It has been suggested that you fight the way you train.
Based on that theory, pulling punches in sparring is a bad idea.
On the other hand, if you spar long enough, with the best of intentions, and if you are also the best and best-trained karate athlete on the planet, you will hit your opponent. Eventually. Hard.
Because if you’re moving in for a punch at the same time he’s moving in for a punch, you’re shooting at a moving target. In both cases.
And it’s really, really easy to miss when you’re trying to nearly hit a moving target.
From this inaccuracy of perception, broken eye orbits, broken noses, broken jaws and teeth rolling like Chiclets across the floor are born. Not to mention the issue of unconsciousness.
There are a lot of ways to deal with the issues of fatigue, sparring, and concussion.
My vote is for headgear that’s protective enough that you can go to the office the next day, and hand protectors robust enough to protect against a healthy fist clash.
Will we all decide to go there and sing Kumbaya when we arrive?
Probably.
Here’s why: this is far from the first time that head protection in a martial art has cropped up as an issue.
In fencing schools all over Italy, folks derided the sissies who started to wear masks while practicing fencing, suggesting that a real man could, you know, control his blade.
And yes, that’s exactly what they meant.
But subsequently, fencers in schools which routinely required the wearing of masks did far better in competitions.
Why? There were two reasons.
First, the fencing-masks-mandatory fencers saw their opponents more clearly, because they still had binocular vision, and were not nicknamed “Lefty” or “Squints”.
Second, the fencing-masks-mandatory fencers spent more time with a non-compliant opponent and a rapier in their hands.
That is, they could practice more and more enthusiastically without concerns about inconveniences like bleeding, blindness and death.
Now, I’m a lawyer, so I can argue any position at all, because that’s what they teach you to do in law school. At least I think that’s what they teach in law school; it was a long time ago.
But some things just make sense.
If you can go full bore for as long as your cardiovascular system holds up, you can get used to fighting when you’re wheezing for breath like a steam engine. Like when you get popped good in the solar plexus.
If you have to be in perfect control or somebody’s gonna get hurt, you have to stop sparring early in the day so that nobody gets rolled out on a gurney.
So history is on the side of my current position, which is that Shotokan sparring would get better with a healthy dose of head protection.
Wanna watch me argue the other side of the proposition? Just for laughs? Here goes:
The argument that holds the most water against protective equipment goes like this: if somebody is used to wearing headgear, he’ll be scared and awkward when he’s actually presented with somebody who really wants to knock his head off.
The counter to the counter is simple: anybody who isn’t concerned about his safety in a real fight is dumb as a stump. A real fight isn’t a sparring exercise with referees. And a guy who’s got a hundred hours of full bore sparring time is much better prepared for real fighting then somebody who has to stop when he starts to lack perfect fist control, or else risk damage to himself and his partner if he continues.
None of this discussion matters, of course, because I’m nobody special; but ultimately, I expect that folks will decide to wear head protection for exactly the same reason that mats are universally used in judo randori.
It makes such obvious sense.
