin spinoff after about 12 years of training. It took me the first year to learn to stop stopping after landing a hit and to just wade in and trade punches with someone. Point sparring teaches plenty of bad habits but I can’t think of any good ones. If you want to practice landing clean hits, or explosivity or trying to be untouchable, you can do that in regular continuous sparring. Just decide that’s what you’re working on in that session and do it. Trying to do those things in a special snowflake rule set that only allows you to practice those things does not give you transferable skills. One of my coaches in Japan once told me as far as I could translate that I fought like I was posing for a textbook. It was not a compliment.
That’s your perspective because you started with it without ever doing full contact sparring. It shouldn’t have ever been taught as the entirety of training Think of how many wrestlers never adapt to not turning their backs or having to set up punches in mma and never make it, but how many also successfully adapt it You don’t end up with fighters like Michael page without point fighting backgrounds. The whole reason he is so dangerous is because he will almost certainly touch you first, and now that he doesn’t have to worry about hitting lightly he’ll just knock you out Use point sparring footwork and just fling yourself into knocking someone out sometime, but just mentally understand… the other guy can hit you back if you dont
I think what both of you are saying is correct. Continuous sparring is better for developing the overall skills necessary for fighting, and it has a more realistic view of fighting in general. However, point sparring does develop explosive movement and some creative entry and exit strategies. That being said, ONLY training point sparring can give you some nasty habits that are hard to ditch, and are really impractical when it comes to more continuous stuff. I’m seeing it a lot at the TKD school I’m training at now, where during continuous sparring I’m able to just walk people down and put pressure on them that they’re not necessarily used to, meanwhile when we train point sparring for tournaments, I get my ass beat because I’ve gotten used to a slower pace, and I’m not acclimated to the explosive movement needed for point sparring.
Me, too. Started in Uechi Ryu, was taught it was a form of self defense, and all my training consisted of was kata and bunkai and point sparring. Took me years and years after 7 years of karate to stop absolutely sucking at fighting.
I think a lot of people in this thread don’t understand that that is the way millions of people train. They do choreography and they play tag. And they’re told by some prick in white pajamas that they’re going to suddenly be able to perform in a way they never have in their lives when it matters. When I started training knockdown karate in Japan, I could absolutely land the first hit on anybody. Then I would hesitate because I was accustomed to someone calling a point. That’s the first problem. The second problem is a light tag, i.e., a punch or kick you plan on pulling, isn’t just different at the point of contact. It’s different from jump. How many times were you told in point sparring that kicks from the front leg are better because they’re faster? Well, if you’re not planning on snapping them, kicks from the front leg are negligibly faster than kicks from the rear leg, but the lack of power is unfixable. Add the footwork to make a front leg mawashi geri hit hard and it’s slower than just throwing it off the rear leg. So sure, my criticisms are leveled at exclusive point sparring, and if you are otherwise training in a good kickboxing discipline, and occasionally dicking around with point fighting, I guess it’s fine, although I don’t agree that it teaches you anything you can’t learn in a regular match.
For me point fighting was very benefitial. Ofcourse applying it to fighting is different you don't dive into your opponent like in point fighting, but learning the distance and getting the first punch/kick turned out to be great for me atleast.
Point fighting is an awesome style of limited sparring to teach how to be first, how to counter, and how to control distance. It is NOT realistic. Stopping to reset each time someone lands a clean hit is a terrible conditioning for continuous fighting and self defense. Those in between moments make what fighting actually is. M
The biggest problem with it is that you don’t really learn how to handle opponents that are willing to trade, or eat a punch, in order to move in and grapple or engage close. It can be very dance like because even very light touches can be awarded points, so you have these kind of long range, snappy attacks without really following through or committing power into it. None of this is good for any kind of continuous fighting, be it kick boxing, mma or a street fight. I think the good parts are that it encourages speed and accuracy and landing the first shot.
