Martial Arts, CTE, Sparring, No-Sparring
In a real fight, the only aim is to survive. Surviving by killing and not getting killed.
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But sparring is not a real fight. However, sparring is as close as it gets to a real fight. It is a mock fight, yet the thought of getting seriously injured is present. The thought of getting injured gives rise to fear, which is a stressful condition for the body. To overcome this stress, the body releases many stress hormones like corticosteroids and others, which increases the heart rate and increases the blood flow. However, in a learning context, the stress hormones help to focus attention and improve memory retention of the muscles of the body, regarding how they acted and reacted during sparring. Therefore, sparring teaches vital fighting lessons on how to handle stress, how to overcome fear, how to focus attention, and how to improve muscle memory. Thus, lessons learnt from sparring are usually never forgotten; thereby, helping in a real fight.
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Sparring as surviving
Sparring was practiced by soldiers/ warriors/ fighters, since the circumstances faced in sparring helped the soldier to face somewhat similar circumstances in a real fight, where survival was paramount. Survival, in practical terms, meant to hit without getting hit, and therefore, the more a soldier sparred, the more skillful were the hits, resulting in more chances of survival in the battlefield. Since martial arts were the arts of the soldiers of the army of a country, therefore, it made sense for them to practice sparring so that they could learn how to survive in a battlefield.
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Sparring did increase the chances of the soldiers of remaining alive in battle, but while sparring, the chances of getting injured were also increased. Thus, injury, became the main problem in sparring, with or without weapons.
The problem in sparring with weapons
Sparring mimicked the circumstances of a battlefield, and so the warriors sparred wearing full armor and with real weapons. Since the aim was to hit without getting hit, this hitting caused injuries and as the weapons were real, it caused very serious injuries, like limbs getting slashed or chopped off, and sometimes even in death. Such serious injuries left many of the sparring soldiers to become unfit as a soldier. This resulted in a loss of soldiers, who simply due to sparring and without even participating in a battle became wounded, handicapped, or dead.
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In any army, the number of soldiers is always important, as an army with a larger number of soldiers usually wins. Hence, every soldier was important, and no soldier’s life could be thrown away simply while sparring. Thus, during sparring, the minimization of injuries became critical, which prompted the replacement of metal weapons by weapons made of wood or bamboo.
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However, even wooden weapons caused considerable injuries if struck with sufficient force. Thus, the force of the strike was controlled so that only a light force may be applied in the strikes.
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Although with a light force, yet if any vital spot of the body was struck, it could cause a serious injury. Therefore, stopping and holding the strike, barely a few centimeters away from the target, was introduced in sparring.
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With the introduction of wooden weapons, controlling the force of strikes, and stopping the strikes just prior to the impact points, the aim of sparring changed slightly. Now, the aim of sparring was not to learn how to survive by injuring the sparring partner, but rather to learn how to survive by not injuring the sparring partner. These modifications in sparring ensured that no soldier’s life would be wasted in sparring and learning how to survive in a battle would also continue.
The modifications resulted in broadly three types of sparring, namely, full-contact sparring, semi-contact sparring and no-contact sparring. These three broad types of sparring included many varieties like hard sparring, all-out sparring, no-holds sparring, freestyle sparring, light sparring, soft sparring, touch-sparring, tap-sparring, good sparring, bad sparring, point sparring, and many more.
These different types of sparring were mock fights. Although a mock fight, yet sparring was still a fight. And a fight is always unpredictable. It might so happen that a soldier might face a circumstance where there were no more arrows left, or the spear got sliced off, or the blade of the sword broke. In such a case, the soldier would be forced to fight empty-handed without any weapons. Thus, it became essential for the soldier to also learn how to fight without any weapons. Due to this, sparring without weapons was also introduced.
The problem in sparring without weapons
The main problem in sparring is injury and with weapons it caused serious injury. However, to gain an advantage in fighting without weapons, the body parts were conditioned to act like weapons.
