Beaten up quite nasty on spar. what can I do to get better?

spookyj

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Hello, I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a 29 years old from South America
. I'd like to start saying that I'm not a tough guy, to be honest, I'm quite nerdy and I sucked at all sports when I was in high school. However now that I grew older when I put my mind to it I found that I have the will to improve, I ran for a couple of years, and lifted weights with some success (have a bigger body now).

I've started kickboxing about 4 months ago. The gym I go has a lot of emphasis on sparring, at first it was ok since we started light, I sucked up a lot of punches to my face. Now every now and then I'm taking quite a beating, once I got shook by a left hook to my temple. I was quite stunned, and had a really shitty week because of that, I got kinda scared of going back, really emotional about getting beaten up, but then I got better and more focused and had a couple of more training sessions where I could move easily even land a couple of interesting punches. Now we had a couple of days off and I lost a lot of the little technique I had (and started to close the eyes at incoming punches), today I've been tagged a couple of times in he nose and one in the eye quite hard (I got bruises around the eye), my eyes got all red ( dunno if I started crying, I didn't feel like crying) and got really embarassed.

The thing I notice is that: When I get more insecure I punch less, when I punch less I get attacked more, when I get attacked more (since my guard isn't perfect) I get more insecure (lol).

So to be honest it sucks, it also drains me emotionally, when I have good practice sessions I feel awesome, but on days like these I feel like quitting, and at the same time thinking about quitting makes me get mad at myself (because I know that I feel awesome after a good training session).

Outside of that (which is mostly emotional stuff). Should I add some training drills outside my regular kickboxing practice? Do you recommend me shadowboxing on my days off?

I don't know if this questions belong to this forum, if not feel free to delete this..

Thank you!
 
I know what its like training in the developing world, its often trial by fire; thats not a good method of training but if its all you have then its all you have. Find yourself a friendly experienced student who'll work with you at a more ideal pace, usually those are the guys who become your first real coach until you start impressing the head guy.
 
4 months ? for a guy who usually sucked at sports ?
Is normal ... at the very least !
I can notice one great thing ... Im pretty sure you know this by now , is that you are a competitive person .. and thats awesome!
One "advice" i could offer you is that , one man´s character is allways tested in the adverstity moments, and it defines him, forever and whenever.
Hope this helps .... keep it up and good luck with your training.
 
Make sure you're doing something you want to do. If it's your hobby, make sure it's time and money you enjoy spending on it. And you only have 1 brain to damage.

From your description you're doing hard sparring like 5 days a week? If you have choices, my first thought would be to look at a school that has less -- but still a healthy amount -- of sparring. Like once a week I find is the max I'd do for hard sparring. Schools that spar hard every day are often getting people ready for fights (possibly at your expense) or are brawler schools that tend to crank out tough fighters with mediocre skills. Light sparring 5 days a week is totally fine for anyone, as long as you have some hard sparring reality checks regularly.
 
Try to work just offense and defense sparring
Switching each round. One person 100% of fence one person 100$ defense.
 
most likely another fake account / troll thread.
 
I know what its like training in the developing world, its often trial by fire; thats not a good method of training but if its all you have then its all you have. Find yourself a friendly experienced student who'll work with you at a more ideal pace, usually those are the guys who become your first real coach until you start impressing the head guy.

Well one of the guys is usually very friendly, and very open to take it easier with me. I really like practicing with the guy. However I really need to get back to moving more and fighting smarter. I thought I was get over it, but a week with a couple of days off put me really out of touch and became more of a punching bag than a serious opponent. Additionally I've been running on my days off that might have taken a toll to my stamina since I'm not in great shape.

4 months ? for a guy who usually sucked at sports ?
Is normal ... at the very least !

I guess it is, but I'd really like to reduce the risks of injuries. Mainly because they make it harder for me to get back to training again. Also I'm not really that used to fighting, so I might be freaking out too much for a couple of bruises.

I can notice one great thing ... Im pretty sure you know this by now , is that you are a competitive person .. and thats awesome!
I'm not sure if competitive, I'm stubborn. I always see things like a personal challenge, and I get mad at myself if I don't reach my goals (for example when I started the gym I couldn't do a single pull up, so I focused on that until I could do several). Thanks I guess I should keep that spirit.

One "advice" i could offer you is that , one man´s character is allways tested in the adverstity moments, and it defines him, forever and whenever.
Hope this helps .... keep it up and good luck with your training.

Thanks for the encouragement. Those are some wise words to live by.


most likely another fake account / troll thread.
I don't really understand why you think that.

From your description you're doing hard sparring like 5 days a week? If you have choices, my first thought would be to look at a school that has less -- but still a healthy amount -- of sparring.
God no, I usually have 3 classes a week, I added running on my days off. I rest on sunday to recover a little. I'm currently quite out of shape. I will try to see if there are other schools around.


Thanks for the kind answers. As I asked, do you recommend doing additional drills the days I'm not training? if so which ones?
 
you're the same motherfucker who's been creating troll accounts and troll accounts for years.
 
Well one of the guys is usually very friendly, and very open to take it easier with me. I really like practicing with the guy. However I really need to get back to moving more and fighting smarter. I thought I was get over it, but a week with a couple of days off put me really out of touch and became more of a punching bag than a serious opponent. Additionally I've been running on my days off that might have taken a toll to my stamina since I'm not in great shape.



