Five Keys To Sparring Successfully
Marc Velez - Shaolin Instructor on Sabattical and Webmaster

It's a question many of us ask ourselves from time to time as we diligently practice our forms and ponder what the forms mean: How can I further develop my fighting ability? After all, this is a marital art that I should be able to defend myself with. The answer was fairly easy, and I knew that rigorous practice and plenty of sparring would hone my skills. Which brought me to my next question: What is necessary to improve my sparring technique? For this question, I decided to go directly to the source and what Sifu Lam had to say. After some careful prodding and explaining my motives, Sifu decided to sit with me and impart some of his vast knowledge of the subject. He began explaining that there are five key elements to sparring successfully.

"Everyone can spar", Sifu said as he poured tea into his favorite cup, "but how well do depends on how well you have trained these five basic principles".

Eager to ensure that these pearls of gungfu wisdom were not forgotten, I grabbed a pen and began jotting down the important points on a piece of scratch paper.

"In Chinese we say you need to have eye sharp, hands quick, your step strong, along with 'guts' and overall strength."

If a student practices these five essential principles of sparring, there is no doubt that his/her fighting skill will improve, but improvement will also noticed in forms and everyday reflexes such as driving or working. So just what do these principal mean? Read on…

"Eyes Sharp"
The ability to detect and "read" an opponent's movements immediately gives an advantage, since reaction to those movements will start earlier and consequently have a better chance of warding off an attack. This also applies to the ability to fell an opponent's movements and react accordingly, as demonstrated in Taiji push-hand practice. There are several methods you can use in your everyday training to substantially improve your ability to detect movement.

The first method is to hang a small object(such as a ¾" washer) by string. The string can be held either by the hand at arm's length or suspended from the ceiling. As you swing the object back and force, following its movement closely with your eyes. Continued practice will strengthen your eye muscles and prevent fatigue. The result will be quicker and more accurate eyes movements.

The second method requires no equipment. Turn your head quickly and focus your eyes on a particular spot you have chosen on the wall. Strive to focus quickly on a small point rather than a large area. This technique further enhances quick and accurate eye movements.

In addition to the above exercises, always follow the movements in your forms with your eyes in the direction you are attacking or defending. Focus on strikes and the direction you are moving in.

Finally, no amount of eyes training will help if the eyes are closed, so it is necessary to condition your "flinch response" by training yourself not to blink while someone claps in front of your face or delivers a strike just short of the face or head. Careful not to make contact!

Fearlessness or "guts"
Many people have difficulty sparring since they acquire the habit of retreating in defense or after they deliver an attack. Fear leads to hesitation and improper distancing that would be to your disadvantage. Movements must always be quick, aggressive and decisive.

"Quick hands"
The importance of having "quick hands" is fairly obvious, yet often overlooked. Once you have trained quickness in eye movements and response, it is necessary to execute the technique quickly in order to block the attack or make contact with the strike. Don't be fooled by the name, however. "Quick hands" applies to other parts of the body used to attack and defend, such as the feet, elbows, and even your head.

Most students of the martial arts tend to spend a great deal of time fighting with the heavy punching bag, under the impression that the bag training will increase speed and power. However, bag training is best used for general conditioning of the body, strengthening the joints and ligaments to prevent injury from the shock of striking something heavy or immovable. According to Sifu Lam, the best ways to train for "quick hands" is to practice the forms with speed and focused power. This, of course can only be accomplished after the set has been learned well and practiced enough to eliminate any hesitation caused by trying to remember the next movements. Speed by itself won't get you very far, since the power must also be generated quickly and accurately. Different styles use different methods to generate power in strikes, but the principle remains the same: Deliver of power needs to be quick. Use speed and power together in a balanced combination to ensure effective execution of technique.

"Strong stances/Quick steps"
Alone with training to be quick with strikes and blocks, the stances and other footwork need to be trained for strength and quickness. A quick step is paramount in "closing the gap", or adjusting the distance between you and your opponent for an attack or defensive maneuver. In addition, leg takedowns, sweeps, jamming with a stance, and the like require plenty of leg strength. Train single stances for strength. A fellow practitioner of Shaolin gungfu suggested holding a particular stance, such as a horse stance or bow stance, for the duration of a commercial break during your favorite television show. Personally, I would prefer to use the commercials as a break while holding stances during the television show. Even better would be turn off the television entirely and practice outside or in some other conducive environment.

Once strength is established, practice moving "in and out", closing the gap, then retreating quickly after several attacks have been made. Once again quickness of stances and footwork is the best trained by form practice; after all, light steps and strong stances are requirement for good forms.

"Overall strength"
In order to do good forms and spar well, practitioner needs to have overall strength and endurance. This applies to both internal and external strength. Traditional strength training entails lifting weights or stone locks, or training forms using heavy weapons. Some good internal strength training would be Eight Pieces of Brocade and Iron Body Qigong, in addition to sitting meditation to practice circulation your chi using your mind.

Once overall strength is achieved, the next step is to focus that strength and power for the most powerful deliver of a strike or block. After focusing that power, then learning how to control it is the next step. Not every situation requires maximum muscular energy expenditure, and controlling the amount of energy used is the key to endurance in the ring or practicing forms. Furthermore, an excess of brute strength often causes self - injury and overextension of limbs and stances, resulting in balance that is not properly "rooted", Balance that is not rooted will not allow for proper stances and proper delivery of power… One is not possible without practicing the other.

Finally, the precepts of strength building require training for balance. A weak person who is already strong doesn't need to focus of further building strength. Rather, the strong person needs to maintain that strength and begin learning to focus, then control that strength.

Training for quality
The five principles previously described aren't just meant to be reserved for sparring practice. Once the five basics are mastered, any movement done with these five principles will continue to train all movements properly. Eventually, "rigid" forms are not absolutely necessary; as long as the five basics are present in every movement, training continues to advance the practitioner to a high level of quality gungfu. Sifu Lam summed it up best, when he said towards the end of our talk: "The forms are need to train the five basics, and the five basics are needed to properly train forms." This circular riddle will ensure that practice of any form will always be productive. I have a felling I will be meditating on that koan for a while…