What are the rules of sparring in Shotokan Karate in the Philippines?

Question

READ FIRST BEFORE ANSWERING PLEASE:

My 5'7'' guy friend who's from there practices a little bit of Muay Thai and a tiny bit of Aikido and is used to western boxing. He gets buffed in a gym but he's only like 69 kilos or so. He also does Arnis but only of the street weapons disarmament techniques and never really uses a stick.

Ok, so he goes to Aikido (Aikikai style) classes for an hour or two on Friday nights after he works out for two hours at the gym. On Saturday nights, he does Muay Thai, also about an hour or two in a different gym. And on Sunday mornings, goes to a one-on-one instructor for Arnis (Escrima Kalis Balintawak style) but he requested his instructor to only teach him how to disarm street weapons (such as butterfly knives, kitchen knives, pipes, rocks, etc.) in a street fight as he is not contented with the Aikido disarments.

Roughly 2 years before, he was into western boxing but never got into a spar and a roster.

WAIT! More info below:

Answer 1

Well, from what I've read, Shotokan is pretty similar around the world.  The best thing for your friend to do would be to ask the teacher for a list of tournament rules, just in case the rules over there are different.

Though I imagine the rules will probably be similar to the ones in tournaments I competed in:  

- If I remember correctly, strikes are limited to only the body...so that would leave leg kicks and strikes to the head out.

- No, you can't use submission techniques. Or throws.  (I don't remember if sweeps were allowed or not, but considering I never saw them used  in Shotokan a tournament....)

- And strikes are usually light to medium contact (your opponent shouldn't take more than a sec or 2 to recover from your hit.  So you don't wana hit hard. )

- No, you can't catch kicks.

- You CAN use legs to block kicks (I think) -- I've seen it done once or twice.

Soooo.....basicially Shotokan tournament sparring is really watered-down version harder sparring .  Your friend'll probably have trouble with it at first, if he's used to hitting real hard, but once he gets used to it, it'll probably be pretty easy for him.

As I said, though, he should ask the instructor for a list of tournament rules , just in case they're different than what I competed under