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Almost all parts of the body could be conditioned excepting the area of the head. The skull, face, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, lips, teeth, tongue, and throat, remained always unconditioned and vulnerable, irrespective of how greatly conditioned was the rest of the body. Hence, the area of the head became the primary target for striking. Since ancient times, the warriors protected this vulnerable part with helmets made of various materials. However, in battle, even the strongest helmets could be cut by an expert swordsman.
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Nowadays, in some competition sports, helmets are worn, and they do protect the head; however, the protection is only external and not internal. Since, due to the impact of the strike, the head jerks violently from one side to the next, and this sudden movement of the head might result in contusions, or mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions.
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Concussions
When the brain hits the skull then it causes a shock to the brain, which is known as a concussion. A concussion may be mild, moderate or severe, depending upon the level of shock felt by the brain.
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CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy)
A forceful strike to the head can lead to a concussion. Repeated strikes can lead to CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy). CTE is a disease of the brain that degenerates over time and is largely caused by repeated head injuries and/or accumulation of small concussions over a period of time. Even if a very forceful strike is not received on the head, yet the small impacts received due to jabbing or quickly dodging the head repeatedly from one side to the next in order to avoid strikes, also makes the brain move back and forth inside the skull, which result in very mild concussions. These mild concussions all add up and ultimately harm the brain in multiple ways including CTE.
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Avoiding concussions
To avoid concussions or repeated concussions, which may progress to CTE, all martial arts have techniques to protect the head. For example, in boxing it is common to keep the hands up to protect the face and the head.
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On the other side, knowing that the head area is always vulnerable, since it cannot be conditioned, all martial arts also have techniques to strike the head. For example, most knockouts are strikes to the head.
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Competition fights are full contact fights. Generally, it is assumed that full contact sparring can help to train for full contact competitive fights. But even in sparring, one may receive small jabs that result in small concussions; thereby, comparatively, the martial artist gets injured more in the gym while sparring and less in a competition fight. So the question arises how to train for competitive fights, without getting any injury? To answer this question, researchers turned towards the animal world. It is a fact that homo sapiens or humans are an animal species. In other words, humans are a part of the animal kingdom, or simply put, humans are animals. Due to this fact, the behavior of animals was studied, to find out how to spar without getting injured.
Sparring as playing or Playful sparring
In the animal kingdom, playing is all about learning the extremely serious behavior of hunting and not being hunted. This playing is done by sparring with no stress at all; thereby making it a pleasurable activity. A baby animal learns how to bite with teeth, how to tear flesh with nails, how to damage the cervical spine and transect the carotid artery on the side of the neck, how to keep on holding the wounded prey until the loss of blood and oxygen slowly ebbs the life out of it, how to climb, how to run, how to chase, how to hide, how to jump, and innumerable other hunting skills required to survive. All this learning happens while sparring with the mother, or with siblings, or trees, or water, and other elements of Nature. And all sparring is done in an enjoyable playful manner without injuring oneself or others. In the animal kingdom, sparring is playing.
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However, all play is done to learn how to hunt or avoid being hunted. When a kitten jabs out a paw, it may seem cute and funny, but from the perspective of the kitten, the kitten is actually sparring, where a lesson is learnt regarding how to hit a prey by jabbing with its claws. Due to this, sometimes, playful sparring can also become rough and cease to remain a play filled with fun. In animals, although they are domesticated or become pets, if their inherent wild animalistic instinct gets aroused, then their playfulness disappears and they attack everyone including their owners.
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Playful sparring in martial arts
Playful sparring, as learnt from the animal kingdom, can be successfully applied in martial arts training, provided the sparring partners understand that sparring is not a fight, and the aim of sparring is to learn and not to win. When a playful sparring session turns rough, then pampering the ego by winning assumes more importance than the importance of not hurting the sparring partner, and then it is no longer playful sparring rather it is a fight.
