Have Three Plans: The Art of War Applied to Sparring

Have Three Plans: The Art of War Applied to Sparring

Before every sparring round at Martial Arts USA, I tell my students the same thing:

“Go in with a plan. Not one plan. Three plans.”

This is the Art of War applied to a Tuesday night class.

Why Three

One plan fails the moment your opponent does something unexpected.

Two plans gives you a fallback but no adaptability.

Three plans gives you options — and options create pressure.

Plan A is your opening.

Your best combination.

The one you practiced all week.

Plan B is what you do when Plan A meets resistance.

Your opponent figured out your pattern.

Now what?

Do you have a second sequence ready, or are you standing there

thinking?

Plan C is the surprise.

The technique you haven’t shown yet.

The angle nobody expects.

You hold this one until Plans A and B have trained your opponent to expect a pattern — and then you break it.

Create a Pattern.

Then Break It.

This is the core principle: create a pattern, train your opponent to expect it, and then switch.

The pattern is the bait.

The switch is the trap.

Lead leg roundhouse, rear leg roundhouse, tornado kick — that is a three-kick pattern that

pushes your opponent backward.

Do it twice and they start timing it.

Do it a third time and change the tornado kick to a hook kick.

They were ready for the tornado.

They were not ready for the hook.

Point scored.

The Incremental Ladder

We also practice what I call the incremental kick height ladder. Start every technique at knee

level. Then hip level. Then belt level. Then chest. Then chin. Then head.

You are not trying to kick head level from the first attempt. You are warming the body up

through progressive height targets until head-level kicks feel like a natural extension of what

you were already doing.

This teaches students that big results come from small, progressive steps. Not from

swinging for the fences on the first try.

Have a plan.

Have three plans.

And be ready to throw them all away when the moment demands something new.

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