Why sparring is dead

[SandisLL]

I'm really unclear what the op means, can they clarify?

Sparring exists in many different forms and you definitely need some hard sparring... actually gym fights to be more specific a step above hard sparring before you take an ameteur fight.

I would be highly irresponsible for any trainer to put someone he's responsible for into an actual fight to find out how the react to bring hit for real.

Hard sparring is also at a higher speed tha light sparring. Strikes come faster, its useful for that reason alone.

However, there are a load of dickhead "trainers " who take it way to far because rhey want to, I dunno, act hard. Once against, they are responsible for who they train (up to a point) and this is an example of an irresponsible trainer.

Not always...fast sparring might be very light...and speed might be insane because strikes are intended to point something rather than inflict damage. Therefore point fighters in TMAs might be damn fast.
You need lesser time to take position, if don't plant feet and use body properly in order to deliver power.....you will be....faster....

While very light sparring isn't common tool ...it is used also by some pros to test/ train gas tank usage under stress...
.
Movement will be more, vs suitable guy speed will be even higher than if full power punches had been attempted to deliver...considerably higher ....number of these light touching " punches " more and......
Good test for gas tank under stress .....
While for real fight other levels of sparring too are used....

 

[SandisLL]

Sparring is incredibly important. If you didn't spar you'd get in the ring get hit and everything you ever knew would go straight out the window lol. Sparring is like heat treating metal while making a knife without a good heat treatment it'll just fail.
Sparring gets you ready for the real thing. Sure in your first few fights everything you know will go out the window anyway. But after you are used to fighting in front of a crowd (something sparring may not prepare you for) all the lessons you learned in sparring are worth their weight in gold.

Psychologically to fight with enough long notice time vs opponent alone is.....different life. Not to talk if about in front of crowd if they had to pay to see this.

 

[listrahtes]

Its kind of a fad in the US that fighters market themselves to have super evolved super scientific training were hard sparring isnt necessary blabla bla. The reality is that without exception these are all fighters that have years , often more than a decade of hard and ultra hard sparring (Robbie Lawler) behind them. So they had more hard sparring than any amatuer in their lifetime. THEN they decided to not need it anymore as all the reactions are now built into them.

Thats were UFC and some fighters / coaches came up with this marketing idea. and ROgan ate it up like always.

What you take from that. Well if you are a worldclass fighter with extensive hard sparring for years, yes then you can tone it down . We are talking about 0,1% of all martial artists. Everyone else: get your ass into sparring if you want to learn to fight

 

[DoctorTaco]

Respectfully

Spoiler

Let’s say you spar 10 rounds a week as an ammy, 42 weeks a year. That gives you 12 weeks off for injuries, vacations, fight week, what ever. Let’s say you’re. A busy ammy and get 100 fights over 5 years.



Now you’re a pro, let’s say you up it to 15 rounds a week on average. Still 42 weeks a year. In our 15 year pro career we get to match Floyd’s amazing record and go 50-0. Let’s say we follow a traditional path and fight 5x4 round fights, 5x 6 rounders, 5x8 rounders and 5x10 rounders, and then 30x12 round fights after all of that. That would be a whopping total of 500 rounds of competitive pro boxing on top of our 300 ammy comp rounds bringing us to a respectable 800 rounds of fighting over a 20 year career.



Now, back to sparring. Remember, as an Ammy we were sparring 10 rounds a week, 42 weeks a year for 5 years. That’s 2100 rounds of sparring. When we went pro we bumped that up to 15 a week on average. That is 9,450 rounds of sparring over a pro career for a combined total of 11,550 sparring rounds over a 20 year career compared to 800 fight rounds.



Where is the damage being done?

 

[SandisLL]

Its kind of a fad in the US that fighters market themselves to have super evolved super scientific training were hard sparring isnt necessary blabla bla. The reality is that without exception these are all fighters that have years , often more than a decade of hard and ultra hard sparring (Robbie Lawler) behind them. So they had more hard sparring than any amatuer in their lifetime. THEN they decided to not need it anymore as all the reactions are now built into them.

Thats were UFC and some fighters / coaches came up with this marketing idea. and ROgan ate it up like always.

What you take from that. Well if you are a worldclass fighter with extensive hard sparring for years, yes then you can tone it down . We are talking about 0,1% of all martial artists. Everyone else: get your ass into sparring if you want to learn to fight

World class fighters too does use light/ medium/ hard sparring mix in pre fight camps otherwise it is difficult to accumulate number of rounds and not to be exausted too much....and risk too.

Ofc if you want am fight you need to have hard sparring and smoker type fights under belt IMHO. Also gas tank checked under stress where very fast pace light sparring is usable ....and more rounds in row than am fight will be. I'm talking about boxing and KB....

Ofc hard sparring is necessity to be ready to fight, BTW especially for self defense.
For me especially didn't liked that some had ....attempted to ignore standup grappling ....like doesn't like to spar in full episodes when someone might had grabbed your hands etc....or you due to situation can't beat him with punches and still need to control his hands etc....therefore I never had intent to be SD instructor....in no case.

 

[duke_droese]

Hard to the body and technical to the head is the best approach imo.

Full sparring in the lead up to a fight but not trying to kill each other with the head punches.

 

[Travis Alexander]

Good luck preparing for fights without fighting anyone.