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Many criteria should be evaluated when choosing a martial art in which to train. One such criterion is the type of contact the art uses when students spar in class and/or in competition.

Sparring involves two martial artists who face each other in friendly combat to test their fighting skills against each other under certain rules and limitations. Some martial art styles or individual schools do not use sparring as a part of their curriculum, but most do. Before a sparring match, the level of contact to be used must be clearly established and agreed upon by the participants and the level of contact must enforced by an impartial observer. If this is not done, one or both of the opponents will get angry or injured due to not being prepared for the level of contact used or because a rule was not obeyed.

Three levels of contact are used by martial art schools that use sparring as part of their curriculum:

• No-contact

• Light-contact

• Full-contact

Potential martial art students have different levels of contact that they will be comfortable using while sparring. This comfort level may change after a few months or years of training, but the initial level must be within their comfort range or they will stop training after a short time. Therefore, when choosing a martial art, one should be sure to evaluate the level of contact used by the art and the school.

The level of contact used in sparring may be classified by using the following criteria:

• The level of power used when delivering attacks. Ranges of power include:

  • Full-speed and power, with no-contact or with light contact or with full contact.

  • Reduced speed and power, with no-contact or with light contact or with full contact.

• Whether or not attacks are allowed to touch the opponent, and,

• If touching is permitted, level of force permitted when attacks touch the opponent, such as using a light force as with light-contact sparring or using a heavy force as with full-contact sparring.

LEVELS OF CONTACT

Levels of contact may be evaluated by using the following criteria:

• Risk of injury

• Level of expertise required

• Usefulness in self-defense

• Who may participate?

No-Contact

No-contact does not necessarily mean there is no physical contact; there will always be some physical contact while training in a martial art. No-contact means that, when performing hand and foot attacks, the striking surface of the weapon (body part) used is controlled so that it does not make contact with the opponent. To score in a no-contact sparring competition, the striking surface of an attack must come very close to the target without touching, be fully extended, be executed with full-power, and the form of the technique must be nearly perfect.

The physical contact in no-contact sparring may be compared to arm wrestling. There is physical contact in arm wrestling, but, while extreme effort and power is used to win, there is no intention to strike the person or cause harm to the opponent.

Risk of injury

No-contact does not mean that accidents will not happen and that contact will be inadvertently made, it just means that the intention of an attack was to make no contact. Martial arts are physical, especially the hard styles, such as Taekwondo, so there will be contact, sometimes with enough force to cause pain or minor injury, but, with no-contact sparring, the risk of injury is greatly reduced. Since no-contact, techniques are focused two or three inches short of the depth of penetration required for injury, the risk of injury is very low.

Level of expertise required

No-contact sparring techniques must be perfectly performed and precisely executed while also using maximum power. In no-contact sparring, the means is more important than the result; how the technique is executed and focused is more important than the technique hitting the target. Since attacks must be close enough to score but not make contact while exhibiting proper form and power, judging no-contact sparring is very subjective, so judges must be very experienced to score attacks fairly.

An untrained thug may participate in, and even win, a full-contact match. However, the same thug would probably not even score in a no-contact match, and would probably be quickly disqualified for excessive contact no matter how intently the thug tried to control his or her attacks.

Usefulness in self-defense

Some martial artists, especially full-contact fighters, frown upon no-contact sparring as being useless child’s play. However, no-contact sparring requires an extreme level of mental and physical control that may only be accomplished after many years of intense training.

To make contact with an attacker, a no-contact fighter only needs to decrease the fighting range a few inches; everything else stays the same. No-contact fighters train using full-contact attacks against heavy bags to train their bodies to make full-contact attacks, so they are able to deliver effective full-contact attacks. The problem with no-contact sparring, and it is a big problem, is that no-contact fighters do not train to receive full-contact attacks. Therefore, in a self-defense situation, they have not been trained to mentally or physically deal with full-power attacks delivered with the intention to injury or kill. No-contact fighters may say that they would be able to deal with full-power hits, but until they experience the affects of a full-power blow thrown in anger, they are only speculating. A no-contact fighter has a better chance of surviving a self-defense confrontation than an untrained person would, but survival is far from assured.

Who may participate? 

Practically anyone may participate in no-contact sparring. No matter your occupation, the chances are low that you will receive an injury that will interfere with you ability to do your job. No-contact fighters may participle at any age, from young children to aged adults. No-contact sparring allows students to receive all the benefit of the martial arts, with little to no risk of injury.

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