So I was sparring last night and I’m all sound and that but then I come up across one of the veteran’s of the gym and he just straight up stone walled me. Like he planted himself with his guard up and didn’t move. Just blocked my attacks and clouted me when I made a mistake.
Thing is. I had no idea what to do against him. Like when I’m sparring I move about a lot. Wait for the fellow to throw at me so he can miss and I can pick him off from the outside. It’s just the way I like to fight and I’m pretty good with that approach. But here I didn’t have someone chasing me or someone swinging. Just patiently staring me down. Which forced me to go on the offensive and got me completely dominated.
So my question here is how do I approach this? How would you guys work against this kind of opponent?
[QUOTE=Sovvolf;3054089]So I was sparring last night and I’m all sound and that but then I come up across one of the veteran’s of the gym and he just straight up stone walled me. Like he planted himself with his guard up and didn’t move. Just blocked my attacks and clouted me when I made a mistake.
Thing is. I had no idea what to do against him. Like when I’m sparring I move about a lot. Wait for the fellow to throw at me so he can miss and I can pick him off from the outside. It’s just the way I like to fight and I’m pretty good with that approach. But here I didn’t have someone chasing me or someone swinging. Just patiently staring me down. Which forced me to go on the offensive and got me completely dominated.
So my question here is how do I approach this? How would you guys work against this kind of opponent?[/QUOTE]
Welcome to my world. Against old-school kendo sensei, the expectation is that you keep attacking them over and over even though you fail every time. If you sit back and wait for them to come to you they are going to either give you shit about it or just end the session.
[QUOTE=Sovvolf;3054089]So I was sparring last night and I’m all sound and that but then I come up across one of the veteran’s of the gym and he just straight up stone walled me. Like he planted himself with his guard up and didn’t move. Just blocked my attacks and clouted me when I made a mistake.
Thing is. I had no idea what to do against him. Like when I’m sparring I move about a lot. Wait for the fellow to throw at me so he can miss and I can pick him off from the outside. It’s just the way I like to fight and I’m pretty good with that approach. But here I didn’t have someone chasing me or someone swinging. Just patiently staring me down. Which forced me to go on the offensive and got me completely dominated.
So my question here is how do I approach this? How would you guys work against this kind of opponent?[/QUOTE]
Cut angles.
Death by thousand cuts, as he / she squares.
Change your patterns.
Rattle him / her mentally to provoke breaking their own pattern.
Drop a dollar, ask them if they dropped it, and when they go to pick it up, hit them in the face.
[QUOTE=NeilG;3054095]Welcome to my world. Against old-school kendo sensei, the expectation is that you keep attacking them over and over even though you fail every time. If you sit back and wait for them to come to you they are going to either give you shit about it or just end the session.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that’s how any Japanese sensei in Judo I ever had was.
You better attack…
Except they would not just stop and walk away, but would kick the every loving shit out of me.
An attack about every 5-10 seconds seemed to avoid the massive Osoto Gari or Uchi Mata…
[QUOTE=BKR;3054104]
Except they would not just stop and walk away, but would kick the every loving shit out of me.[/QUOTE]
That can happen. That’s actually a better outcome. Some sensei just decide you aren’t worth teaching. So the next time you line up with them, they make you run some basic drills, then it’s sonkyo (the formal kendo bow out) and next! If they kick the shit out of you then you know they think you’re worth teaching.
[QUOTE=Sovvolf;3054089]So I was sparring last night and I’m all sound and that but then I come up across one of the veteran’s of the gym and he just straight up stone walled me. Like he planted himself with his guard up and didn’t move. Just blocked my attacks and clouted me when I made a mistake.
Thing is. I had no idea what to do against him. Like when I’m sparring I move about a lot. Wait for the fellow to throw at me so he can miss and I can pick him off from the outside. It’s just the way I like to fight and I’m pretty good with that approach. But here I didn’t have someone chasing me or someone swinging. Just patiently staring me down. Which forced me to go on the offensive and got me completely dominated.
So my question here is how do I approach this? How would you guys work against this kind of opponent?[/QUOTE]
I wonder (just because you didn’t say one way or the other) if you time your strikes in a rhythm that he had figured out. That happened to me before. Where I went against my instructor and he stonewalled me like that. While I was beating everyone else. Then he took me to the side and said, that I was doing all of my strikes in an even pattern. If you are music oriented, I was doing them on the second or fourth beat. He told me to swap it up and start doing them on the odd beat. Then mix it up better.
So I was getting comfortable in a pattern but didn’t realize it. I thought I was mixing it up, which I was but still on an even pattern. When I started to drill the odd beats, my striking got even better and I had a strategy when I got stonewalled, to be able to identify what was happening.
[QUOTE=NeilG;3054095]Welcome to my world. Against old-school kendo sensei, the expectation is that you keep attacking them over and over even though you fail every time. If you sit back and wait for them to come to you they are going to either give you shit about it or just end the session.[/QUOTE]
I think that makes your instructor a punk ass bitch.
If an opponent wanted to stand there and stare me down waiting for me to attack, I would respond with the exact same fucking tactic. We can stand there looking at each other while out of each other’s range and see who gets self-conscious first. Make that motherfucker move. Psychological warfare is part of fighting.
You don’t attack a fortified position if you don’t have to. First of all, there’s no need for it from a self defense perspective. If someone isn’t attacking you, he isn’t a threat. If someone is physically strong and capable the only way to get him out of his set position is to either have the strength to blast through his defenses or you have to be able to open him up with strong and effective feints. Otherwise, he’s going to wait for you, protect himself and counter you into next week.
If your coach takes that tactic and then gives you shit for doing the same, he’s not teaching you jack shit. He’s just pulling rank on you. He doesn’t give a shit about teaching you. He just wants to show you up. If he was trying to teach you, he wouldn’t have you repeatedly attacking a set fighter like a fucking retard.
[QUOTE=Devil;3054120]I think that makes your instructor a punk ass bitch.[/QUOTE]
Well, then you can regard pretty much every high level kendo instructor I’ve ever played, including the former head instructor at Keishicho, as punk ass bitches. But I wouldn’t recommend saying it to them.
At any rate, kendo is not about self-defence as you should well know. We learn plenty from attacking the sensei relentlessly. As your level starts to get closer to theirs, they start to play you a little bit more. You really don’t want one of those 8 dan guys taking it to you at 100% when you are less than instructor level yourself. It’s not a pleasant experience.
[QUOTE=NeilG;3054107]That can happen. That’s actually a better outcome. Some sensei just decide you aren’t worth teaching. So the next time you line up with them, they make you run some basic drills, then it’s sonkyo (the formal kendo bow out) and next! If they kick the shit out of you then you know they think you’re worth teaching.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Devil;3054166]If an instructor acts like a cunt during sparring because a student adopts the same strategy he’s employing, then he’s just a twat. He’s pulling rank to impose a limitation on his student. It’s like if a jiu jitsu coach rolled with his students and played closed guard but didn’t allow his students to. It’s fucking stupid.[/QUOTE]
Happens all the time to me, it’s actually the standard I’m used too. I can work Defense with people my own skill level or slightly above, where I have a fighting chance.
They can try whatever they want, we just don’t want them to sit back and wait. It’s bad for their development. If they try to do it with me I just hit them until they figure out it isn’t working.
[QUOTE=Devil;3054166]If an instructor acts like a cunt during sparring because a student adopts the same strategy he’s employing, then he’s just a twat. He’s pulling rank to impose a limitation on his student. It’s like if a jiu jitsu coach rolled with his students and played closed guard but didn’t allow his students to. It’s fucking stupid.[/QUOTE]