" without sparring martial arts is just dry land swimming. To learn to swim , you have to get in the water, so to learn how to fight ,you have to spar " , paraphrasing Bruce Lee . Hmm . No Disrepect to Bruce but  if drills are merely dryland swimming then sparring is merely swimming in a bathtub. Although it is real water , u can't confuse it with the real ocean.

    Don't get me wrong, sparring is great for certain attributes like footowrk, timing, distance control, working on not telegraphing, prolong conflicts to learn to read people and their delivery system, speed , accuracy, cardio , ability to take punishment etc etc . Like alot of execises /drills, sparring IS great and awesome for many things . However, the problem , to me, arises when people represent an exercise to the public as " reality" testing. All too often you have people asking " do u spar?" and most of the time, it is ask in a tone which suggest  that if you dont spar regularly then your art is not " real". Well this makes me wanna ask , just how REAL is sparring? Does it resemble REAL world violence?

Lets look at a few REAL scenarios of REAL violence that   a REAL person may encounter sigh.....

1 Frontal confrontation - statistically, this type of violence  starts from conversational range (4 feet or less) , usually the guy that picks the fight will walk up til he's close then he'll yells , swear, postures to distract and scare his victim.Once the victim is scare , the bully /coward will kick off with a sucker punch follow by stomps to the head when the guy is down.  99.99% of the time, it will never start like a sparring match, with two guys bouncing around waiting to set up engagements. Don't believe me , go to your local bars watch a dozen fights and see if you can find even one fight that starts like a sparring match fight.What would benefit you more forthis situation- sparring lol or learing to move in and shutting people down without warning from close quarter( scenario traning)? Both are ful contact , both are against full resistance, both are chaotic but which one is more REAL       

2 Home invasion - most of the time , 2 guys will break in with weapons people usually dont come in empty handed. Chance are you will be sleeping when it happens.When was the last time that you spar with two guys armed with bats , guns, knives when you just woke up in the dark? Would sparring training help in this situation ? Maybe it would be better to get something to wake you up like a house alarm or dog and learning how to shoot a weapon under stress

3 Mugger - Here's the most common one , guy walks up close, pulls a blade and demands cash. When was the last time a guy pull a knive on you during a sparring match ? My guess is your sparring partners probably couldnt pull out a blade or a gun even if he had one since its pretty difficult to draw a weapon when you are wearing boxing gloves. Is there any mugging in history, where the mugger stands seven feet away bouncing up and down with his hands up like a sparring match? Would sparring help you with this situation? or is it better to do scenario training and learn how to stop a close quarter quick draw against resisting opponent full contact?.

4 multiple attackers - when was the last time 3 guys jump you from behind when you were in the ring? 

5 car jack - when was the last time you fight full contact and spar in your car? If you were to train like that, is it still call sparring ? or is it now scenario training ?which one is more"REAL'? Have you ever seen a car jack where the thief stands outside your car bouncing up and down jabbing at your car? Instead of sparring , wouldnt i be better to lock your doors to buy the time to draw a conceal weapon in your car?

6 domestc violence - like frontal confrontation it usually starts with an argument from 4 feet or less. Lots of yelling posturing and verbal distraction follow by relentless close range attacks.When was the last time you spar like that? In no domestic violent attacks cases reported in history, did the bastard husband  ever start his attacks on his spouse from ten feet away boucing up and down with his hands up in a boxing guard like a sparring match with gloves on before he beats his family.

Is it just me, hmm... sparring does NOT remotely resemble how real word violence STARTS and sadly, where conflict starts will usually determines how it ends.  Why not engage in full resistance, full contact,  scenario training instead of sparring?  

    You wanna spar , that's great , you wanna hit and get hit , fine, you wanna train against full resistance awesome! But why can't you modify your "sparring" so it is  under a realistic scenario ? And if you dont want to, thats fine too but why bother telling people sparring is realistic when any victim of crime in the real world will tell you  it didnt start like a sparring match.

Wait,  if Logic fails , just quote Bruce Lee..