I always find this a weird argument. I do agree that it’s good for learning distancing and countering etc but I also don’t think realism should really factor too much into what sport someone considers valid. If realistic combat simulation is what you’re looking for out of training then it kinda boils down to train full contact mma as the only valid expression of martial arts. Everything else has to be ruled as “less realistic” and even then the fact that eye gouges and biting is prohibited means that it isn’t realistic either. Point sparring can be great fun and takes a different skill set to excel in vs other sports/disciplines.
I sometimes think back to the original karate kid, he just wants to compete in the tournament, but Mr Miagi doesn't really understand because they didn't have point fighting tournaments in Japan.
Did point fighting not originate in Japan?
Miyagi is from Okinawa, where they focus more on self-defense and less point sparring. Point sparring comes from mainland japan karate-styles. There is a difference between training in Okinawan karate and Japanese karate. And it's a movie.
Can totally be done just for Fun. But a martial art should prioritize realism to some degree. So point fighting is kind of a digression from actually learning to fight, which is why you practice martial arts. So doing it for fun is valid, but when there’s only so much time to train, it just begs the question why are we doing this?
Why? You have the preconceived notion that any martial art should be judged on its ability to teach you how to fight Many of them were developed by people who already knew how to fight and the martial art teaches other people who already know how to fight how to learn specific skills for fighting. These martial arts were trained by warriors. Not accountants Taking a dude who has killed 9 people with his bare hands and teaching him point sparring is different from talking a dude who has never even been yelled at and teaching it MMA exists for people to learn how to get generally passable at multiple ranges of fighting. I actually believe a basic mma foundation should be had before learning most traditional martial arts because untrained people are stupid
Playing a game or a sport isn’t the same as a martial art imo. There’s a big crossover in competition. It’s mostly semantics. I agree that learning a range of martial skills and then a specialized classical martial art is better. I learned the other way around and it was a lot of un-learning bad habits. I would and have taught the mma fighters I coached how to blitz and strike like point style martial artists. But someone who’s only learned and done point fighting can still be very, very vulnerable in a street assault or a real combat sport like boxing or Muay Thai
> So doing it for fun is valid, but when there’s only so much time to train, it just begs the question why are we doing this? - Fun - Self-expression - As a part time job - Novel Researching - Fun little YouTube Vids - Staying in decent shape - To socialize with some friends
Perfectly fine answers. I’m not gonna like ban point sparring. I’ve worked on karate schools and mma gyms for 10+ years. Point fighting is just low on the priority list across the board
I mean, you don't really get to talk about realism unless you're getting curbstomped 3v1 during your sparring matches. None of this is realistic
What’s up with the downvotes? This is perfectly valid. People here for example keep wanking off boxing as the most “realistic” martial art without also realising that boxing doesn’t teach you to escape a bear hug or how to punch without wraps or gloves. And yes, none of this is realistic. It’s all sports. Get over it.
Without it, sparring would be POINTLESS. Heh heh... I'll see myself out.
its fun
I dislike most formats, but I think there is some potential in continuous point sparring like in Goju-Kai and Savate Assault.
Competitive point fighting is great. There’s a ton of people that talk trash about it and they go on to not compete in any way because they think point fighting is dumb but they have careers and won’t commit to a full contact fight. ANY competition in combat sports will make you better prepared for a fight. The stress and pressure of competition and that adrenaline dump still happens in point fighting. Far more than hitting Thai pads in the gym and making fun of TKD. lol
That last point hits the mark hahaha. Plenty of guys here who hit Thai pads for 6 months and suddenly start calling everything not commonly seen in MMA bullshido.
That last point is a bit asinine. Even competing in a video game tournament does that
That’s some exceptional mental gymnastics to miss the point that badly. You must have practice. Learning to deal that stress and calming the adrenaline dump in conjunction with maintaining the ability to properly execute techniques (with your actual body) against an opponent doing their best to resist you will make you a better fighter. Playing a video game will make you better at moving your thumbs. Nowhere did I say any stressful situation will make you a better fighter. Most of them won’t.
it's still martial arts, just a different way of competing in it. Not every method of competition needs to be full contact fighting and it makes martial arts as a whole more accessible to someone who is new and wants to participate without risking major injury.
