I happen to be a Certified Instructor in the Martial Arts;
I know what works in combat and sparring and what gets you hit (or thrown).
I also know how to train students to be able to improve their Combat-Skills.
Some people, especially teenagers, like to spar, spar, spar, but, believe it or not, just like when it comes to chess-skills, sparring all day long in of itself doesn't actually improve your combat-abilities, not in any «significant» manner nor amount, anyway; there are certain «drills» (and training methods) that need to be done in order to gain any actual significant-improvement in any practice that has any amount of similarity to chess-matches.
The fighters in competitions like the UFC always have «coaches» who guide them... ALWAYS; in fact, when interviewed, just about each and every single one of them are going to give a huge amount of credit to their coach (or coaches) for any significant-success that they may have achieved on the world-stage (or already have for that matter).
When I explain the reasons and importance of drills to students, especially against attacks that might get you hit or thrown or joint-locked, I tell them to think of it like getting hit by a car; the first time you get hit by that car, well, you got hit, because, you obviously didn't even see it coming at you, even though it was visible from at least a mile away; okay, now that you have a bit of experience getting hit by a car, the next time it is about to happen, you at least have a bit of experience knowing that something might be coming at you, but, this time, you barely even notice the car coming before you can even start trying to get out of the way, thus, you still end up getting hit by that car anyway;
Now let's «bring you back to life» again and treat this 3rd-Repetition of practicing this «drill» like a «3rd-Pass» of that car, this time, because you had already gotten hit twice before, you at least manage to see it coming before it hits you; obviously, you are still getting hit, because, you still didn't notice the car in time to be able to get out of the way; the 4th time ends up being where you certainly notice the car, before it can hit you, and, you even start getting out of the way, but, you still get hit by the car anyway; clearly, you still need to do the drill that helps you practice getting out of the way of the car, and, for the 5th pass, you now at least have enough experience to be able to start getting out of the way before it hits you, but, you are still not fast enough, therefore, you still keep on getting hit by that car.
Once we get to practicing the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, etc., repetitions in the «drills» that get you out of the way, eventually, you should get to the point where your instinctual-sensitivity allows you to be able to notice and recognise that car coming from a mile or even ten miles away, such to the point where you can just casually walk out of its path and avoid getting hit at all; one of the past-students whom I used to teach at my instructor's school back in the day was really into sparring, but, I explained the reasons for drills to him in this manner, should he actually wish to improve his skills, rather than remain at a «stagnant» skill-level, and, went ahead and did a bunch of sparring with/against him so that he could see and experience the validity of my instructions and explanations for himself;
I basically put him into an arm-bar-submission-hold something like around 21 times in a row until eventually it got to the point where all I had to do was take one step forward a certain way which caused him to immediately back off and exclaim : «Oh NO you don't ! I am NOT letting you do THAT again ! I can SEE that coming from at least TEN MILES away...!» all grinning and now cautious and stuff and apparently quite proud of himself for avoiding another submission-hold;
That being mentioned, arm-bars are not particularly recommended as a habit to be getting into as a default against opponent, especially since our style is more about setting up then tossing opponents to the ground whilst we stay on our feet, particularly since we did this particular thing at our school when, once anybody has gone to the ground in order to put their opponent into a submission-hold, the rest of us went about demonstrating exactly what happens when you go down to the ground in order to put your opponent into a submission-hold (particularly if you are on your back) when he has a bunch of buddies around to help him out (expect to receive a bunch of kicks from multiple different other people to your head, body, et-cetera).
I submit this Post/Thread as a Certified Martial Arts Instructor in one of the very FEW remaining «High-Level Martial-Arts» Styles in existence where its complexity is comparable to that of High-Ranking Chess-Matches in the more Real-Time-Sense (rather than Turn-Based) and because of my observations and sufficient years of Teaching Experience to be able to describe Skill-Improvement for «High-Complexity» Disciplines like Chess and Comprehensive Martial Arts.
Even if I am asked to do any «Remote-Viewing» for any particular Target, before I have even learned how to do anything else other than what Gestalts are, you probably shouldn't expect very particularly accurate results; I don't expect any of my students to know how to defend themselves against certain trap-striking or throwing techniques if i send them straight-away into a sparring match against an opponent like myself who knows how to trap their arms in order to be able to guarantee landing a strike upon their face or who knows how to make them react in a manner that makes it easy to execute a shuai jiao throwing technique on them; that is why we want to learn or review at LEAST ONE «Protocol» for each «Practice» Session.
Sure, you don't need to know ALL of them for practice, just like you don't need to be a Kung Fu Master with each and every single strike, punch, palm, elbow, throw, joint-lock, submission, weapon, etc., all mastered before practicing a technique, but, you should at least know what a technique even is in order to be able to practice it correctly so that you can land it on your target accurately with more consistency; how do you expect to practice punches that actually land on your target when you don't even know how to close your fist and keep your thumb tucked in properly ? If you expect to MASTER any «Discipline» though, then, you DO need to do the «Drills» that «Build-Upon» the other Techniques, just like one first masters Reading and Writing the Lettres of the Alphabet of any particular Foreign-Language, before you try to move on to Reading and Writing and Formulating whole entire Words, that eventually Build-Up into Sentences, then Paragraphs, etc.
