Ernest Cadorin

Sparring Strategies

Staying in Control

One might think that competitive sparring is a young person’s game, but at our tournaments, we consistently see participants in their 40s, 50s, and 60s occupying spots the winner’s circle. The more senior competitors may not necessarily be able to kick as high as their 20-year-old counterparts, but their experience gives them a keen sense of timing and a good understanding of common strategic principles.

We encounter a variety of sparring styles when we pair up with different opponents, so it’s useful to know a few basic strategies for dealing with certain situations. To that end, here are some common types of advances I have faced in the sparring ring and the countermeasures I have used to circumvent them:

1) The Juggernaut

I occasionally encounter opponents who, from the instant they hear hajime, come at me with a barrage of techniques in an attempt to keep me on the defensive. Their advance is so unrelenting that I spend most of the match in reaction mode, blocking and dodging for my life! This is often accompanied by another strategy: cornering me to reduce my mobility and turn me into a stationary target.

The trick here is to realize that such commitment to the attack can often result in overcommitment. The attacker may overextend themselves as they come at you, finding themselves momentarily unbalanced after you block their punch or over-rotated after you deflect their kick. They will inevitably need a moment to recover – and that’s the moment you counterattack. (It’s impossible for someone to attack without leaving an opening somewhere in their defences.)

This timing pattern, whereby you allow the attack to complete before you counterattack, is known as go no sen, or the “after” method.

2) The Steamroller

This type of advance is a little more discerning. Your opponent waits for just the right moment, and then charges towards you with an attacking sequence designed to bowl you over. Your instinct is to retreat backwards to buy yourself time to defend, but the attacker can run forward faster than you can retreat, and before you know it, they’re on top of you!

3) The Favourite Weapon

Most people have at least one strong go-to technique that they use a lot when sparring. It could be a reverse punch, a roundhouse kick, or even a flying backfist, but whatever it is, they are able to use this weapon to great effect. It’s something they can rely on to get the job done.

The good news from a defender’s perspective is that an attacker’s dominant technique usually has a certain handedness. For example, it’s your opponent’s left reverse punch that is exceptionally formidable, or it’s their right roundhouse kick that you need to avoid. Once you have figured that out, you can take steps to neutralize their attack (if it’s not too late!).

If I’m sparring someone with a strong left reverse punch, for instance, I’ll try to avoid it by keeping myself slightly to their right side as much as possible. When they come in with some other attack, I’ll try to deflect it towards their left so that our arms will be in the way should they attempt to follow it up with a left reverse punch. As Harry Potter would say, mischief managed.

4) The Double-Team

Two-on-one sparring can be both fun and challenging – especially if you are the single person fighting off the two attackers. The attackers will generally try to approach you from different sides and surround you, a strategy that will let them maximize their advantage as you struggle to deal with attacks coming from different directions. This is not the place you want to be!

When we work on multi-attacker exercises in the dojo, the drills usually require the defender to be surrounded by a group of attackers and to stay in the middle until he or she has fought all of them off. These drills are designed to challenge the defender by putting them in a worst-case scenario.

In free-form sparring, however, you have the freedom to move around. If you’re fast enough on your feet, you can outmaneuver your attackers and reduce their advantage. Here is where a little Euclidean geometry can help. You can always find a line that passes through any two points on a plane, so if you keep yourself on the imaginary line that passes through your two attackers (staying to the outside of them, of course), you’ll always have one attacker behind the other, and you will only have to deal with one person at a time.

One additional tip for dealing with multiple attackers: If you haven't seen one of them in a while, chances are they have gotten behind you. Be prepared to throw a back kick and reposition yourself!

The situations I’ve described are just a few of the countless scenarios that you could encounter while sparring. If there is a general rule here, it would be to recognize what your opponents are trying to do and take measures to counteract their efforts*. Don’t let them impose their will on you. Outsmart them and follow through with your own plan!

* This is yet another parallel between sparring and chess. I find it fascinating how much crossover there is between those two activities.