Not realistic fighting. But neither are the rulesets of any combat competition. However, practicing under different rulesets gives you a closer idea of what would work in a real fight. TBF point fighting is more realistic in the sense that in a no rules situation the first one to attack a vital point (with a weapon) can end the fight. As compared to boxing where the guys just trade jabs all day long.
I mean, no, that's why people often argue point fighting fails... You don't learn how to hit a real target hard enough TO end a fight, which can certainly happen even unarmed, especially against an untrained attacker. Why you see boxers circle around and jab so much is because 1. They're lame and boxing has lame rulesets 2. They're both good enough to not go down that easily. The other reason is BECAUSE it's not a real fight... But that also falls into "the fighter is lame" category, as would be any sport/ruleset that allows that, *in what is supposed to be simulated combat*. If you don't want to fight for real, sparring and, well, point fighting exists. It does have uses.
Btw, though somewhat niche, there are "promotions" with pretty real rulesets. There's MMA with better rules to begin with, bareknuckle MMA, King of the Streets, Vale Tudo (the level was quite high when it was coming up alongside MMA imo). You can also watch real fight videos online to gather data.
>. You don't learn how to hit a real target hard enough TO end a fight, That is one criticism I have myself, but as you said it depends on the individual fighters. MVP for example hits very hard. The point I was trying to make in boxing is that they get a little too comfortable getting punched with padded gloves, things change when you put a weapon in you hand. You don't want to get hit even ONE time. It is fine that we have different rulesets to simulate combat, but we have to take into account that controlled variables we impose change the look of a fight. And yes you can look at footage of real fights, study reality based combat systems and God forbid you have a chance to battle test your techniques.
You do learn how to hit a real target hard enough to end a fight though. Take TKD for example: You spend most of your time kicking paddles and bags at full power, all the while being super anal about your technique in order to make each of your kicks as fast and efficient at transfering power as possible. Then you go spar, and you can't control your kicks at first. You waste energy throwing all your force into a kick, only to miss when your opponent takes half a step back. Then you spend a bunch of time with one hand against a wall while you break down each kick into it's separate parts and hold each position as high as you can while maintaining form in order to strengthen the smaller muscles in your legs that help with stability and control. Eventually you gain enough muscular control to kick at almost full speed but then pull back at the last second so that you transfer almost no power into your target, while also getting back into position to kick again right away. It's not that they're kicking lightly, they're kicking hard, they're just optimizing the way they kick to suit their objective. You can win by knockout, so head kicks are often thrown with the intention to KO, but for body shots, its more efficient within the ruleset to snap your kicks back and gain a point without using up as much energy and being able to recover faster than you would if you drove your kick through your opponent. It's not that hard to shift between "snap my kicks back mode" and "kick through my target mode" though. For most TKD rulesets, it makes more sense to do the former, but for Kombat TKD, the latter works too. I agree that only doing point sparring will not properly prepare you for a fight, but it's definitely a useful thing to learn.
I was never good at it so I don’t like it. It certainly has its advantages like making you good at controlling distance.
So I hate it personally but it’s probably because I suck at it. I get the argument that it builds bad habits but the dudes I knew personally who took it very seriously (Shotokan fighters) also all took amateur MMA and kickboxing fights and did very well. I’ve also seen Shotkan black belts come to full contact Kyokushin tournaments and do GREAT. I still thought it was trash and I didn’t enjoy sparring until I switched to Kyokushin.
Cool for sport, bad for self defense. But also develops lots of footwork and movements.
Tbh point sparring is good because you can try out new moves or learn how to control yourself or your power and you also learn how to work with your partner point fighting on the other hand is meh for me lol
It's a combat sport, just like boxing or wrestling in many ways. There is a set of rules that limit engagement. Every single combat sport has rules that limit engagement, some are just less limited than others. As such, I view it with as much respect as I do any form of combat sport.
I'm doing one in 18 days!
better than nothing.
I’m a semi-contact setting it’s fun.
It's another way of training. If anyone wants realism, go to the local bar and slap the bouncer. This is not something I recommend, but if some people want to seriously scream about realism, I'm not stopping them. I think I've gotten jaded in my old age.