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Animals don’t spar as if their life depended on it. They spar in a fun way while concentrating on their fundamentals of biting, clawing, tearing, climbing, running, chasing, jumping and attacking vital points. While doing all this, they don’t injure themselves or their sparring partners. Based on this insight from the animal kingdom, many martial artists and therapists have offered their own thoughts, which include choosing the right gym, having systematized sparring for different levels of skills and the importance of hydrating the body.
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No sparring
The hunting or not being hunted skills, which animals learn during playful sparring, are acquired when they are babies and in the process of growing up. Once they grow up, they stop sparring completely and start utilising the skills that they learnt in sparring, by actually hunting or avoid being hunted in the real world.
This behaviour of the animal kingdom, if transposed on the training of martial artists, would mean that a beginner might spar as if playing and perfect the fundamentals of stances, blocking, kicking, and punching, as he progresses by attaining different levels of skills. Such playful sparring would perfect the fundamentals of both the sparring partners and also make them both remain free from injuries. Once the martial artist reaches a high level of skill, then he/she becomes an expert and has no need to undertake any sparring sessions. The expert martial artist already knows how to fight, so why take unnecessary risks of getting hit in a sparring session? This thought has given rise to what is nowadays known as “no sparring”.
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No sparring means no hard sparring
Recently, many martial artists have declared that they have stopped sparring. However, what they mean by no sparring is actually no hard sparring. Because for them sparring was always hard sparring, so for them sparring and hard sparring meant the same thing. Once a desired level of skill is achieved by a martial artist, then there is no need of any hard sparring. They do spar but concentrate on technicalities rather than smashing each other. They understand that sparring is learning, and it is not a fight.
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Conclusion
Martial arts were created and practiced by warriors/ soldiers/ fighters, who went to battle to fight for their country. For soldiers, fighting is an occupation and therefore, they study different methods of fighting with and without weapons. For them, either to kill or be killed is hard reality. But not everybody is a soldier. A very large majority of persons who train as martial artists, will never participate in a military battle as a soldier in their entire lifetime.
These martial artists are not interested in becoming soldiers, since they would rather become doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers, businesspersons, teachers, artists, computer programmers, singers, actors, and venture into innumerable other occupations of their own liking. Yet, they do practice martial arts. They practice because martial arts provides so many benefits both physically and mentally, while imbibing values from the tenets of the martial arts, which all together help them to pursue their chosen career in a respectable and a fulfilling way.
Hence, for a large majority of martial artists there is no need of knowing how a punch feels when it lands on the jaw and live the rest of their lives with a broken jaw. A doctor practicing martial arts will certainly not like to go next day to his or her clinic with a black eye, or a lawyer practicing martial arts will certainly feel terrible to argue legal cases with missing teeth punched out from a hard sparring session. And this applies to a significant majority of martial artists who are practicing martial arts in the whole world. For them there is no need of hard sparring. They can practice no-contact sparring or some light semi-contact sparring so that they can increase their confidence level, improve their overall physical health, remain totally free from injuries, be able to defend themselves, go on practicing their respective occupations, and live long healthy lives as respectable citizens of their respective countries.
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However, there may be some martial artists who may desire to become competition fighters. Competition fighters usually pay a very heavy personal price; therefore, martial artists who desire to become competition fighters, should be fully aware of why they want to become a competition fighter. Perhaps, the following film might help them in taking an informed decision.
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Decisions shape a person’s life, and any decision that a martial artist takes, should be a well-thought decision, because thoughts become decisions, decisions become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes destiny. The decision to spar full-contact/ semi-contact/ no-contact, or not to spar at all, should be taken only after the martial artist is clear on his/ her goals in life and how pursuing martial arts can help him/ her achieve those goals.
Practicing martial arts has proven to provide innumerable benefits and without any doubt, it should be pursued, but with careful avoidance of CTE or any other injury, so that all the physical and mental benefits of martial arts can be availed successfully and joyfully.
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