This is from my book The Super Dan method of Free-Fighting and is a gift to every senior martial artist. Enjoy the read.
Appendix 1
Sparring for seniors (35 and older)…
The rest of this manual is going to be essays on various topics that will fit in with the main text but are not necessarily chapters themselves. At the tail end of this section is an interview with me. Happy reading.
I mentioned earlier in the text that I’d go over sparring for seniors. Here I go. I have had an opinion for years that “If I could do it, anybody can.” The trick is that in order to replicate what I am doing, you need to understand what it is that I am doing. The burden of that understanding is on my head. How in the heck are you supposed to know what I am thinking unless I tell you? First, I recommend you reread this book all the way through. This book is all about sparring, and not just for seniors. How to learn to spar, how to spar safely, how to develop intelligence in your sparring – it’s all there.
Second, there are a number of key points I will go over in this section that I apply to my own sparring that should make sense to you in yours.
Small stepping vs large stepping…
What is large stepping? It is the explosive lunging techniques or extended kicking techniques used in competition these days. As you get older, your muscle and tendon elasticity tends to fade. Well, mine did. There is a greater chance of injuring yourself attempting to execute these types of entries when you get older. Well, who said you had to keep doing this? Remember that Joe Lewis and Bruce Lee were young men in the best shapes of their lives when they were expounding on initial speed and explosive entry. The distance between you and your partner/opponent as not changed. Your flexibility has so change your entry with it. Using small steps may take longer for you to bridge the gap, but small steps do have an advantage. You do not rush headlong into your opponent’s counter. You can observe what your partner/opponent is doing as you come forward. And if your partner/opponent moves away as you come in? No worries. You are back at square zero and didn’t get hit. Patience. You will either get to him eventually or he will come to you.
These days, when I do footwork, I take small steps rather than rhythmic bouncing. I take short, random steps which keep me moving. I humorously call this the “dance of the cocoa-krispies”. I do this so that I can add defensive footwork to my game. One doesn’t need large steps to move a target away from an opponent. Short steps, I have found, are the key to movement and one doesn’t run the risk of injuring their tendons or ankles by getting into larger motions.
Working within physical limitations…
This one is huge for senior sparring. Back in my teens through early 30s I could do it all. I could explode offensively. I could kick and punch with either side. I could double or triple kick head height with ease. I could do it all. Then, Father Time came and visited me and physical attributes began to erode. Slowly, at first and then more rapidly as the years passed. I didn’t keep up with a strong training regimen after my competition days and that added the erosion. The head high kicks lowered to the midsection. The explosive offense slowed down. I gained weight. Oh boy. The tricks I could pull on everybody diminished. Super Dan was becoming “regular Dan”. Well, what if you weren’t Super Dan to begin with? What if you began training in karate in your 30s or 40s or older?
Earlier in this text I spoke of concentrating on what you can do and not what you can’t do any more. This was a monumental mindset shift for me. For a number of years I continued to spar using experience and tricks rather than plain, simple basics. That worked for me, but when I hit my 60s, even this wouldn’t work anymore. It was time to go back to basics.
Every individual body has a certain natural flexibility to it. Some people are flexible in their hips so that they can execute lateral kicks (round kick, side kick, hook kick) with relative ease. Others can’t. The fascinating thing is I am talking about all ages here, not just seniors. I have seen kids whose legs were tighter than guitar strings. They have to stretch to get a kick above the waist. Okay, the point here is to take an honest inventory of what you can do with relative ease and use that as your base of operations, technique wise. Mine were front kick, straight punch, back fist and palm hook. That was it. Four moves. I based all of my footwork, strategies, and so forth on those four moves. Again, I stress that I worked with what I could do and didn’t lament about what I could do no more. You’ll notice that this is accent on the positive. That is key.
Defensive options need immediate counters…
This is something I found out when I worked on re-hardwiring my karate sparring. Back in the old days I had energy to spare. I used to run through a number of sparring partners in an evening’s workout. One would get tired and I’d pick another. As I got older my cardio abilities lessened. I suppose that’s what I get for being lazy and not keeping up a training regimen. I noticed as my cardio lessened, my sparring partner would score on me more. This presented an interesting problem. Although I am no longer afraid of getting hit, I still prefer to not get hit. I found that plain, basic defend and counter was my best option. Firing back on my partner before he could gain any momentum was the key. Instant blow back. This worked with my viewpoint of remaining at cause as much as possible when sparring. Whether I was going to block first or step to make my partner miss, my operating basis became to hit him back right away. There is nothing like a counter strike to cut into someone’s offense.
Conservation of energy…
This one is a must for everyone, not just seniors. Knowing when to ramp up the speed and power is something I practiced way back in the day and is not a recent development. When I trained for tournaments I did a lot of sparring. I had a great metabolism. I would routinely run through six or seven sparring partners a night, tiring each one of them out before going on to the next one. A secret I did not tell them was that I only expended energy when I thought I could score on them. I was practicing conservation of energy before I even knew what it was! Now that I am older, I use that every time I spar. I am no the spry kid I used to be with energy to burn. Conservation of energy taught me something else – how to target my kicks and punches.
Exact targeting/technique to target…
One of the things I found in tournament competition was that people often threw techniques to non-targets. It was like “let’s throw lots of stuff out there and see what lands.” I was never like that. If a move wasn’t meant to land, it was meant to open up a target for me.
Everything had a purpose. I figured I was too small to waste techniques. If I missed I could get hit. So I developed exact targeting. A lot went into this simple concept. As I got older, it really worked for me because I didn’t have that youthful energy to expend anymore.
