Tim,

I liked the clips of you sparring on the groundproofing dvd. Is that how sparring is generally done at shen wu? I'm talking about in terms of the protective gear you guys wear. Do you wear head gear and chest protectors or do you find them to be too confining?

When you guys go all out in sparring what kind of gear do the students wear?

We wear different amounts of gear depending on the type of sparring.

When striking is involved, we most often wear MMA gloves, and sometimes 14 oz. boxing gloves.

Full gear would be headgear, gloves, light chest protector, cup and shin pads.

Tim,

I have a question about training in general.

I have been training for a while and I find rote technique drilling off of a punch, for example, to be boring and not helpful to get me to the next level.

Do you feel that techniques should be drilled with resistance all the time at a certain level?

At the higher levels should there only free sparring/resistance training be done once alignment, body connection and weight distribution are understood?

There is a need for rote drilling when you first learn a technique, you need to do it under controlled conditions and practice until the movement and correct timing are in your muscle memory.

Once you can execute the movement correctly in a cooperative format, continuing to practice the same technique cooperatively is a waste of time. Now it's time to work the technique into live sparring against resistance.

No matter the level, repetition of movements is necessary to acquire new skills, as well as to refine skills already acquired. Training should have the proper balance between cooperative /semi-cooperative training and full, resistant sparring.

So if I have drilled a technique a thousand times what's the way to use it against resistance?

What I mean is this: Should I let my opponent do whatever he wants(punch, kick, throw) while I only try to do that technique? What other ways can techniques be drilled so that I don't get friggin bored out of my mind. Thank in advance

You can initially limit the range of techniques to the category of the technique you want to try and apply while sparring against resistance.

For example, if you have been drilling a throw, you should limit the sparring to wrestling so you have more opportunities to set up your new technique without having to deal with too many variables. If you are working on passing the guard, start in your opponent's guard.