Who do the wulin elite spar against?

[Ken Cheng]

In the practice of real martial arts, having a good partner to spar against is essential in training. As someone else mentioned, shadow boxing on your own will help you train your moves, but will do little to actually prepare you for combat.

So who did the wulin elite fighters spar against? If we say "each other," we need to account for the fact that the elite fighters didn't encounter each other very often, let alone sparred with each other. Kiu Fung wasn't sparring with Kau Mor Tze in DGSD. The Greats only met once every twenty years at the Mt. Hua Sword Tournaments. They couldn't spar against ordinary fighters because A). it would provide no challenge and thus, no improvement and B). they'd likely kill their sparring partners.

Many of the advanced martial arts that emphasize inner power are more about sitting down and meditating rather than sparring, but still, without sparring, how are the elite fighters to hone and refine their combat instincts? Who (in the absence of other elites) can they find to spar against?

[K2Grey]

There's no one to spar against. Hence everyone believes they are the best martial artist in the world and that they are truly awesome. Then of course the JY story begins and the formerly 1st tier guy jumps down to like 4th tier (for example, everyone thought the Wudang 7 Xia were awesome in HSDS, then the Xuan Ming Elders, Du monks, etc. etc. show up).

[sunyata]

If you're ZBT, you spar with yourself.

Or maybe they fight with their inner demons? Or eventually get bored with jianghu and find yourself a giant condor in a valley?

[AnhHung]

There's no one to spar against. Hence everyone believes they are the best martial artist in the world and that they are truly awesome. Then of course the JY story begins and the formerly 1st tier guy jumps down to like 4th tier (for example, everyone thought the Wudang 7 Xia were awesome in HSDS, then the Xuan Ming Elders, Du monks, etc. etc. show up).

Yeah, it seems like in the beginning av each novel, the people of wulin havent met eachother. They only heard of the most famous ones, but no one actually knew eachohter (mostly).

[The Khan]

They train playing the local para para machine.

[CFT]

Just a quick and probably incomplete reply.

People in orthodox and unorthodox schools have their fellow students to practice with as they develop their skills, and then when their teacher deem their skills as capable are sent out into the real world to perform tasks for the school. Some may leave the school and right wrongs (or maybe cause them). All this jianghu experience should improve their skills incrementally.

[Spanner]

Well they could spar with several weaker opponents at the same time? E.g ZSF could take on all 7 of his disciples at thesame time just for fun.

Or they could do one on one but give the weaker opponent some handicap.

[R!chard]

1D trained with QQR I believe.

YG with his gugu and that fat candor....

ZBT with everyone..from JLFW to that random jimbo down the street

[Zhuge Liang]

WCY with Lam Chui Ying