philly,
I have to agree with most of what's been said here. I think that the important thing with your sparring is simply that you do it, and do it with an experimental mind. Don't be afraid to take chances, spar with different styles, different people, or even homeless guys. Just make sure that you treat it like an exercise. No matter what, regardless of the rules, sparring is sparring, and it's designed to help you ask the right questions. What works and why? What doesn't work and why not? I'd say the bulk of my training in my earlier years was done with lots of different schools all at once. When I was younger, it was really common for gyms and dojos to have an "open sparring night" when anyone could come in and play. I must have trained at twenty different places, and none of them were JKD oriented. But, whether I was sparring Tae Kwon Do guys, Karate guys, Kung Fu guys,boxers, or Judo guys, I always did it with Bruce's ideas in mind, and I learned a lot from every session. So, while I'd highly recommend finding a JKD instructor who believed in contact training, I'd also use every other resource you can find, no matter what style they are. Hope that helps,
Mike
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"Nature is ruled by the redness of fang and claw."
-Ernest Hemingway
"The God of War hates those who hesitate."
-Euripides
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