Sparring is practice fighting with an opponent. It dates back to the Roman era and the days of the gladiator. Sparring is used in a variety of the fighting arts. The purpose of sparring is to help train fighters and get them ready for big events where the public pays to see the fighters match skills with another opponent.
Beginnings
Around 264 B.C., Roman gladiators used sparring to train for fights in the amphitheatre. Early gladiators were slaves pitted against each other, but as the sport progressed free men volunteered for the down payment they received for taking the gladiatorial oath. The cost of maintaining fighters was high so sponsors who owned the gladiators gave them rigorous training, sparring with other gladiators, expert medical attention and fed a high-energy diet. Gladiators had their own training areas with accommodation for spectators where they sparred with other gladiators in front of an audience of other gladiators, according to Professor Kathleen Coleman in and article published in the BBC's Feb. 17, 2011, "Gladiators: Heroes of the Roman Amphitheatre."
Martial Arts
Samurai soldiers in the 10th century used sparring for training and to keep up their fighting skills. When a samurai was not engaged in fighting in a military campaign, they were sparring and training. Samurai children started sparring with wooden swords, called bokuto, against opponents at the age of 3. Other martial arts such as Karate, Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do started used sparring around 618 A.D. as form of training and practice. Modern forms of Taeswondo and Tang Soo Do use two forms of free sparring, Dojang sparring and competition sparring where the practice is a formal exhibition. Modern kickboxing uses full contact sparring where the opponent can suffer serious injury.
Modern Sparring
Modern sparring has evolved from it roots in Asian Martial arts and is used in most contact sports training programs. Boxing has used the practice of sparring with opponents since the early boxers in England. In the early days of boxing, sparring opponents sparred without protective headgear and could get struck or knocked out with a punch. Modern fighters typically wear protective gear to reduce the chances of injury. Sparring gloves have more padding than gloves used in the actual bouts. The purpose of sparring is to get ready for a scheduled fight. Many times boxers will hire sparring partners that have the same boxing style as the fighter they are scheduled to fight. Sparring is focused training and certain punches or moves may be planned for the sparring session. Sparring is used in the martial arts, boxing, cage fighting and other full contact competition sports for training and exhibition purposes.
Types of Sparring
Sparring methods vary with the sport being practiced. In the martial arts, sparring has several varieties free sparring that includes contact and non-contact, weapons sparring where the opponents practice with various types of weapons such as swords, semi-free sparring where movement is restricted and competitive sparring. Boxing uses three basic types of sparring technical where certain boxing skills are focused on for training, conditional where limits are placed on what each boxer can and cannot do in the sparring session and all out sparring, which is rare and similar to full contact martial sparring.
References
- BBC; History Gladiators: Heroes of theRoman Amphitheatre; Kathleen Coleman; Feburary 2011
- "The Code of the Warrior;" Thomas Lois and Tommy Ito; 2008
- Shelton Martial Arts: What is Tang Soo Do?
- Dojo of the Four Winds: Slow Sparring Game of Russian Martial Arts
- Nipperpatdaly; Sparring with Len Harvey (1934); Laurie Raiteri
- How to Box: Types of; October 2010
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