Sparring Class

For Tuesday night’s sparring class, we ran through five different fighting styles:

Tournament, Kick Boxing, Thai Boxing, Sanshou and MMA.  Each style presents different targets and different objectives.  For the preservation of our good looks, we kept the whole evening between slow and medium speed with light contact.  Keep in mind the descriptions I’ve given below are our versions of each style – not necessarily the definitive rules for that style.

In tournament, the object is to be the first one to score a point.  Targets are the head, body and groin.  Hands and feet are the only legal striking surfaces.

For kick boxing, head, body and legs are targets.  There are no strikes to the groin and no strikes to the knees or ankles.  The objective is to knock out your opponent or win by points.  Again, only hands and feet are allowed as striking surfaces

For Thai boxing, the targets and objective are the same as kick boxing but elbows and knees are allowed.  Plus if the fighters clinch, they’re allowed to throw from one another.

With Sanshao the targets, strikes and objective are the same as kick boxing.  The big difference is that throwing is allowed, both from inside and outside the clinch.

Finally, for MMA (we used amateur rules) – the strikes, targets and objective are the same as kickboxing.  Plus, you get to add knees to the list of legal strikes (as long as the fight is off the ground).  In addition, throws from both inside and outside the clinch are allowed.  As a final piece of fun, unlike Thai Boxing and Sanshao which break up the fight when it goes to the ground, in MMA the fight can continue and end in either a knockout or a submission.