Intensity in Sparring, and Helping Each Other

As I've said in the past, sparring is an integral part of training. You'll never progress to your full potential in your system if you don't put your skills into application. Just as a police officer has to practice firing their gun at a target, or a musician has to practice outside of their lessons to get better and stay better, so a martial artist has to apply the skills they learn in class to fully understand how they work.

It's important that you apply the techniques you learn when sparring with contact, but it's also important to remember that you are not fighting a person on the street or in a tournament when in the practice ring. In my school we fight full contact as if we were in championship when we train, however we are encouraged to use restraint on the contact for a better quality training experience. If our most highly skilled students got put in the ring with less experienced students and went for the knockout every time a match was started the less experienced students would never learn anything and would probably become discouraged. At the same time the high ranking students would never progress farther then they have already either. I've always found that when I help a lower ranking student out in class that I end up analyzing my own technique as I teach  and learning something new in the process.

I personally think in a studio where you train in groups everyone should work to benefit the whole group. Martial arts may be something one practices to better ones self, but it can also help you help people better themselves as well, which can in turn better you further. The marital arts were traditionally passed on throughout the generations in families from father to son. Aren't we as martial artists part of a family of sorts too? Just something to think about. I always feel a kindred spirit amongst those I train with on a regular basis. Everyone in the class I regularly attend has bonded  as a team, and even though we go to train ourselves, we better each other as well. Happy training.