Do you consider Randori a form of Sparring?

In my own little opinion I consider randori to be the ultimate form of sparring. The only thing that could really come close is actual combat.

Not the randori I've seen in many places - including my own. Sure... fully committed strikes guaranteed to miss. What's the point? I understand some degree of safety is needed. Use rubber knives, not real ones. Use tantos, not a glass bottle. Arm everyone in a randori session with a weapon. But I have seen too much lo/no contact randori I wonder what randori really is. Perhaps, I'll learn from other responders here? The multi-opponent randori I see (just look at Steven Segal's demos), the uke's take their turn. This might happen in ancient feudal Japan where there was integrity in fighting. But that's not reality today.

I would say it is a form of sparring, but I think it lacks significantly if practiced the way I see it. Of course, I'm new to Aikido, and I may not have a full understanding of it. I wonder if Karate (and other hard styles) also have randori as full contact sparring? Or are they separate concepts?

There ought to be fuller-contact sparring, IMHO.

Coming from a judo background I don't think randori and sparring are the same.

When I think of randori I recall how we did things in the dojo and how I did them in the NJI the place where the Olympic team trained in Colorado.

O' Sensei called for randori. you just grabbed someone near and you fought continuously until you were given a command to stop and you switch a grabbed some different a did the same again until it was time to switch again.

In judo I would throw the guy, then pin him and switch to several pins. Afterwards I would let him up only to throw him again hopefully with a different throw. then I'd pin again or choke him out depending on what was given to me. I'd repeat this as many times as time allowed. It wasn't a patient game of out foxing you partner nor was there any points. It was about me trying to use the techniques that I have been taught effectively.

Sparring is about winning. It about scoring points from my perspective. Most people tend to forget to do things that they have been trained to do. They only do roundhouse kicks, back fist and reverse punches. Also, you might see a spinning hook kick and a unrealistic hammer fist. I only know one guy that use to do a side squat punch. He surprised everyone doing it except us he is a big strong guy. He is from our dojo.

However, sparring does not resemble any attacks that I have faced in real life.

The only sparring that I have seen that looked like the art is boxing when I boxed for a few week as a young child.

Forms to an extend. A real fight turned out much more chaotic than being able to use coherent and pretty techniques as they come out in a Kata but the basics are there ingrained in your muscle memory. Sparring to an extend. Timing and seeing openings and reacting to them is helpful but the sparring techniques themselves not so much. A fight is much more violent than sparring and being a smaller person I need to deliver much more lethal things to end a fight quickly than I would ever use in a sparring match. Not will your sparring partner try to kill you. That knowledge alone in the back of your mind will give the match a whole different feeling. The real help I think was actually self defense partner drills, where you go for the actual targets that would be off limits in a sparring match. You don't actually hit hard in a partner drill but generating the necessary power to break the target is easier for me than trying to think which targets to hit to finish the fight. Another thing also very important that people do not train at all is the mental aspect. What makes you a target in the first place and playing "What do you do if,.....". My teacher did that a lot with me and when I really needed it, it really helped keeping it together during the scenario as well as after. I learned to tell the difference of what I can control and what and when things are out of my control. Knowing this will safe your life because self defense is about survival and not, he punches, I block. Even though you come out of a bad thing without any physical injuries most people have break downs after the event and will seek some sort of counseling to deal with it. I suppose my counseling was prior to the incident in a way and other than a couple of nightmares I was OK whereas others were not. Dealing with the fact that you may not be going home tonight and rather find yourself in some other dimension or life is hard to deal with for most people and you will never look at life the same way. Self defense and survival includes a lot more than just the actual incidence/fight.

I see it just as practical, but not exactly the same. Randori has it's potential aim, like reciting a line from a poem or song when you see it relevant, where as sparring would be more improvisational.

Randori (乱取) literally means taking disorder, as in seizing or taking hold of something chaotic. It by all rights should be the training of of just that, controlling a situation.

Sparring, or Kumite (組手), means pairing hands. Whether ippon, kiso, or jiyu kumite, each on implies an already controlled situation.

To sum what how I perceive it, Randori is training to over come an odd that's otherwise unfavorable, where as Kumite (sparring of any kind) is when it's already brought under control. All in fighting application, but different areas of it.

Randori is can be a form of sparring. It is a way of training against opponents who really oppose, and to Annalise what is going on. I find it much better for teaching than full-out hard-contact sparring, though that is also important. Randori gets my vote for a good thing.

Yes. Randori is a form of training with aliveness. You are engaging against a fully resisting opponent, and to me that is what sparring really is. Same goes for Jujutsu, when we roll. That's a form of sparring too.

I really feel the term "sparring" is a misunderstood word here on Y!A. Sparring is anything and everything that imitates a fight with a partner that is trying to stop you. The speed can be slow, the power low; they can be trying for a flash KO, or a situation that causes pain for a tap out; it can be flashy, high kicks and all; it can be realistic, or even barbaric. In the end, though, it is one person trying to hit/throw/tap another person -- an umbrella term that covers any aspect of training with a person that is trying to stop a move from happening to them.

I do and that is one of the things that is good about MMA is that it encompasses not just long, medium and short range, stand-up techniques but also includes takedowns, and throws as well as controlling and dominating your opponent on the ground and also approaches to hurting or doing damage to them there also. This is one of the reasons why so many find MMA so appealing today is because of that approach where as in many of your traditional schools training and sparring was limited to just stand-up or just the wrestling/grappling and ground aspects but usually not both of those things together.

In my school we were doing both together to some extent long before MMA came along but not to nearly as much even back then. This was one of the reasons why I actually had to go independent and break ties with the American mucky mucks of my style of karate was because they did not support my endeavors in some of this to the extent that I wanted to take it.

Anyone that calls themselves a martial artist or takes martial arts for self-defense should know how to do the simplest aspects of grappling and wrestling in my opinion. While they don't have to be an expert just knowing the basics like how to set up and do a single leg take-down, how to defend against one, how to control someone on the ground the best and the approach you want to try and take with that, or how to dislodge someone who has mounted you are now and were important, basic elements of self-defense in my way of thinking way before MMA came along.

Randori is just a higher level of this where you have people training in those grappling/wrestling, Judo and jujitsu aspects and them sparring using those things in my opinion.

Yes, it is definitely sparring.