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The two main things traditional martial arts are concerned with are:
*Survival
*and Improved quality of life (to be peaceful,happy, centered etc.)

Mu Shim 무심/無心 (the state of peaceful silence through quieting the thoughts and being in the present moment) is the goal of the traditional martial arts practioner. With Meditation we learn to be present, with basics we learn to be present while moving, in self defense practice we learn presence with a partner, and with sparring we learn to stay present during the unexpected. This is probably the most challenging skill to develop. To stay mentally centered during the unexpected attacks from a challenger or to reconnect to your center when you lose your  center is our goal. Beginners are concerned about defense and offense, which is the first level. With practice this will begin to become unconscious. The next level is working on staying centered. This cannot be achieved if one is worried about balance, defense etc. It requires total awareness as stated in the Song of the 13 energies;

Give awareness and purpose to every movement. (Be mindful)
勢勢存心揆用意

Let energy flow through the whole body continuously.
氣遍身軀不少滯

Stillness embodies motion, motion stillness.
靜中觸
Seek stillness in motion. (This refers to stillness of thought)
動動猶靜

Surprising things will happen when you meet your opponent.
因敵變化示神奇

When done correctly all will appear effortless.
得來不覺費功夫

In traditional Korean martial arts usually sparring broken down into various steps:
Three or One step sparring
Contolled sparring
Free sparring (no contact, semi contact, hard contact)

One step sparring
One/three Step Sparring or “One/three technique/hand technique sparring’ is a valuable tool to practice our basic blocks and attacks and make them reflexes. By practicing prearranged attacks and defenses with our partners we can break down combat into the possible variables and prepare ourselves in the event of an attack. The number of the combinations are not as important as the quality and simplicity of the combinations. Quality over Quantity.

Controlled sparring
Controlled sparring typically involves limiting the techniques the participants can use; only hands, only feet, no throwing, throwing allowed etc. Point fighting Tournaments are an example of this.

Free Sparring
Free sparring is just that 'free' where each participant can use a variety of techniques in a controlled safe manner. For beginners this usually involves no contact, for intermediate touch contact and for advanced contact with protective gear.

The goal of the traditional martial artist is to respond with centeredness, to go with the flow. Sparring is a means to that end.

The dichotomy of static verse dynamic

Kim Yong Ok (도올), a famous Korean philosopher, wrote:
“The history of Martial Arts can be universally defined as the dialectical unfolding of Schematic Forms and Real Fighting. Fighting is dynamic, so, undefinable. Form is static, so, definable. Fighting fossilizes into Form. Form enjoys authority. However, Form is only the formal result of Fighting. Form is always broken and revitalized by Fighting.”

Technically mastering one steps is not enough that is only the first phase of learning a form. Su pa ri describes the three phase cycle of learning. It literally means protect-deconstruct-transcend. Basically after developing a sound technical foundation one must then develop the deeper levels of the movements, then learn how to apply them spontaneously.

The concept of Su p’a ri (守破离) helps us avoid the pitfall of getting trapped between the static (靜, jeong) but definable Forms (形, hyung, one steps, ho sin sool) and the dynamics (動, dong) of actual fighting. The realities of real combat (實戰, siljeon) are very different from the controlled environment of the static (靜, jeong) aspects of martial arts training.

Survival is the primary goal of any combat art, quality of life then comes after. But the conundrum is fighting cannot by nature become a tradition (傳統, jeon tong) as soon as it does it looses it’s reality, yet the only possible way how to transmit the dynamic essence of Fighting from one generation to the other is to define it by making it static like in one steps, and therefore create a tradition. This tradition, if focusing only on the static, looses its dynamics.

Therefore, it is vital that we learn to use the static aspects as stepping stones and not be bound by them. This is where su pa ri comes in, we develop the static aspects until a sound foundation is developed, then we transcend them by constantly challenging ourselves, stepping out of our comfort zones, converting the static back to the dynamic.

The following fable illustrates this point:
One day a Squirrel was gathering nuts, when suddenly over the hill bounded a fox. The fox was nervously looking over its shoulder and stopped to rest by the squirrel and the tree. The squirrel asked the fox whom was out of breath “Why are you running  Fox?” The fox replied that the hunters and their hounds were chasing him. But he bragged ‘I have over 100 methods of escaping them!’ ‘Hmmm” replied the squirrel ‘I have only one way of escaping’. The fox continued to proudly brag about his 100 methods of escape when suddenly the Hunters hounds caught his scent and came bounding over the hill to catch him. The squirrel did his one escape technique and ran up the tree. The fox hesitating thinking about which of his hundred escape methods he should use was caught.

The obvious moral of the story is better to know one thing good than 100 things satisfactory.

D.Segarra

Special thanks to Ondrej Slechta. The results of our discussions are the basis for the supari part of this article.