Closing my eyes when sparring... any suggestions

Do you freeze and close your eves or just close your eyes as you get hit? If the former then you are missing a chance to parry if the latter than you should close your eyes when getting hit.
 
I don't want to post the wrong thing, so i will ask my Kru tonight or tomorrow morning and get back.
 
I was told to do the water splashing thing as well.

Additionally, I try to make a conscious effort to keep my eyes open during drills and situational sparring, which seems to help in regular sparring.
 
vjvj said:
I was told to do the water splashing thing as well.

Additionally, I try to make a conscious effort to keep my eyes open during drills and situational sparring, which seems to help in regular sparring.
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Again on the water thing, an MMA trainer once told me to try to keep my eyes open in the shower while putting your head in a light stream, don't pierce your eyeballs out. I found this to help a bit.
 
It just kinda comes with experience like others have said. I guess one way I was shown was to just let a sparring partner kinda lightly throw at your forehead in rapid succession and you just kinda sit there and take it.
 
I've done that water/shower technique. It did help a bit, especially since I wear contacts.
 
Working at the chemistry building I've found a good way to train is an eyewash station. You know its clean water and you have to hold your eyes open, but combine that with splashing water...and blinking kinda stops.
 
crossdx said:
I've done that water/shower technique. It did help a bit, especially since I wear contacts.
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Was it like a Daily thing ?

Like everytime you say, washed your face in the morning . Did you splash then and that it ?
 
Bill Cosby said:
Was it like a Daily thing ?

Like everytime you say, washed your face in the morning . Did you splash then and that it ?
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Yeah, pretty much. In the morning it sure as heck wakes you up nicely.
 
Soap said:
I tend to freeze up during sparring. I have the speed and head movement but when i get hit with a combination i tend to close my eyes... is there any way you guys have gotten around this or do i just need to get hit alot and get use to it???? Thanks all
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You need to realize that those punches won't actually land in your eye, so you'll be ok. There is like a 1 in 5,000 chance of it happening. Using the big-ass sparring gloves, you should realize this.

As soon as you realize your eyes will be ok, you'll stop doing it.
 
Stand-Up! said:
You need to realize that those punches won't actually land in your eye, so you'll be ok. There is like a 1 in 5,000 chance of it happening. Using the big-ass sparring gloves, you should realize this.

As soon as you realize your eyes will be ok, you'll stop doing it.
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1 in 5000 huh? Lol where did you find this number? I actually get hit in the eye quite often. Maybe I got big ass eyes or something.
 
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but clsoing your eyes is the same thing, essentially, as flinching. The more you can do to become confortable in the ring with a partner the less you will be likely to close your eyes when they come at you. The truth is the longer you train the more confidence you will gain and as long as you stick with it ti will become a non-issue. As your conditioning, movement and expeirence progresses confidence is sure to follow and yuou will naturally find that instaed of closing your eyes and covering you will start to counter punch, block properly, use movement to avoid damage and actually find times when you can use it as a rest. In the meantime here are two drills which you will hate that will basically force you to stay on your toes and keep them open or get you pretty beat up lol

1. Rounds without striking. Too often people concentrate on getting off first and put themselves into situation where they are wide open. By not strking and simply concentrating on blocking and movement you will fast learn the importance of movement, blocking, and predictign patterns. Set the timer for the smae amount of time you normally would, get a patern you tust to spar lightly with you, and spend the round defending his attacks only striking back when their is a lull or you feel it necessary to avoid a situation. At first this sucks. The more you do it the better you are and the less worried you will become about getting hit because you will have already been battered many times and learned to defend much better lol.

2. Fine a dfew people you trust to form a circle (or squar or tirangle lol) around you. Eseesnetial do the same drill as above but have some one call out their names. You start facing oppoenet number one, blocking, moving, onjly punching in order to evade punishment. When that person assigned to teh task calls out another name turn to fnid them. Once you are facing that person who has ahd their name called continue the drill with them. This drill is essentially the same as the first but the need to adapt to different fighters (heights, ages, style, tells, combos, etc) will force you to really stay on your toes and work on moving and blocking.

Both of these drills suck. They will leave you peppereed with shots and at times frankly running to avoid shots. However, if you do them with partners you trustr you will find that your movement and blocking will get much better. Once you realize how much better you are at seeing a shot comming, keeping your hands up, and avoiding being a human punching bag your problem will surely go away. The other thing i have failed to mention is to do these drills on top of your usual sparring. After all, you have to round out your game and if all you do is defence you will not be better your offence which is necessary as well lol
 
speedbags actually really help with this problem and also just more sparring takes care of this
 
^^^^^lol i saw that shit somewhere on the discovery channel or something. Forgot though.
 
In the shower is good, but a waterfall in the middle of the jungle works best. lol
 
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