I guess it is, but I'd really like to reduce the risks of injuries. Mainly because they make it harder for me to get back to training again. Also I'm not really that used to fighting, so I might be freaking out too much for a couple of bruises.


I'm not sure if competitive, I'm stubborn. I always see things like a personal challenge, and I get mad at myself if I don't reach my goals (for example when I started the gym I couldn't do a single pull up, so I focused on that until I could do several). Thanks I guess I should keep that spirit.



Thanks for the encouragement. Those are some wise words to live by.



I don't really understand why you think that.


God no, I usually have 3 classes a week, I added running on my days off. I rest on sunday to recover a little. I'm currently quite out of shape. I will try to see if there are other schools around.


Thanks for the kind answers. As I asked, do you recommend doing additional drills the days I'm not training? if so which ones?
Swimming and strenght&conditioning can be very helpfull.
 
Well one of the guys is usually very friendly, and very open to take it easier with me. I really like practicing with the guy. However I really need to get back to moving more and fighting smarter. I thought I was get over it, but a week with a couple of days off put me really out of touch and became more of a punching bag than a serious opponent. Additionally I've been running on my days off that might have taken a toll to my stamina since I'm not in great shape.


God no, I usually have 3 classes a week, I added running on my days off. I rest on sunday to recover a little. I'm currently quite out of shape. I will try to see if there are other schools around.

You sound burnt out. Take a few weeks off but continue running and shadow boxing; also, throw in some film study.
 
Make sure you have a good coach surrounding you. A beginner shouldn't be sparring on his first day, you need to learn how to walk before you can run. Beginner-Intermediate-Advance level should always sparr people their weight. Don't sparr guys who weight more than 15lbs over you. In group sparring, avoid the big guys, you can easily get injured. I'm 6'2 165lbs and rarely if ever sparr someone that weights more than 185lbs, because my coach won't allow it, which brings me back to point one: Have a good coach. Avoid the bullies, every gym has one. A good sparring partner will reduce the intensity and let you work if he sees that you have trouble, a bully will just beat the shit out of you. Drill. Drill. Drill. Sparring drills is what has help many, including me, to improve their performance in sparring/fights. It has a lot of importance in the training method you find in Thailand. Grab a training partner, before and/or after class, work on the many drills you can find on Sherdog and Youtube. As simple as; You throw the jab, he parries, he throws the jab, you parry. You throw the right kick, he blocks it, he throws the right kick, you block it, so on and so forth. Very simple yet it works like wonders. Be intense when doing these, control your shots, but really try to hit your opponent. The point is to work on the effectiveness of the parry or block and the accuracy and speed of the strike. If you keep on getting jabbed in the face, that's your fault. Hope it helped, relish the grind.
 
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Guard up and take those beatings. Keep your eyes open. I like to keep the guard up and watch the punches coming. Eventually, I'll not only be able to see them but recognize the pattern and predict when they are coming and time my counter.
 
You need to find someone who can work with you at your pace until you get more experience. 4 months is not a lot.

If that's not on the table, then you have to suck it up - we've all been the punching bag before, it happens. As long as you go in with the mind set that you are going to take at least 1 thing away from it. Find something you are not doing well, that is getting you beat up, and work on that. Improve it and make it a point of focus until it's no longer a weak point. The problem is at the start, everything is a weak point. Just go in to work on something, and stick with it. If you get beat, at least it's for a purpose. Better than going in with no plan and getting beat anyway. It's a slow and gruelling process - but hey, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. Keep your chin up man (but not in the ring!)

my 0.2c
 
Hello again guys, thanks for the nice replies.

I think changing gyms wouldn't be a good idea. like Soul Rebel 2 said it seems like most gyms here do almost 100% sparring, actually from comments that I got from a (non-fighter) friend, he always heard that my gym had a reputation of "going easy and the coach cares too much for it's students" (which I personally find quite untrue, but whatever).

I've learned a lot from what you guys told me and, after thinking a lot, tried to:

- Tone down my physical activity a little outside class, I'm running a little less, so I can recover better. I think I was going to practice quite exhausted, so my guard didn't last long.
- I tried to watch videos tagged as "kickboxing film study" in youtube, I got some good ideas from them. Like jabbing as fast as I can when my guard gets hit.
- I'm trying to move more, and play more with my hips either when attacking as well as when moving the body out of the way of incoming punches (I always had the hip mobility of a refrigerator so this sometimes poses a challenge but it's getting better)
- I'm practicing shadowboxing, I feel kinda silly. but I think it helps me to be more in touch.

Last 2 classes were way better, and I felt great. I'm still getting hit every now and then but it seems like my hands are moving back to guard faster. On monday the only big hit I got was a punch that scratched the top of my skull, which rocked me a little but actually made me concentrate even harder on the fight. Last class I was able to cover up most of the punches to the head, altough I sucked a couple of body shots, I also connected some body shots myself.

You need to find someone who can work with you at your pace until you get more experience. 4 months is not a lot.

Most of the guys go easy on me, the guy who gave me a black eye assumed he was punching lightly. Last practice I got to fight with him, before fighting I jokingly asked if we could go a little lighter that day and showed him the black eye. He laughed a little and went slightly easier on me, I think it was a positive experience. Most of them are correcting me a lot.

To be honest I'm getting a little anxious before practice, but that anxiety dissapears after I start fighting and I think it's helping me to be more aware and fast in practice.

Again, thanks a lot guys!!
 
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