Martial Elements

From my consumer advocacy POV, I see martial arts as having 6 elements of training: Conditioning, Kata, Focused Sparring, Basic Sparring, Advanced Sparring and Fighting. Here I am going to give examples of each from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ,) Muay Thai and other martial arts.


Conditioning: are exercises considered to be critical to the martial art, but which do not have exact martial application. For example, jumping rope is almost universal in Muay Thai:

In some martial arts the standing shoulder roll is actually meant to be used to pick up weapons on the ground, or to roll out of a throw back on to your feet free back into striking or fleeing range, but BJJ isn't focused on weapons, or escaping grappling range. Yes there are BJJ techniques that use motions very similar to the standing shoulder roll, just as there are Muay Thai techniques that could be seen as similar to jump roping. Yet most BJJ classes I have seen train newbies to do a standing shoulder roll as part of the conditioning part of their class:

Before we get into kata, notice that some martial arts have mediation, stretching or dance exercises without a lot of clear martial arts moves denoted. These should be considered conditioning exercises rather than considered kata:

In Tai Chi and other traditional martial arts, horse-stance mediation is clearly in the category of conditioning, with no viable combat application to the exercise what so ever:

There is a lot of debate out there and yet to be had about what types of conditioning are the most effective, but everyone who knows what they are talking about agrees that conditioning is important for martial arts proficiency.


Kata: are exercises that explain the theory behind how the specific martial arts moves are supposed to work. They may or may not be good conditioning, but the point is to further perfect the ideal version of the technique. An example of Kata in Muay Thai is working with Thai Pads:

The "around the world" drill is common in BJJ, and is an example of Kata in BJJ:

Not all traditional martial arts dances are strictly conditioning, some are also legitimate kata:

(Before we go on to focused sparring, notice that the word "drills" could mean all sorts of things, including any of these kata exercises. One popular phrase is "drills with resistance," meaning that some how you are doing kata, but someone is making it hard for you to do that kata. The people who coined this phrase meant for kata to transition into what I call focused sparring... so a "drill" could refer to a kata practice or a focused sparring practice.)


Sparring: Sparring differs from Kata in that sparring moves past the theory and into what happens when you really attack someone. In sparring, neither side is taking turns, instead both sides are protecting themselves while also attacking.


Focused Sparring: focused sparring means to spar with a very narrow range of techniques, in order to practice and develop those very specific techniques. The best example is probably "positionals" from BJJ:

Here's an example of people training with Muay Thai technique using only kicks and no punches or elbows:

Something very important here is that sparring must focus on moves people would actually use in a fight, as demonstrated in kata. Sparring that does not resemble kata is conditioning, not sparring.

(Another phrase I often here that is similar is "technical sparring." Like "drilling with resistance," technical sparring means different things to different people, sometimes it refers to trying to spar safety, and other times it refers to what I call focused sparring, and sometimes it means other things all together.)


Free Sparring: free sparring is sparring, allowing the most of thed techniques in that martial art. Free sparring allows you to test your moves and strategy against someone who has a wide range of possibilities to stop you from succeeding. In free sparring we become fully prepared to take on someone in a fight. In BJJ this is called "rolling", and as I said before it doesn't involve much shoulder rolling:

Muay Thai is known for allowing a wide range of striking techniques, but sparring as safely as possible:

From a martial arts consumer advocacy POV, the genius of both Muay Thai and BJJ is that they: 1) have the widest possible range of techniques for what they are focusing on (grappling in the case of BJJ and striking in the case of Muay Thai,) while 2) also having the safest possible practices and culture around sparring. When it comes to the value of putting your time and money into martial arts training, it's hard to beat these two styles, largely because of their free sparring practices!


Basic Sparring: most free sparring martial arts have a safety form of free sparring that they do most often, which I call "Basic Sparring." In Muay Thai this might be "controlled contact, no elbows." In BJJ this might be "starting from the knees," free sparring without stand up take downs.

But taking an example from Kali, though they often spar using a wide range of punches and kicks, the majority of their sparring focuses on weapons only.  The stockier person in the following kali (basic) sparring video is a well known Muay Thai instructor in the Seattle Area:

In Tai Chi and some other traditional martial arts, "push hands" moves beyond conditioning and drills into the realm of sumo-like basic sparring:

Basic sparring is a safety oriented, frequently practiced type of free sparring that focuses on that martial arts most commonly used techniques.


Advanced Sparring: martial arts need to do free sparring with the full range of techniques they profess to teach, and this is what I call "Advanced Sparring." In Muay Thai if the intensity of the sparring goes beyond their normal safety oriented free sparring practice and includes elbow strikes in preparation for a professional bout, you are definitely looking at advanced sparring there. Likewise in BJJ if they are starting standing up and slapping each other around to show each other where they are vulnerable to strikes, you are seeing some advanced sparring in that art.

Following that first Kali example, he's an example of what I would call Kali advanced sparring, where they are incorporating more than weapon strikes in their sparring:

Back to Tai Chi sparring example, it is common for serious Tai Chi schools to fully apply their Tai Chi into Chinese Kickboxing (I myself learned most of the Tai Chi I know from the same person who taught me most of the kickboxing I know):

Fighting: is where we are showing ours skills against someone showing their skills, for the record. Practice time is over, and now in a fight it is time to go for it, 100%. In BJJ, this happens primarily in the form of tournaments:

In Muay Thai this happens in organized matches that where a fighter trains to fight another specific fighter usually for weeks before the two fighters have their confrontation:

There is a myth that in order to fight and train to fight that there has to be clear winners and losers, and that there must be a highly competitive spirit. An example of how this is not true is in Filipino Martial Arts there are sometimes Tipons (gatherings) where fighters show up for the express purpose of finding other fighters to duel. Once you step into the ring at a Tipon the object isn't so much to destroy your opponent as it is to survive the confrontation. This is my most physically painful Tipon fight I have had: