Sparring other fighting styles is the best way to improve your striking

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spacetime

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In my experience, if you only spar against people in your club you will get into a meaningless circle and not truly progress as a fighter.

We had a kickboxer join our ITF TaeKwondo club and he has shown to me how much I need to work on boxing defence...

Have you found the same experience?
 
Sparring makes you good at sparring, but I don't see how it would make you better at striking.
 
kamalayka said:
Sparring makes you good at sparring, but I don't see how it would make you better at striking.
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You don't learn anything from striking air (or pads). There are so many factors including distancing, defence, timing, and power that you will only learn through hard, REAL sparring.
 
spacetime said:
You don't learn anything from striking air (or pads). There are so many factors including distancing, defence, timing, and power that you will only learn through hard, REAL sparring.
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yeah I guess all those muay thai fighters are just wasting their time doing pads and light sparring...
 
Yeah its good, one of our new high level fighters had extensive boxing background, and its good to learn and spar against him. Its a win-win really, I get to know to work with boxing and he gets to deal with my clinch and kicks
 
Sparring against disciplines that are more efficient and effective than your own is the best way to find out your faults.



Then you can go join whatever they were doing.
 
spacetime said:
You don't learn anything from striking air (or pads). There are so many factors including distancing, defence, timing, and power that you will only learn through hard, REAL sparring.
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You asked how to improve striking. The way to improve striking is by striking.

Maybe I misunderstand your original question.
 
Reyesnuthugr said:
Sparring against disciplines that are more efficient and effective than your own is the best way to find out your faults.



Then you can go join whatever they were doing.
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Agreed. One of the best ways to find your faults is to spar against guys who are better than you but are disciplined and won't try to take your head off.
 
kamalayka said:
Sparring makes you good at sparring, but I don't see how it would make you better at striking.
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Exactly..training technique by yourself is the best way. Keep an open mind but find whats most natural to you and repeat those techniques over and over. Do them slow, fast, and at regular speed. Then train those techniques doing partner drills. Sparring helps build confidence in your technique.
 
spacetime said:
You don't learn anything from striking air (or pads). There are so many factors including distancing, defence, timing, and power that you will only learn through hard, REAL sparring.
Click to expand...
I disagree. You need to learn proper mechanics and then drill them over and over again BEFORE you can even think of using them in sparring.
 
Reyesnuthugr said:
Sparring against disciplines that are more efficient and effective than your own is the best way to find out your faults.



Then you can go join whatever they were doing.
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By that logic, boxers should join Muay Thai.
 
spacetime said:
About fighting.
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your tread title literally says "improving your striking. " You then mentioned sparring a kick boxer made you realize your boxing defense needed work. Your boxing defense probably needed work because you train TKD which has inferior boxing. If your thread was about improving your "defense" then obviously having people try to hit you is the best way to work on not being hit.

Its important to spar so you experience reality aka knowing what getting hit feels like and what hitting a moving target is like. But its not necessary to keep having to spar to improve your striking.

You also mentioned "sparring other styles" to improve as a fighter. Depends on what kind of fighter you want to be? Is it MMA or kickboxing or TKD? A good MMA gym will have guys from diverse striking backgrounds so sparring them will give you well rounded training.
 
Durr T Sanchez said:
your tread title literally says "improving your striking. .
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Improving your striking as it relates to fighting. I don't care how well you hit mitts. Ronda Roussey is a perfect example of that. People like Bas Rutten and Joe Rogan were praising how she hit the mitts and then found out she can't strike for shit when facing a legit striker.
 
Durr T Sanchez said:
Your boxing defense probably needed work because you train TKD which has inferior boxing. .
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As does Judo. Doesn't mean you should cross train. But facing people of other styles will help you. I'm a style purist and will not learn anything else than TaeKwonDo.
 
spacetime said:
Improving your striking as it relates to fighting. I don't care how well you hit mitts. Ronda Roussey is a perfect example of that. People like Bas Rutten and Joe Rogan were praising how she hit the mitts and then found out she can't strike for shit when facing a legit striker.
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Thats because she had a shit trainer. Your boxing defense sucked because you trained TKD. If you had sparred an MMA guy in MMA then you would have realized you had no ground game.

Heres what Im getting at. My first martial arts school I went to for 2 years. There were 3 classes a week. Monday was for all levels, Wednesday was for advanced and you had to be invited, Friday was sparring and you had to be invited from the Wednesday class. So by the time I got to the Friday class, I already knew how to punch, pick, sprawl, block, close distance etc. The Wednesday class had light to medium contact drills so it wasn't super drastic when I got to the Friday class. I did light, medium, to 85% sparring for about a year. Then I trained on my own for 8 years because of a busy work schedule. But I train hard and with purpose. I got invited to spar some MMA guys a year ago and they couldn't even touch me but I could touch them. For the last couple months Ive been training with a friend who's training for an international boxing tournament and we go at it pretty hard. I do more than hold my own.
 
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