Sparring

The organization of sparring matches also varies; if the participants know each other well and are friendly, it may be sufficient for them to simply play, without rules, referee, or timer.

In other schools, students may be required to wait a few months, for safety reasons,[1] because they must first build the skills they would ideally employ in their sparring practice.

These may include wearing protective gear, declaring certain techniques and targets off-limits, playing slowly or at a fixed speed, forbidding certain kinds of trickery, or one of many other possibilities.

Many schools recognize this problem but value sparring nonetheless because it forces the student to improvise, to think under pressure, and to keep their emotions under control.

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Jamie Varner came to an early retirement because he had much head trauma in full contact sparring.