As long as you are careful, MMA gloves are fine. Whenever we roll with MMA gloves and add strikes, body shots can be hard (not your hardest, but good enough to make the guy feel it) and head strikes are just taps with the back of the hand on the side of the head, nothing straight on to the face. We just use head shots to make the guy aware that if it was real MMA he would be gettin hit there, and to remind him to not leave it open. Its really fun doing light MMA, it steps up the intensity of just regular grappling but you dont take a beating like you were actually fighting.