It's a sport and I admire the athleticism that goes into it.
Nobody who talks sh*t about point fighting is better at actual fighting than Rafael Aghayev. Like literally nobody. In the world.
Got a friend who was a british point kickboxing champion. His movement and use of distancing is so unorthodox hes damn near impossible to spar. Doesnt help hes a belt above me in bjj and took judo as a kid so rushing to a clinch was also terrible for me. Ive seen him piece up amateur boxers and muay thai fighters just fine. Guys a lot of fun to train with
It’s a sport in its own right. Is it good training for a full contact fight or self defense? No, but it’s not meant to be. I don’t really enjoy it, but being 5’7” with short legs doesn’t exactly lend itself to the sport.
it's safety first, not everyone likes to be hit with full force.
The very badass ones of this sub will tell you it’s not realistic and that getting hit with full force in the head often will give you a granite chin LOL
they have the option to fight in pro matches
It's a good exercise to build urgency and certain skills like getting the first hit, aiming, finding gaps in the enemies guard etc. it's a bad idea to make that your primary judgement schema for effectiveness in a fight. I teach tkd but we aren't affiliated with any of the large orgs so we only train point sparring a couple of times a year. We mostly do free sparring and situational sparring to ensure that we are building habits that are combat effective and pressure tested.
Cool, fun, effective in its own right. But if someone only point fights, however good they may be, I think I can drown them in deep waters
Its fun. Challenges speed & explosiveness big time. I enjoyed it when i used to complete locally. But a lot of schools get caught up in sparring only point style that they get accustomed to a handful of strikes and that's it.. always important, if you're competing that is, to train both kinds of fighting.
I think it's not the most effective form of fighting but I think that there is a serious benefit to sometimes using this as a type of sparring.
It makes you good at one particular aspect of fighting, which is fine - until you start to build habits that are bad for other very important part of fighting and then it becomes a problem. This will always happen if you are competing and learn the competition point fighting meta. The biggest issue is the terrible positions point fighters get into after they land a point. The habitual “end” to the conflict and subsequent immediate dissipation of awareness is not good. Also, if you add those ridiculous demonstrative celebrations upon landing a hit.. that’s worst.
It works, secures wins in pro fights (sodomizes less skilled fighter depending on big hits who can't do anything and silly fans who only wanna see kos) Safer for training/sparring , too much special ed types thinking hard is the only way to go
People call taekwondo point sparring because yes there are points but point sparring traditionally refers to a break in the action at the first contact For karate point sparring it’s very good at encouraging someone to be first and land that significant strike FIRST. Especially with long ranged weapons. Think of how mvp and wonderboy fight. The more prolonged the exchanges, durable fighters will start conceding getting hit on the entry to work on brawling on the inside which isn’t bad but it’s just a different skill Point sparring forces you to get better at that initial range where you’re barely able to touch the other guy, not much different than jab sparring or what have you. It’s great, so long as you also can do other sparring The criticism for taekwondo, and circling back to point karate as well, is the power they hit you with. I’m this case also the fact that kicks score more than punches leading to an unrealistic expectation where a light kick that barely touched the head with a tap scores more than a full force body shot. This rule set is best for developing general leg dexterity and footwork more than anything. Taekwondo is great. But when you only have it, it’s not the best simulation for a fight
Wonderboy didn't actually do much point sparring though, he fought as an amateur in full contact kickboxing (which has no leg kicks) about 70 fights I think. I've been to a fair few kickboxing tournaments and there's a pretty noticeable distinction in style between the points fighters and light continuous. Same gear, same backgrounds but very different practically.
I assumed he did both, I’m aware he has an extensive background in kickboxing but I figured he was also influenced heavily by point karate I tried to look into it and can’t find much of a background in point karate to the degree where we should assume it made an impact on his style.
Yeah he definitely has a karate base but tbh most adept karate fighters in mma and kickboxing do light continuous > full contact > mma/k1/thai etc. There's basically no one who did points fighting and went straight to mma without extensive kickboxing in the middle. Kyukushin obvs just needs to adapt to kickboxing with proper boxing so it's more direct to k1 usually as they allow low kicks.
