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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 378634" data-attributes="member: 812">Ay, there's the rub. Not the Magic Rub, of course.Because the truth is that no sparring, no tournament, no competition other than the actual field (or alley) of battle will test your skills. Which is why so many martial arts turn into sports -- so that succeeding in the competition becomes the focus of the training, and there's no longer a disconnect between the goal and the practice. People develop techniques that take advantage of that disconnect and do better in the sparring, tournaments and competition. Over time these changes turn the art into a sport.To take an extreme example, football is a model for infantry warfare. A lot of the things that a football team tries to do are the same sorts of things that an infantry squad might attempt (the resemblance to Greek hoplite warfare is striking). Now obviously the difference is massive, and learning football is not actually going to prepare you very well for an infantry battle. But because football players are focused on succeeding in the competion they're training for, we all agree that a football game is a true test of a football player's ability.Just like a WTF tournament is a true test of a WTF student's ability.But neither actually test one's ability to perform on a field of battle. The only way to test THAT is in battle itself. Which for most of us is contra-indicated. So those people who want to "test themselves" to see how they'd "really do" are either going to be disappointed, or convince themselves that sparring tests combat ability or go out and try to beat people up. None of which are very positive outcomes -- the lesson being know what you're actually studying and understand how to tell if you're doing right.For KSR, if Sensei says, "Good," you're doing it right.</blockquote>

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