It's not fun, It's terrible. Compare sparring to practically any competitive activity in, Maybe anything. It's super bland, Repetitive, And overall there's practically 0 actual effort or skill placed into it. Even chess is more competitive as it isn't the same thing every time.
|
I can understand why it might be boring. But, at the highest level of sparring, things are actually quite intense. Both players may try some ridiculous maneuvers around just to outsmart the opponent for .5 damage.
The truth is, a lot of good sparrers don't play anymore, so I guess you can say some of the art has been lost. A lot of sparring nowadays is very simple and dumbed down, and I see a lot more of the stupid kind of sparring with C as the primary movement.
The skill comes in learning really quickly the opponent's tendencies, patterns, strong points and weak points. It may actually take more than one or two spars to really understand how to best combat an opponent. Some players get so good at sparring that they don't think about how or why they react a certain way when someone does a certain thing. It becomes muscle memory to just feel where to go react accordingly to a specific movement your opponent is making.
Some guys can react better and faster than others against a person who's style they've never fought before. This is why when we competitively spar 1v1 in Graal, we do a series of 10 spars per match, for two matches.
Both players will have enough time to learn their opponent's tendencies and patterns, and adjust accordingly. Theoretically speaking, near the end of the first match, both players should be playing slightly different and trying different things.
By the time match 2 begins a few days later, both players should have a strong idea of each other and should both spar more effectively. Spars might be closer. In the end, it comes down to who can be more consistent and unpredictable in spar, who can learn quicker and learn from mistakes.
All in all, the mechanics of spar are simple. Right, Left, Up, Down, Diagonal, Diamond C, 3, \/, jukes, etc. But it isn't always boring.