Temple Sparring
Just so that everyone knows I am not slamming Temple Kung Fu. I enjoyed the classes and especially liked the people. I have sparred with Piercy, Weber, and Sparrow. They were pretty good for the type of sparring that they do. But, having trained at a number of different schools it is apparent to me that those three Masters are only mediocre at best. I have personally seen Sparrow get beat at his own game by someone who only had 4 years of training. When Sparrow tried to turn it on he was simply shut down over and over. The sparring is so unrealistic that I do not think that it prepares people adequately. Also can someone please explain the pads that are worn when there is barely any contact? Comments?

Hello Temple Brotherhood, Now I cannot speak to the pads because they weren’t there when I was. But about “Mr. Sparrow getting beat at his own game”, that I can speak to. My teachers were just all kinds of nasty. When Wayne taught in Calgary, they had rule. “Lose a match and lose your job.” But when I first taught in Surrey, he had changed that rule. He and those of us under him came to realize a basic truth. “Sometimes you’re on and sometimes you’re not.” When I was at Mr. V’s yellow belt test, I wasn’t on. And in the sparring segment, he bloodied my nose. He literally knocked me down in front of my assembled students (all of them). I felt very foolish lying there in my own blood with everyone watching. But Wayne simply commented,” Don’t get up until you are recovered”. Mr. V would later go for his green belt. On that occasion he stomped Freddy into the floor. This was followed by a visit to the hospital for a bruised spleen. Freddy was/is Sifu Fred Whiting of Pak sing Choy Lay Fut and Wu Shu. Freddy was very tough and would go on to have an illustrious career. (But that wouldn’t have happened if he had quit.) “Losing a match means just that, one has lost that match (period)” It isn’t the end of the world and it should not be the end of a career. Regards, MrE2Me2

My experiences with sparring at TKF, as far as I can remember: I always, from the start, trained with a bunch of other young guys who wer gung-ho and took it pretty seriously. We regularly looked for ways to make the training feel, in our minds anyway, 'more realistic'. We sparred quite hard within the limits of what we were allowed to do. We never let it show if there was contact made, because it seemed as though the teachers were constantly making us dial it down, and if they saw even the lightest contact, it could earn you a 'trip to the office'. Sometimes it was infuriatingly 'gentle', but we were more than happy to get together outside of the studio and bang... and bang we did. Sparring usually resulted in a pretty chaotic mess of flailing and grappling (stand-up), as we had no one to coach us about contact sparring except for each other. Nevertheless, we fought hard and were unafraid to push each other. When the 'new' sparring program was introduced, sometime in the mid-to-late nineties, any vestiges of contact or aggression were unwelcome within the white walls. Students were required to ask permission in order to work with each other while practicing if there was to be any contact at all - including drills. Strangely, we were even discouraged from using the heavy bags. It seemed as though they suddenly got really paranoid about insurance or something, and at the same time trying to soften their image, if you will, and attract a more health-oriented crowd of older, wealthier professionals. This was just one of the myriad reasons I left TKF. I had enjoyed it there, and in retrospect can admit that I felt a bit of a big fish in a small pond there. I was young, flexible and athletic, and much of the technique came fairly easy to me. I was approached to teach many times - the first time I was so honored that some fellow students and I celebrated over a beer. Eventually it became awkward and annoying, as I had to explain over and over again that I had started a small business and was not willing to give it up for their 'opportunity'. Sorry I'm getting off track - my point was just that I considered myself to be a fairly confident martial artist, aknowledged as skillful by both my peers and my teachers, able to hold deep horse stances and high roundkicks, flying-spinning-this and low-hooking-that... I felt like I'd also taken my lumps, and in conjunction with a few street altercations as a youth, I could probably handle myself solidly in most situations.... ...then I joined my new MA club. At this club, students worked kickbags, focus pads, etc. from day one, and had the gloves on within weeks. I could not believe how I was dominated by these guys - often much smaller than me and some with less than a year's experience. The subtlety with which they played angles, slipping in and out of range consistantly nailing the counterstrikes... they danced around my clumsy footwork and twisted me into a pretzel as I attempted to 'maintain my ground' using 'open X' to attempt to follow them as they circled, or some such nonsense. To make a long story short, I realized right away that I had been duped. I began to train in earnest in an attempt to regain my self-image as a competent martial artist. I gradually got over this, but you can bet I have little respect for the sparring techniques taught during my tenure at TKF, nor for the sparring abilities of those who taught them, and I have no problem picturing the masters getting spanked by people who consistently contact spar and put their skills on the line, instead of being content to push around their students.

