How to Improve Your Karate Sparring

January 19, 2022

2704

Karate Sparring

Table of Contents

There is no substitute for experience, and what experience will bring you, more than anything else in sparing, is a reflexive reaction to every situation that could exist.

Keep in mind that you need to know yourself, know your limitations, know your strong and weak sides, your best techniques, and the ones you need to work on. Be humble to accept any feedback because it will help you improve.

Punches

There are many punches and many variations of them, pick the ones you are comfortable with, work on the ones that are required for the kind of tournaments you will be in, and be responsible enough to work on them. You don’t need too many punches, just the ones that will help you achieve your target.

Kicks

In Karate we have so many kicking techniques available and not all of them are suitable for sparring. Make sure you pick those kicks will help you get ahead on your sparring, master them and work on speed, accuracy, timing, and control.

Kicks - Karate Sparring

Another piece of kicking is to be flexible enough to dominate those kicks properly. Make sure your kicks are executed the way they should, if you need to work on stretching then take the time to improve your stretching.

When working on your flexibility keep in mind you need to stretch your entire body, because when you kick your entire body adjusts to deliver that kick. Stretching your lower back, hips, legs and upper body is essential. Develop a stretching routine and be strict with yourself.

So when you’re moving around, and this is true with all our techniques, you want to be feeling the ground, driving off the ground, and keeping all your limbs available for blocking and countering, for seeing from one block or one technique to another, for the ebb and flow of attack and counterattack and defense. So practicing regularly as Alex and I are doing here, and you can see, we’re actually enjoying ourselves, you know, this is not a fight. This is really gaining reflex of the moment. That’s how I consider we can improve our sparring.