Not many people have experienced or let alone even encountered High-Level Real-World Disciplines that are of Chess-Level (or Higher) Complexity (such as Go, believe it or not), not out-side of the contexts of these types of Board-Games, perhaps with the exception of Mathematics-Professors (particularly those who deal with statistics), but, when it comes to improving one's skill-levels, drills with that hit-by-a-car analogy in mind are amongst the most-effective of methods in order to gain any significant-improvement; and, although this is actually supposed to be a secret kept from the public, our «drilling» methods in my Kung Fu Style frequently involve repetitions of repeating the move-choreography 1000x in a row, done in a manner where, even though we start out at learning speed, eventually, the sequences of techniques should be done in a manner where we are able to execute the moves at both fighting speed and power with precision-accuracy (our drills then end up looking a LOT like the «fights» or fight-scenes that you might see in actual kung fu movies, but, with much more practicality).
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That is not the real problem with today's McDojos; the real problem with McDojos other than the fact that they are in fact McDojos is that they practice drills in a useless manner, such that, they get into the habit of blocking attacks that aren't even going to reach them or land on them anyway; why should I bother to practice blocking if my partner isn't even going to commit to the attack that stops a whole entire foot before even reaching my face anyway ?
And me sparring against students isn't going to teach them anything unless I slow it down to learning speed in order to explain things to them; otherwise it would be nothing more than a one-sided exchange; and our drills are also far more complex than what exists in most if not every other style in existence, enough that the movements do simulate actual-combat, with follow-ups all the way into the finishing moves; this is not something that any other martial arts style does...
Also, one of the past students, his name, hmm, what was his name, Josh(ua) something, one of the Highest-Ranking Black-Sash students at the school where I trained to become an instructor, did a lot of sparring, frequent sparring, and, sure, I was being beaten in sparring by everybody else all the time, for a time, but, I actually kept up my training and drills as taught and recommended by the head-instructor, and, eventually, even though I did not spend nearly as much time «sparring» (and we did FULL-CONTACT sparring by the way) as everyone else, yet, one day, when Josh eventually challenged me to some sparring, I actually ended up defeating him that day; once that happened, for whatever reason, Josh simply stopped attending classes (seemed to be because of the fact that I had «won» against him).
Everyone here should know about «DMP» (Deep-Mind-Protocols) that exist in ASRV (Advanced Scientific Remote-Viewing), and, this is something that can most-certainly be set as a target, one where I am DMP'd as to what I most-attribute my «success» to at «winning» against him (Josh) in sparring, regarding what I did to achieve the most amount of skill-improvement for my combat-abilities; this «full-contact sparring match» that we had occurred some time circa 2001CE if I remember correctly; DMP should reveal that the methods for my most-significant skill-improvement to be able to develop much-higher skill-levels than the people who spent most if not all of their time sparring didn't come from me just spending all of my time sparring all day long (although we certainly still did a lot of sparring, FULL-CONTACT at that, enough to really frighten one of the guys who visited our school who said he was about to join the marines; upon witnessing my training partner and another one of the Sifu-trainees at our school sparring against each other, his reaction went all wide-eyed, and, the dude was like : «Oh my God ! Oh my God ! You guys hit each other even much harder than I've seen even people in REAL fights who are actually very angry at each other hit each other ! Oh my God ! Oh my God !» and we never saw him again since after that day either).
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Yes, practicing and drilling the basics is the metaphorical-equivalent of being able to write down the lettres of an Alphabet in a Foreign-language, accurately, enough that it is actually legible, and, definitely builds upon higher-complexity patterns, such as words, sentences, paragraphs, etc.; one can certainly try to become fluent in a foreign-language without doing any practice-drills, but, your fluency will mostly remain stagnant, and, not even improve very much trying to do it that way.
I certainly do kung fu, one of the few remaining Authentic Traditional Kung Fu Styles, wherein its practitioners are able to actually fight with its techniques; the only other Kung Fu style at least here at the Western-Hemisphere where its practitioners seemed to actually know how to fight with their style's techniques that I have witnessed is basically Hung Gar.
The throwing techniques in my style come from Shuai Jiao; its joint-lock techniques come from Chin Na (or Qin Na), its foot-works are from Bagua, its «trapping» techniques were already preserved from the original Praying Mantis style where many people seem to either mistake it for Wing Chun(g) or recognise that it looks similar to Wing Chun(g), and, our techniques are all integrated together in a complete system, such that we don't go straight for joint-locks nor straight for throws, but, have «set-up» protocols that put our opponents into positions that we are then able to follow-up with into combination-attacks that cannot be blocked or defended against (not very easily anyway). One example-technique would be the under-the-shoulder throw, obviously, the opponent only needs to basically drop their weight down in order to turn himself into a rock that prevents you from throwing him, but, that is one of the reasons why we don't go straight for those techniques, but, instead, strike at the stomach or groin in (or other control-technique for its set-up purpose) order to make the opponent lean forward so that San Ba Bie can be executed to throw the opponent without much or any resistance (considering that where the head goes the body tends to follow).