Hello DrunkenMonkey, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When you describe your training at TKF, it sounds like another style from what I trained. Quite frankly, I’m appalled at what you learned for sparring. :x Yet I can relate to it as well (I know that is a contradiction but it’s how I feel). :? When I left Edmonton and went to Vancouver, my sparring sucked! It took months to bring it up to a respectable level. Now most of that was confidence but still… I had thought I was a competent Martial Artist when I left Edmonton. I’m glad that you have found a competent school where you are learning well. I want you to know that not all the students of Mo are terrible at sparring. But then we trained much harder than you describe too. Regards, MrE2Me2

DrunkenMonkey, I agree with you that sparring has been very unrealistic the last decade or two, and didn't prepare us against opponents who have been sparring full contact since the beginning. As I posted on a number of occasions, this has changed. The level of contact has been increased, especially between the more senior members. You can now do most things which were prohibited before, such as knees, elbows, locks, breaks, sweeps, tiger's tails, takedowns, flying techniques, etc. Really, anything goes now except eye strikes, as long as control is maintained. Furthermore, only strikes that will work are now acknowledged. So, if your strike has little power because it's over-extended or jammed or at a bad angle or you're moving back at the same time, it won't count. If the target is ineffective (e.g. hip, shoulder, abs, etc.) it won't count. If you are taken down, you keep fighting until someone strikes a finishing blow. This makes sparring way more realistic than it ever was, and way more realistic than the point sparring in most tournaments. Somebody mentioned that they didn't get any use out of their pads. Well, we certainly do now. Not that they are able to prevent all the bruises, but they do help.

It sounds like you guys still do the one big killer blow and then stop sparring. An "inneffectual" hit to the abs, hips and so on may just be an opening blow to open something up. Also, continuing to spar on the ground is nothing special as every school I've been to does that. The only problem in Temple is that you now have fighters going at it on the ground who both have no idea what to do down there. Blind leading the blind.

"It sounds like you guys still do the one big killer blow and then stop sparring." Maybe I did not make myself clear. In the past, we used to stop and bow after every single strike, which was very unrealistic since many of the strikes would not be enough to stop a real attacker. Now we only bow after the engagement is really finished and there's no chance at all of the attacker continuing. Sometimes it's a single "killer blow" strike, sometimes it's a series of strikes, and sometimes it's an effective submission or hold. "The only problem in Temple is that you now have fighters going at it on the ground who both have no idea what to do down there." As for fighting on the ground, it's true that most TKF students still don't have too much experience with that. Fortunately, our instructor does. Ground fighting is currently a much larger component of training than it has been in the past, and we're taught by someone who's highly skilled at it.

So when you do multiple blows do you even touch each other? If you do is it a series of taps?

So when you do multiple blows do you even touch each other? If you do is it a series of taps? Heheheh :roll:

To all, Even such greats as Muhammed Ali are not immune to controversy The so called “phantom punch”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EotRG1D9Tk His loss to Rocky Marciano. He takes a beating but he’ll rise above it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6O_r1PkO5g Yet this man is arguably the greatest heavy weight boxer of all time. His highlight reel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZe_ciPjqmk Why bring this up? He was the subject of controversy too. Regards, MrE2Me2

"So when you do multiple blows do you even touch each other? If you do is it a series of taps?" Have you been listening at all to anything I post? Yes, we hit each other hard enough to leave multiple bruises, and hard enough to wind each other on occasion. But we stop short of causing real injury. We adjust to our opponents. If I went against a yellow belt with the same intensity that I spar a brown or black belt, I would seriously hurt him, and he would quit. The actual degree of contact also depends on the target. I can take a full-power punch to my abs from most people in my weight class. Not to my groin, though.

"Yes, we hit each other hard enough to leave multiple bruises, and hard enough to wind each other on occasion." - Vortexx Is this how you spar when you go against 3 attackers? Or maybe you go this hard against 5 attackers?

"Is this how you spar when you go against 3 attackers? Or maybe you go this hard against 5 attackers?" That's how we spar against 1 attacker. Fighting multiple attackers generally requires more intensity, so the level of contact increases a bit. I don't see where you're going with this...

Basically what's happening, Vortexx, is that the more you mention specifics about how you train, the more obvious it becomes that TKF is still doing the same tired old things for the same tired old reasons, and you're eating it up with relish. Tell us more about handling 5 committed attackers, please. I need another good laugh. Another question - while TKF's excuse for not using boxing gloves has always been 'we have enough control not to make contact, as contact is barbaric and unneccessary..." -- how does that fit in with "...we bruise each other with our multiple attacks..."??? Do you punch each other in the face with bare knuckles...? Yeesh. :shock: :roll:

"I can take a full-power punch to my abs from most people in my weight class." Would that be on the inhale, on the exhale, or while you're making the little "T" sound...?