----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Brust" <skzb at dreamcafe.com> "In kumite (sparring), I'm told that 60% of the points go the first attacker. This is sad for me because, intuitively, I'm a counterpuncher. Oh, well. The fact is, I never did anything but suck at kumite anyway. :-)" In competition sparring, the point goes to the person who lands the first "good strike", which means the first strike that actually looks like it would have hurt (transferred some momentum, caused the target to move due to impact, etc), and is visible by a majority of the judges. The person who moves first takes the advantage by catching all of the judges' attention - even if they're not being biased, the aggressor is the person judges subconsciously watch during an exchange. Not to mention that acting is faster than reacting, so the first person to move has the edge there too. In this case the best defense is definitely a good offense, because kumite is largely a high-impact version of tag. On the other hand, if you're NOT point sparring, and are just sparring, everyone is going to get hit eventually, and it matters somewhat less who gets hit first. It matters who gets hit most. Counterpunch away. And then there's self-defense, which is different again. That's a case of who gets injured first. A finger in the eye pretty much wins there. If the attacker is kind enough to bring his eye closer to your finger, well, thanks so much.