Sparring is an amazing practise once you get used to it. One of the greatest fears is getting hurt in one of those sparring matches, but if anyone heard of the way that Sifu Fiedler had to spar when he started, it must have been completely nuts. No rules at all, unlike the things we see on TV today, that say that they have no rules and still chock full of rules. I will give one example that Sifu Fiedler gave me one day before he retired. He told me that one day a black belt from another style came up to fight, not spar, but fight in Sifu Fiedler's club where he worked eight hours a day teaching the martial arts. He says that no matter what he said he told the guy he was not going to fight, and he was not going to fall into this silly game of who is better or who is worse. Who cares told Sifu Fiedler to that guy that came up to fight, he had three strips on his belt, a third degree black belt and Sifu Fiedler was a brown belt. Right at that time McAndrews the manager of the club, came out and asked what was going on, Sifu Fiedler told McAndrews and McAndrews said he will fight as long as you sign a waiver. The paper was signed and sealed and the fight was ready to go, as soon as this third degree black belt was told to fight, he ran straight towards Sifu Fiedler screaming, he was a very big boy, kind of chubby, but had long legs and big upper body, actually the perfect size of a good fighter had he learned properly. He came running towards Sifu Fiedler, just before he got to Sifu Fiedler, Sifu Fiedler fell straight down to the ground, as this guy jumped up into the air, trying to catch Sifu Fiedler with a powerful flying spinning kick. A flying spinning kick is very powerful, but you have to hit the target or it is useless.

As this guy jumped into the air and started to spin around in the air to throw out a flying side kick, Sifu Fiedler ducked down onto the floor and shot up a straight heal kick right into the mans groin. The kick not only kicked him, he actually came down on the kick also causing even more force to hit his groin. After getting hit he started to shout and roll around on the floor saying it was no fair, not fair, you can't hit to the groin, that is not allowed. Sifu Fiedler could not believe the guy was saying this, because that is absolutely ridiculous, here he is twice the size of Sifu Fiedler, here he is twice the rank of Sifu Fiedler, and here he is crying that the fight was no fair. I do not remember anyone saying anything about any rules. We know enough, if we are going to kick someone in the groin,  never hard enough to do damage. In fact all the years that Sifu Fiedler taught, there were never any injuries to the students. And one thing I got to bring up is when Sifu Fiedler told us what GM Chow told him about this whole issue. GM Chow told Sifu Fiedler if you do not block the groin in your club because it is illegal to hit the groin in your club, you will do the same in the street, someone will kick you to the groin, and you will not be able to block it, why because you have trained yourself this way for sports.

   If you truly want to learn how to defend yourself in the streets, do not practise any type of sports, it takes away from reality.

More to come soon

Sifu Dee

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