The Sparring Tit

One rule in our gym that has its roots in the history of the club is that sparring must be controlled with no wild swinging and the contact level must be light and respectful. People who train with me are from many different walks of life, including students from a professional background, Solicitors, Doctors and Senior Management etc, These people will realistically never get into the ring and won't risk getting bruised while doing their hobby as it could jeopardise their careers.

Sparring should be considered a rehearsal for your fight, its an opportunity to learn what techniques work for you and practice fundamentals such as movement and distance. It is not the chance to decide who is stronger, nor the opportunity to practice how effective techniques are on your training partner.

Reading social networking sites where many of our friends are members of other gyms across the world, I'm continually confronted with statuses describing training knockouts and how they kicked ass while sparring, and not to mention pictures of injuries displayed as trophies. This is the worst way of learning, slowest way of progression and as far as I'm concerned should never be condoned. To knock someone out you inflict brain damage upon them, if your knocked out you need time for your brain to heal before continuing, knocking someone out is irresponsible and dangerous.

Your sparring is a time for learning and honing your skills only. The biggest mistake for people to make is trying to hit your opponent with power, whether this is through lack of experience, an attempt to impress your instructor or through frustration its wrong. It makes people avoid you and quite frankly just makes you look like a tit.

If you want to punch or kick at full pelt start on the bags, going hard during your rehearsal will only make your opponent retreat, he wont retaliate and will do the least he can get away with just to survive the round. Apart from looking like a tit and losing friends your victory against a survivalist will lure you into a false sense of security, you will think your really hard and in reality your not - your a bully. You will only get used to your opponent backing off and this wont happen in your real fight and you wont have the knowledge to deal with an opponent attacking you.

When sparring you should work to about 40% of your theoretical maximum also bearing in mind that other factors are important like size, weight and experience. Training at a reduced power will allow you or your partner to analyse why you got tagged and how to prevent it happening again. It will allow you to try different techniques and learn distance, reaction timing and ring craft.

Think.. If your actions could cause someone else to take a step backwards while inflating your ego, your progression will be limited, you will lose respect and friends and most of all you'll be branded "the sparring tit"