When we train at SGS Krav Maga, we prepare for street fighting, not sport fighting.

This means no rules, no ‘illegal moves’, no weight-classes, no tap-outs, and no referees. Everything takes practice, yet safety in training is important. How do we prepare our students to win a no-rules, no-holds-barred street fight?

We use sparring and fighting to train the mindset, stamina, and endurance any good fighter and defender needs to come out on top.

This is a regular part of our self-defence training for advanced students and beginners alike.

While the exercises vary depending on the skills of the student, the objective is the same: to become experts at defensive and offensive techniques and learn when one or the other is required.

A good offence is as important as a good defence to anyone dedicated to learning realistic, practical self-defence.

different types of sparring

Below is a list of commonly used Types of Sparring in Krav Maga Global (KMG). Each type has its own, and equally important for learning, paces, goals, mindsets. Each type is introduced to students at different levels.

Note that in only the first type of fighting (Slow fighting) impact is 100%, which sounds like a baptism by fire, but at the pace recommended for slow fighting (20-30%) the impact of the strikes should be reasonably tolerated even by a beginner.

Sparring in training

Mindset: Learning & Learning/Fighting

The overall goal of all types of sparring is to prepare students for real-life situations, and at the same time improve their physical and mental endurance.

The level of pressure/stress in the sparring session must be catered appropriately to the level of the students in the class.

For instance, if we want a more technical approach where the students can explore new techniques they just have learned, we create an environment that facilitates that type of training.

Sparring is introduced slowly and at a steady, safe pace. The safe way to gradually introduce sparring at a slow pace with minimum pressure to get the students used to the skills required for sparring. We call this slow-fighting.

In slow-fighting, both power and speed are reduced so that students get the chance to practice their footwork, attacks and defenses and overall fighting ability under minimal pressure. Yet being subject to repeated attacks in a dynamic setting puts them just outside their comfort zone, which facilitates their learning and self-control under stress.

This is done to improve their abilities to react to attacks, and to trigger their CNS to work at a marginally higher level than in a regular training session.

If the partner goes too hard and increases the pressure too much, too early in the training, it will trigger the fight-or-flight response. The consequent release of stress hormones will change the focus of the training session into a no-technique fighting session.

This in itself is not a bad thing, but at the early stages of learning sparring it will bring the learning and skill acquisition down which in turn hinders the development of the student.

You can’t win a training session

A training session with a training partner is a session with someone you (presumably) enjoy training with, and probably want to continue training with so that you can both get better and learn from one another.

To make sure that you get better after every session, you must be prepared for something Eyal told me about the first time I visited Israel in 1995: to invest in loss.

The more images feed your brain on what might happen if you do a certain thing, the more resources your brain has to access when it needs it (the process of finding them will also be faster, too, if you have acquired them before compared to responding to a new problem).

To learn how to fight, you have to invest in loss

Eyal Yanilov

Investing in loss also helps you mentally accept the fact that you might lose sometimes and to accept that feeling. This will help you understand where your weaknesses are, fix the problems and move forward as a better fighter.

Except in the case when a fight-or-flight response is triggered, the increased pressure from your partner will make the training into a competition. Again, this is not a bad thing in itself but for learning purposes it is less than ideal.

Being a good partner

Sparring, irrespective of the type, is considered a learning experience. To make sure that it is maximized, each person must strive to be a good partner as well as focusing on improving their own skill-set.

This is achieved with a simple rule: the partner with the least experience sets the pace and decides the impact for the sparring.

This way the pace of the training will be helping both partners as opposed to if the better of the two just does his/her thing and bullies the partner with less experience. The benefit of this is that the partner with more experience gets to try new things and at the same time help bring the less experienced partner to new heights by letting them experience new problems.

This helps both partners improve their decision making process.

“Learning at the edge of your ability but not beyond, where you are successful but challenged”

Gray Cook/Brett Jones, FMS