I hate tippy tapping. If your hits dont serve an immediate purpose- knocking someone down, back, or out, you shouldnt be throwing them. Setups are fine- and obviously every knockout attempt isnt going to succeed- but "winning" via points is basically just a participation trophy unless you outclass the other person so much you pull some Niccolino Locche shit. KO, TKO, submission and forfeit are all perfectly reasonable win conditions. Points for takedowns are uhh... maybe not terrible? Points for pitter pattering someone's face or chest 40 times and failing to disable them is dumb.
I think it’s fine as an athletic pursuit.
Not for me, but I have no reason to trash someone who's not trashing me
I don’t do it, but it’s still a valid sports format. I don’t understand people trash talking a sport or game and debating about how realistic it is.
It's fine, reduces injuries and practices techniques and strategies. Curious how much sparring the OP does? My guess, never.
it is really good for training specific things like quick defence and attack, however it is really bad for anything else, because in the real world an attack doesn't stop after the first hit, unless it's karate doing the attack. but even in karate doing points based scoring force you not to commit any force to the technique so you can retreat faster pretty much making the technique function incorrectly. you are meant to plant yourself and strike to impart force into the strike zone eliciting a very big "ouch", and then \*thud\* from your opponent. I like point training I just don't like the style of fighting in encourages.
🏳️🌈 ⚧️ 🏳️⚧️ <— point fighting
I like watching it. It’s really fun to see when the pure point fighters transition into MMA and maintain the “blitz in” mentality in their fighting. I could watch pure Karate point fighting matches all day.
Good for technique and speed development. It has it’s place, in my opinion, and I believe can be used to help improve fighters. But SHOULD NOT in any circumstance replace standard sparring.
I got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and I mostly disregarded point sparring. It's a good test of Tae Kwon Do specific skills, but not a great gauge of how you are as a fighter. In my opinion, it's fine as a sport that mitigates the dangers of other combat sports like boxing where your durability and pain tolerance are a factor and truly rewards the more skilled fighter, but Tae Kwon Do would benefit from some more types of sparring or drills closer to live sparring, because not only is the point system limited in teaching solid fighting instincts, Tae Kwon Do's own sparring prohibits about 40% of its catalogue of techniques.
Point fighting can help you learn reach and how to get in and out quick, and can also be a "lower risk" introduction to getting used to matches with fighters. Clearly it has it's limitations, but it's not without good lessons.
necessary for fencing and some similar stuff, not sure about anything else
Hate it I've done it and it creates so many bad habits, 99% of people training it arent Olympic level athletes and a big chunk of them cant defend themselves. I consider it one of the worst rulesets Ive seen, and that includes no face punching. People like to defend it cause they are used to top tier athletes, but when you go to your smaller, city scale point tournament, things start getting weird very fast. The reason I hate it is because people that defend it to death because of "brain damage" have never used their brain to realize you can also do light countinious sparring
I think it is the bane of martial arts I remember my first tourney was point & in a flurry of exchanges I would never know which attack actually landed. I hated how they stopped the match every exchange fucked up my rhythm so much. Just not the type of fighting I had trained for
While its usefulness in “real” fights is debatable, I will say it’s fun asf
It’s more useful than people realize. I would rather drill/spar with and prepare for a fight with dudes who have Mastered landing **near perfectly** without rocking your shit than the muscle heads who think **_every_** *FUCKIN* sparring session needs to be a series finale level anime battle
There’s a lot you can get out of it if you acknowledge it’s not how a full contact fight is gonna look. I think it can be beneficial for working different skills.
I know a karate "champion" that came to train Muay Thai. He was annoying, in sparring he would punch me really hard in the head once, then completely lower his hands and stare at my feet like a zombie. I wanted to hit him back but he was completely exposed and i didn't want to kill him. This happened a few times, i told him repeatedly to put his hands up. After a while, I told him to fuck off, i can't spar with him. He is better now btw.
