Sparring Mode

 A few weeks ago I had a one-on-one, the night before I realized that it was coming up the next morning and I had no questions prepared and nothing I could think to about or talk about. Grasping at straws I thought I would talk about my requirements and see if I could get help working on my sparring numbers to see if there was a good way I could work on it and develop my sparring skills without a partner since I feel like I haven’t made great progress with that particular requirement. I didn’t think much was going to come from asking a question like this but the more I dug into the answer I received, the more I realized how deep this rabbit hole might go! 

I’ve heard many times, need to work on fitness: do forms, need to work on timing: do forms, need to work on footwork: do forms, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the answer to my question was need to work on sparring: do forms but I never thought about how I should be doing my forms with the intent to improve my sparring specifically. 

Treating the sequence as if it’s a sparring match, changing up the tempo to make combinations and counters out of the techniques, using transitions and stances as closing and creating distance, I can honestly say I have never done a form like this! It was incredibly hard to maintain the intent and several times I found myself slipping back into the way I usually do my forms but I think I want to try to work on practicing it like this until I can do the whole form in sparring mode. 

It made me realize that before this idea no matter what I was working on in my forms I would be doing my forms the same way, if I was working on stances, flow, energy, anything that I thought was an entirely new way to do my form was actually only a different thing to think about while the ultimate intent was still to do the form “right”, or to do it to a higher level. But now the intent is to do the form with a higher degree of realism, (or at least while I’m beginning the intent is to reframe the form to be done in a sparring context). And because of this I am able to reinvent the context of each technique which was something that I REALLY struggle with, I can usually only think of one interpretation of what the technique could be used for, but now there are way more possibilities (maybe because I am thinking of the form as a base that I am using to inspire what I actually do instead of just trying to replicate a movement, it’s easier to be creative because I AM creating rather than re-creating!!) 

Another way I am breaking the form is by favouring shortening the stances rather than trying to work to elongating them. This feels like a natural way to support my sparring intent, and is also changing how my foot work and the bottom half of my skeleton is aligned which is changing how my top half skeleton is supported and therefore changes how my power is being transferred which again is changing the root of how I am doing each technique in the form in a really exciting way!

I have barely started practicing my forms like this so I’m sure I’ll write more blogs as I explore this idea further but this one was rattling around in my brain and I finally made time for myself to finish describing the initial idea.

	Current Total	Should Be At
Push-ups	19820	31937
Sit-Ups	21350	31937
Hand Form	214	591
Weapon Form	221	591
Other Forms	178	207
Sparring	375	591
AOK	442	591
Steps	1683	917
Repair Relationship	3	7
Me and White Supremacy	6	15
12 Applications	2	7
1-on-1's	19	30
Kung Fu Art	0	7
Blogs	22	30