There is a maxim an old fighting buddy, world champion Ray McCallum, uses when he spars: “Technique to target”. Kirby Barker uses the term “Metal to magnet” to say the same thing. What this means is that he won’t throw a technique unless he means to it hit with it. He doesn’t believe in useless motions. He’s either going to hit you or he isn’t going to throw it. My variation that is I will throw a technique to open up a target but once I get the opening, I will commit. My key point here is that I neither have time nor energy to waste on playing around. I need to be more direct in my actions.
Short vs long techniques…
What I mean by this is that I do not go for long extensions of my kicks and punches these days. Back when I competed, everything was a bit more elongated. You could hit with an extended kick or punch and receive a point for your effort. These days I don’t do that. I have two reasons. First is hitting someone with an extended technique is pretty worthless unless it is an eye jab or groin kick. Nearly all techniques need to penetrate in order to do damage. The second has to do with elasticity of the muscles and tendons (or lack thereof) when you are in your 50s or thereabouts. You will not strain or pull a muscle if you do not overextend it. That’s simple. In order to not do that, your technique needs to be thrown shorter, not fully extended. Both of these points depend on you getting closer to your opponent when you fire.
Aggressive defense…
This is a concept I got from a magazine article of the first world karate championships held in Japan. Tonny Tulleners described his strategy like this: he knew that the Japanese fighters were going to be good counter punchers. He would throw his first technique knowing that it was going to be countered. His strategy was to kick and then counter the counter punch and continue firing his own punches. This strategy did him well as he won a bronze medal in the competition. My adaptation of this strategy deals with footwork. Remember my saying that not everybody has the ability to cross the gap explosively? This is the perfect alternative. Instead of trying to be faster than your opponent, you actually move forward slower. You move forward with the intention to block and counter his attack. If you have worked on your monitoring and don’t go forward in a headlong rush, you will have time to see what he throws at you. If you have your arms in position, you will be able to defend as you come forward. It is a very simple concept, but it will take some practice to become skilled at. Mentally it is a bit backwards as normally, when you move forward it is to attack. Well, in a sense you are. You are just clearing the roadblocks out of the way before you hit. That’s all.
Shadow boxing, mirror work, and bag work…
I practiced a lot of shadow boxing and mirror work back in my competition days. One of my favorite boxers, Sugar Ray Robinson, said in his autobiography that the mirror shows you where your “guns” are. The mirror doesn’t lie. If you think your hands are up, they might be. If you look in the mirror you will see if they are up or not. The mirror doesn’t lie. It will show you if you have telegraphing or tell-tale action before you strike or not. It will show you lots of things. An interesting point I make to my students is to watch themselves in the mirror closely and to memorize how their bodies feel as they execute techniques. Once they are away from the mirror, then they should replicate the feeling. In other words, if your arms feel a certain way when you keep your hands up, replicate that feeling when not looking at yourself in the mirror. I have gotten hit way too many times by thinking that I was in a certain position when I actually wasn’t. So, mirror work will tell you all sorts of things about how you are executing that your body won’t tell you until you are finely attuned to it. Are your hands up or down? Are you moving smoothly or not? Do you drop your hands when you kick? The mirror will answer nearly all of your questions for you but here’s the bad thing. The mirror is neither politically correct nor does it lie. Brace yourself for the cold hard truth and become a better fighter for it.
Conditioning…
If anyone is not an expert in this field, it is me. I had a terrific metabolism as well as a sense of when to use and conserve energy back in the day. There is one thing about conditioning that I can tell you and this is from recent experience. If you do not have the wind and energy to last you through a sparring match, you will get hit. Previously in this text I went over the concept of attention units as well as competing in a local tournament. An interesting thing happened in my first match in the 18-34 year old division. At the beginning of the match I was red hot. My focus was really there on my opponent. My Five Pillars were in. About mid-match I began to tire and something odd happened. My opponent began to catch up on the score. I didn’t figure out what really happened until sometime after the tournament. As my body began to tire, I put some attention units on the fatigue and how to handle it during the match. Well, attention units on me means less attention units on him. That was just enough to turn the tide in that match. The moral of the story is the better conditioned you are, the less attention you will have on your body during sparring and the more attention you will be able to put on your opponent.
Goals…
What are your goals when you free-fight? For example are your goals to win, train cardio, have fun, develop technique, overcome fears, etc.? Knowing why you are doing it will help you attain that goal. It really doesn’t matter what your goal is as it is personal to you. It is your goal so it is a valid one. Even if your goal is to go out and have fun while sparring, that’s good. I’ve found that I get stale very quickly if I don’t have a goal of some sort. I’m not a “push the body for pleasure” sort of guy. I need a reason to push the body these days. Whether it is to win a competition, work on a move, work out a theory to see if it is valid or not – whatever. I need a reason. I find most people do as well. So, what is your reason for free-sparring or free-fighting? Do you have one or are you running on automatic? If you are finding sparring to be a chore or you are not progressing, a goal is very key to snapping out of a slump.. Okay, a bit long-winded but I hope this helps. I’ve always had the view that age should not keep oneself from being able to continue free-fighting if you want to. When I tested for 9th dan, I wanted to prove that exact point. As an upper dan rank I had the option of performing in two of the four categories of the test. I opted to perform the entire test. Why? To prove to one and all that at age 60, one could roll with the younger players. Five years later I did the same thing by entering a tournament. The key point I want to make is that age should not stop you. I hope this manual and this last section in it will aid you in continuing you on your journey.
Yours,
Prof. Dan Anderson