Sparring an NON-BOXER (boxing)

[thirteen]

Interesting read. Maybe I should start going to local boxing gyms and start calling people out.

Don't know what the guy was trying achieve tbh.
It wasn't so much of a calling out as my boxing coach asking "you right to spar that guy (shadow kickboxing) and me thinking :icon_neut "I'm gonna get killed".

I think with me (35) and him (who looked late 20/early 30's) it was good that it was very clean sparring. I'd nail him with a combo and apologise (lame I know) but he'd be "na'h it's all cool".

To say the whole thing was unexpected is an understatement.
Next time i'll pass on the offer.

 

[663]

soak up all you can, and offer what you have. both of you guys walked away learning things so it was a positive for both. I trained boxing for 13 years its not uncommon to have people walk off the streets and as to sparr.

 

[thirteen]

Will do mate.
Just wish they'd rock up when someone else (an actual
boxer, not just a dude training for fun) is there lol.
Was an experience to say the least.

 

[Magnanimity]

Yeah I give the major props for coming out of his comfort zone.
I'd catch his feigning (sp?) a leg check than he'd throw something ie jab.
(if that makes sense).

The thread is in no means a MMA bashing one, just an experience.
I actually expected to get whooped on tbh.
Anyone who comes to a gym and is prepared to spar someone they don't know is crazy or very brave imo.

Why? In any legit gym that I have been at the rule is that you go as hard as the other guy goes, you don't just fire away and try to rock the guy, at least if you don't know at what level he is at.

Going to a new gym should not be like a scene from Bloodsport in my opinion.

 

[663]

Will do mate.
Just wish they'd rock up when someone else (an actual
boxer, not just a dude training for fun) is there lol.
Was an experience to say the least.

coach must have seen something in you to throw you in there. nice counter combos by the way.

 

[thirteen]

Magnanimity, there's no way I'd have the balls to rock
up to a boxing gym and take up an offer to spar.
I think I was more nervous than the dude visiting
and it was at my gym tbh. I just dealt with it once the
timer started. And I don't know what you train by
some boxers like to go real hard, almost a 'trial but fire'
mentality to sparring.

 

[Magnanimity]

Magnanimity, there's no way I'd have the balls to rock
up to a boxing gym and take up an offer to spar.
I think I was more nervous than the dude visiting
and it was at my gym tbh. I just dealt with it once the
timer started. And I don't know what you train by
some boxers like to go real hard, almost a 'trial but fire'
mentality to sparring.

Ok, I guess it's because I'm from a different culture. We can go hard, but only after both agree on it.

 

[c0r1nth14n]

I can understand why you feel bad, but it doesn't sound like you were an asshole, and it's an important lesson for him to learn. Interesting story.

 

[thirteen]

Not such felt bad but weird - hadn't expected to land
so many shots that were made all the more harder by
him moving into them by mistake.

 

[Connoisseur]

I've never sparred a straight boxer (in a boxing gym), in boxing only. Because I've only ever trained at jits/ MMA places.

That said, I normally do pretty well with straight boxing (at least at Xtreme Couture and the gym i'm at now), I just turn my left shoulder in a bit more and have a more linear stance. I like that I can put more torque into my cross, it feels ALOT more powerful from a boxing stance.

Also, i'll offer a bit of a topsy- turvy version of your experience:

After a few months of training in MMA (probably 3-5 striking classes a week, boxing or MT) I ended up sparring a guy in Muay Thai who came from a strong boxing background. Real stoic Russian guy, a littler smaller than me (i'm 6'2 220). But I digress.

Well anyway, he basically admits to me that he's never really trained kickboxing, and although I don't consider myself as someone with killer kicks, I can kick high and I do have decent snap/ technique. So any way, after warmup/ drilling/ bagwork, we have 15 minutes of sparring, 3 minutes on 1 minute break, until class was over.