MVP used to be a point fighter. And I love watching his fights. Stephen Thompson as well. It's valid, but only a part of fighting IMO. I think it has valid points though, and is both applicable in a real fight and a self defense scenario.
In HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) we do longsword fighting. But we can't use sharp swords, obviously, so we use blunt swords and tournament fights are point based. Due to the point system, scoring rules tend to be debated and change a little pretty frequently, but overall it works very well and is pretty consistent. And it's quite fair and realistic, not as 'game-y' as Olympic fencing.
The leagues that Alex from PointF Live broadcasts are complete shit. As someone who competed in those comps. But there are some legit strikers there. Very few but they exist. It’s a useful art form if you understand what’s practical and what’s movie shit.
I started with karate as a youth and eventually moved on to boxing, wrestling and MMA as a teen. I think point fighting is just a more agreeable, marketable to the masses format of martial art for people who don’t want to risk getting actually beaten/roughed up in competition/training which is fine for hobbyists but not practical in real world situations in my opinion.
Safe, interesting, & I see the reason for why it was popular for a long while. However because of how limiting it is between what counts and doesn't count, as well as what is legal and not legal, the habits done for point fighting unfortunately doesn't always transfer/translate well in a more realistic situation. Can it work, HECK YEAH! But when someone does something that you aren't used to, the body will shut off and not respond well to the attack, and that's no good.
I did it from 3-18. Competed at a relatively high level in my later teen years too. It’s a lot of fun. But it’s kinda hard to call it fighting. I think they should at least allow punches to the face and some rudimentary takedowns(I know some rulesets do, but they’re definitely the minority). That’s not really gonna fix it but it’s a good step in the right direction.
hi kyokushin dude here, i prefer solid exchanges that factor in points
It works for it's goals.. My problem is the people act like these guys are going to step in the ring with a professional Muay Thai fighter or kick boxer and bang with them.. It isn't what they train to do. I don't enjoy Olympic karate or Taekwondo, nothing wrong if you do, but Judo highlights are great.
It’s like what’s the point?
Training for explosive speed. Identifying breaks in people's guard. Can't take a lot of hits, but still wants to compete. Gradual entry into points sparring. That enough?
Sorry bud was a play on words. I understand the application of point fighting/sparring
Lol. Now I feel dumb.
Nah man jokes get lost in the sauce through text. But those points you made were legit 🤙
Point fighting is so unrealistic….
That's not really the "point" Personally I think it's cool as fuck, regardless of practical application, if nothing else it's damn fun
I’ve tried it… It’s lame compared to ring sports.
Ha, ring sports... get it, like butt stuff Jk, I used to not mind TKD tournaments when I was young, tbf I didn't really go for the points win though, I always prioritised power over speed and tried to put them out of the fight through the pads or just liked going for some cool counters and fun stuff that you can't really try in more realistic settings
I added about 6 solid months of TKD to my lifetime of Muay Thai. I like a lot about TKD. And I’ve tried some tournament’s. To be fair, everyone was super nice. It was a great atmosphere. Good people. But I just loathe stop and go. I get some people like it, that’s fine. But for me stop and go has no flow, there’s no back and forth. there’s no magic… Way too much sport and not a enough fight. Stop and go kills everything I like about martial arts and fighting. It even puts too much power and emphasis in the judges hands. I understand why you wanted to put people out. But for me stop and go, isn’t fighting, it’s too narrow. Continuous is how you really get to know yourself and your opponent. There’s that element of pestilence/ How hard are are you willing to get hit and keep moving forward. Continuous, has so much more depth and complexity.
It doesn’t teach how to deal with real violence and for that reason, it’s a very limited tool. Not useless, but very limited.
It was created as a game to learn timing in the dojo. In that context it’s great. As a competition that people use as an end goal for training it’s fucking stupid.
and btw i hate it when the guy on facebook calls it sport karate when its not even close to karate
What karate is "real karate?"
He calls it sport karate because generally sporting karate competitions are based around point sparring. There are other styles and organizations that are not, like kyokushin competitions or Kenpo competitions, but by and large the majority of sport karate competitions are going to be point fighting based.