- Joined
- Sep 15, 2012
- Messages
- 6,714
- Reaction score
- 1,903
so where does the board stand on hard sparring? I dont think all out sparring is needed. I think controlled hard sparring is best. Meaning about 50-75%, if a chance to take a big shot comes where you could really rock the guy, you still take the shot but turn the power down to about 50%.
Want to share my sparring experience with you guys. As a result of the sparring I did, I got a vision problem in my early 20s known as floaters, which typically occurs to people in their 60s+.
not going to drop gym names but I can recall a gym I went to. They had me spar hard the first day, in a attempt to "run the whiteboy" off as the coach later told me. The gym was a good gym, coach a good guy, and he taught me quite a bit. It was a boxing gym. We sparred hard regularly, every tuesday and thursday. all out, but with headgear. I always head a bloody nose, and we were allowed to continue to spar despite my nose bleeding, which was worked on in the corner in between rounds. My nose does bleed easily, but I always managed to return the favor. Coaches son was a professional boxer that did fairly well. This gym closed down back in the day, and a well known boxing club has taken its place. We were taught roughly off tyson style. Hands tucked at the chin, with the side to side movement to load hooks. This was in my early tweens, teen. 12-13 or so.
Fast fwd some years and I join my first MT gym. Absolutely no instruction, with unsupervised hard sparring. Fought after being there only 1 month. I learned how to check a kick and return a kick from the same side by it being done to me. Not someone teaching me.
Fast fwd some years. I join another MT gym. This gym had some decent instruction, but we still sparred hard, regularly with no head gear. I was the smallest guy in the gym, at about 135 at the time. Next smallest was about 170 and up from there. No one took it easy on me despite the size difference and looking like this after sparring was a regular occurrence. I can specifically recall thinking to myself man this gym is great, at least he teaches us something here and there and the sparring was supervised and we were shouted instructions at us, similar to people yelling instruction to khan during his fights. So yeah it was still a shit show.
fast fwd some years and I meet up with my current MT journey where most of you met me off the forums. I finally received correct instruction, with light sparring, and controlled hard sparring. Its funny as the more experienced I got and the farther down the MT road I went. Sparring got lighter and lighter. The majority of my injuries came from sparring not fights.
Anyways a bit of a rant, but for the newbies, you do have to spar, but you dont have to spar all out. If your in a tuff guy enviroment of only the pussies dont try to kill each other in sparring. I would suggest looking for another gym. Even more so for a beginner than someone experienced as in the beginning when you should be receiving instruction your not, and only developing bad habits that will need to be broken later on, if you stick with it long enough to even get past the "gym warrior" phase. Or you can be like me and have fucked up eyes in your 20s.
Want to share my sparring experience with you guys. As a result of the sparring I did, I got a vision problem in my early 20s known as floaters, which typically occurs to people in their 60s+.
not going to drop gym names but I can recall a gym I went to. They had me spar hard the first day, in a attempt to "run the whiteboy" off as the coach later told me. The gym was a good gym, coach a good guy, and he taught me quite a bit. It was a boxing gym. We sparred hard regularly, every tuesday and thursday. all out, but with headgear. I always head a bloody nose, and we were allowed to continue to spar despite my nose bleeding, which was worked on in the corner in between rounds. My nose does bleed easily, but I always managed to return the favor. Coaches son was a professional boxer that did fairly well. This gym closed down back in the day, and a well known boxing club has taken its place. We were taught roughly off tyson style. Hands tucked at the chin, with the side to side movement to load hooks. This was in my early tweens, teen. 12-13 or so.
Fast fwd some years and I join my first MT gym. Absolutely no instruction, with unsupervised hard sparring. Fought after being there only 1 month. I learned how to check a kick and return a kick from the same side by it being done to me. Not someone teaching me.
Fast fwd some years. I join another MT gym. This gym had some decent instruction, but we still sparred hard, regularly with no head gear. I was the smallest guy in the gym, at about 135 at the time. Next smallest was about 170 and up from there. No one took it easy on me despite the size difference and looking like this after sparring was a regular occurrence. I can specifically recall thinking to myself man this gym is great, at least he teaches us something here and there and the sparring was supervised and we were shouted instructions at us, similar to people yelling instruction to khan during his fights. So yeah it was still a shit show.
fast fwd some years and I meet up with my current MT journey where most of you met me off the forums. I finally received correct instruction, with light sparring, and controlled hard sparring. Its funny as the more experienced I got and the farther down the MT road I went. Sparring got lighter and lighter. The majority of my injuries came from sparring not fights.
Anyways a bit of a rant, but for the newbies, you do have to spar, but you dont have to spar all out. If your in a tuff guy enviroment of only the pussies dont try to kill each other in sparring. I would suggest looking for another gym. Even more so for a beginner than someone experienced as in the beginning when you should be receiving instruction your not, and only developing bad habits that will need to be broken later on, if you stick with it long enough to even get past the "gym warrior" phase. Or you can be like me and have fucked up eyes in your 20s.