So right off the bat, I can tell this guy has fast hands and good footwork. As such, I keep my hands high and tight, and don't get wild. Well, the only problem is that he really isn't standing in a kickboxing stance, he's still stuck in boxing mode. So every time he gets in range and plants himself to throw, my shin was already digging into his thigh. Must've dropped the guy like 4 times throughout 3 rounds, just from leg kicks. And not even like I was being a dick and kicking real hard, they just caught him and knocked him on his ass.

And when he finally started to square up (in the 3'rd round or so), I started tagging him with punches. Every time i'd come in, he'd lift the leg to check and i'd tag him with a cross.

So I guess the moral of the story is that both games are different. I'm sure i'd get taken to school in boxing by the amateurs in the boxing gym that shares the building w/ my jits gym up here at school. But I also think I could really hold my own against them under FTR sparring.

 

[vjvj]

Definitely an awkward situation, but it sounds like you were cool about it and constructive with him, so you did the right thing. We all know how bad it sucks to keep getting hit like that, even when you're going super light it just gets really frustrating. But if he's a true fighter, he'll bounce back and start putting time into it.

 

[thirteen]

I shit you not, for the first 30 secs of the first round I circled and threw a lot of stiff jabs which really shut him down. Thing is I can't recall him throwing one jab back during it.

My coach (who was in the ring as a ref-type dude) said something to him like "you got to jab" as the guy was more into trying to come forward with his right hand and getting tee'd off on.

It took until the last round for him to find his bearings, but even then most shots I took were glancing blows (thankfully).

 

[BIGthingsSON]

Most guys who go straight into an MMA gym lack basic fundamentals. Best to head to the purists of the art your looking to learn then tie it all together at an MMA gym.

 

[DeathAndHealing]

Is there any chance he was trying to apply MMA striking to boxing?

ie. was he in a proper boxing stance or muay thai/squared up?

 

[panamaican]

Yeah. Not enough to come to a boxing gym lol.

Seriously though I wouldn't have a clue and I didn't ask him.
He was shadow kickboxing and practicing leg checks when I arrived - so I imagine he had at least some kickboxing training with his MMA. He definitely knew how to punch, he just wasn't used to being punched. Being made to rely on his hands seemed to head-screw him and I'd catch him instinctually motioning a kick or even a leg check after an exchange had ended and I was 3 feet away.

Lol, anyway congrats on the experience. It's always good to know where you stand skill-wise.

 

[thirteen]

Is there any chance he was trying to apply MMA striking to boxing?
ie. was he in a proper boxing stance or muay thai/squared up?

The dude kept standing very squared-up, so I made a point to stand and make my jab as long as I could, and beat him to the punch just about every time. He wasn't keen on jabbing instead he'd square up and throw the right hand - and many times I'd slip past and get the 3-2 counter.

In hindsight I should have asked him what his background was, only thing I had was my coch who said something like "the guy...trains that new fighting...you wanna spar him?".

 

[wushurichard]

i find it easy to spar boxers as i have an extensive amount of kung fu training, sounds silly but the trapping and sticky hands techniques reighn supremee 9/10 times....it will ocme into mma in the near futuire i promise you

 

[AXelator]

i find it easy to spar boxers as i have an extensive amount of kung fu training, sounds silly but the trapping and sticky hands techniques reighn supremee 9/10 times....it will ocme into mma in the near futuire i promise you

I swear this guy's a troll.

I don't understand why this is weird at all. A guy showed up to spar who had a background in MMA, you got the better of him. Sounds like any other sparring sesssion.

 

[DeathAndHealing]

"The dude kept standing very squared-up"

That was exactly what I was thinking, your jab being at a reach advantage. You have to give the guy some credit, whether he was doing it on purpose or not, sticking with his MMA stance and trying to take on a boxer with it, more MMA strikers should do that.

Good job regardless though.

 

[db03892]

Interesting to hear...

I did the opposite. I train in kickboxing, i felt like sparring with an experienced boxer (are dojo is mixed diciplines). From the start i was getting clipped. I noticed i had to change my style dramatically. Throw more jabs, tighten guard up things, roll, more body shots etc things like that... things that i don't regulary use in kickboxing sparring.

From his point of view i can see why he fought like that. I can also see why you thought it was weird LOL.